Last Updated on October 14, 2023

Standalone reader

Eye tracking hardware and software certainly has its value to those of us interested in wayfinding and navigation.

Consider the uses such as being able to detect people’s emotions as they are on a walkway finding their way through an airport and being able to change individual screens as an individual passes them by.

It means the ability for marketers to advertise bespoke products and services to individuals according to their own emotions at a given time.

Or imagine being able to detect when someone looks confused for several seconds on entering a transportation hub and being able to provide that person with a bespoke sign system to correspondence with their emotion?

The first piece of software we viewed in the SMI demo was the ‘Emotion Reader’.

Emotion Reading Software

The emotions reading software analyses what level of emotions we are feeling i.e. neutral, happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared and disgusted (based on the 6 main facial emotions) and are sold by SMI but produced by Noldus.

Face reading software that reads your emotions.
Face-reading software can also be used in navigation.

The software locks onto your face and analyses your facial movements and I have to say from our tests, it seems to very accurately detail one’s true emotions.

In order to be honest and transparent though with this review let me mention any potential flaws and then the real benefits and positives.

The emotional responses are not strictly accurate. You can pretend to smile for example, in order to get the ‘happy’ graph to move and it will show that you are happy and this is not necessarily the case.

Put on a sarcastic smile and it will show you are happy. Consider an experiment testing if you can run 100 metres in 12 seconds.

You would not be able to pass the test without actually being able to run the 100 metres in 12 seconds.

With the emotions software though you can show as happy without actually being happy. So there are considerations that one should make.

The simple fact that presents itself is that this software, in this case, might work best when people are not aware that their emotions are being read i.e. the detection cameras are hidden.

This does, of course, bring up ethical considerations in research and its uses but marketers and advertising are continually monitoring and evaluating our habits and with various technologies, so any potential negative ethical perception of such software seems redundant and the software something which should and can be used.

Another issue is if you use the software on someone who for example is autistic and whose facial muscles give the impression of that person smiling when they are not actually smiling.

You can begin to see the possible issues with the software. 

But from what I saw, this is an excellent piece of software and one can easily find fault with any program and thus overall I found it to be impressive.

Eye tracking glasses demo

When you think of the potential uses in fields such as wayfinding, direct 1-to-1 marketing to travellers and to tourism service providers, this software can be very interesting.

Any research involving psychology also might find huge benefits in using this software.

In fairness, the tool perhaps does achieve and do all it is meant to in that it does provide an automatic analysis of facial expressions, providing users with an objective assessment of a person’s emotion.

In that context, it is as likely to be fooled by a false smile (or emotion) as you or I if we were scoring emotions from a photo or video in isolation from other contextual cues.

This also applies to identifying emotions in autism, in that the software would perform to a similar level as you or me in rating the emotion displayed by the facial expressions from a photo or video.

Usually, in research, it would be used as one tool alongside other tools such as physiological measurement devices, or other behavioural measures.

If you have travelled extensively and lived in many other countries, you may also wonder how the software interprets the different facial reactions which people in different countries have.

The answer is that SMI is developing versions for each international market, including for the Korean and Chinese markets.

SMI Eye Tracking Glasses

The eye-tracking glasses are the first type I have come across thus I did not have the ability to compare these glasses with a previous technology of the same kind, but at the same time, I am able to give an honest and independent view of the technology for what it is, in its own right.

Eye tracking navigation technology

From talking with staff from the psychology department in the local university, it was clear that these glasses, even though they look bulky and remind me somewhat of ski goggles, are actually quite stunning in design when compared to previous eye-tracking glasses.

These glasses I am told are clearly a huge improvement on previous options.

The calibration is outstanding in that these glasses are easily calibrated very accurately to the point whereby (but depending on distance) you can gaze at one particular finger on a hand and the glasses pick up that very finger.

The accuracy is extremely impressive. Some other quick facts on the glasses:

  • They work well outdoors as well as indoors. Other similar products can have problems working in the bright sunshine.
  • These glasses are able to deal with glare and brightness. At the most, you might be best off wearing a baseball cap to limit the very small amount of sun which might enter through the rim of the glasses (but this should not be a problem).
  • The glasses are not waterproof. Given that they are sold for roughly £25,000 a pair and are a piece of scientific technology, this issue is not a show-stopper.
  • The eye-tracking glasses are normally sold by SMI as a package with the laptop, software and glasses as one.
  • This does have the effect of creating a standardised product which does not depend on differing operating systems, something which is normally a sign of the limitation of the software design.
  • This all-in-one package approach though does mean a standardised support structure if you have any problems with the product.
  • If you are paying around £25,000 for a set of glasses then perhaps the hardware demands are not really a problem.
  • The glasses can be used portably by using a Samsung Galaxy mobile phone, using the app developed for this phone to work with the tracking software.

If you are considering buying this product for education and research, you might worry about if one pair will be enough for all those who may need to use them.

The problem tends actually to be that it is the software and the analysis which is much more time-consuming than the actual use of the glasses.

With good scheduling, you can have a large number of people using the glasses.

The data collected is very comprehensive and in this respect, SMI from what I have seen so far, do a very good job. You can buy extra software analysis packages if you need to, without buying a second or third pair of glasses.

The glasses actually work with cameras pointing inwards on the glasses and which analyse your pupil movements.

There are other cameras pointing outwards and together these cameras combined create a very reliable view of your eye movements.

An impressively reliable view from the tests I did when trialling the product in the demo.

Stand-alone Web Product

Another option but which is different from the glasses and is more suitable for tracking people sitting in front of a screen is the Red-OEM hardware.

Take a look at the image below and you can see the box which is sat on the keyboard. It looks very much like a Nintendo Wii sensor bar but is slightly wider.

Standalone reader

For me, it was this hardware and software which I was most impressed with as opposed to the glasses.

Given the size of the bulky glasses, I have reservations about how neutral data can be when the glasses are used.

Can people’s shopping habits in an airport or anywhere else really be tested for example, with a pair of ski goggle-sized glasses on?

Let me note again though that this is NOT an SMI problem and that as far as this item goes and from what I have seen, the SMI version is one of the best on the market.

I just personally cannot wait for the next generation to come out which one day will be much more discreet and look like normal glasses.

Until then, for me, I love the portable stand-alone tracking hardware you see above.

The internet probably has so far yet to go developmentally that tracking user habits online in tourism and in any sector of business and education, offers us so much fascinating information and data.

The beauty of this product is also that it can be used on any computer (you can load the software on any machine and this, of course, avoids the big problem of needing a dedicated machine for the eye-tracking glasses).

The hardware is also very practical size-wise and given the shift we are seeing to some research moving to virtual labs, there seems to be a big need for this type of technology.

Web-based eye-tracking software is not something new and there are many companies in the market.

I did though find the data produced in the SMI version very thorough and dependent on the price, would say that this stand-alone version is a great tool to have.

One point to consider though is that if you were doing research that involves multiple technologies i.e. how a person uses a laptop and a mobile phone, then the eye-tracking glasses would be able to capture data when you are using all technologies.

The stand-alone version only works when you are sitting in front of a computer or other large screen.

Final Thoughts

Personally, I cannot wait for the next generation of eye-tracking hard and software.

Given the stunning advances in technology which we see in the everyday world, including in the travel and tourism sector, I personally would expect to see products now on the market which are much less bulky, portable and less noticeable.

The size though is NOT a problem specifically with the SMI product but symbolic of the industry and developments as a whole in this area.

Given what exists on the market, the excellent calibration and very impressive accuracy of the tracking make the SMI glasses worth considering.

The guys at SMI that I met were very friendly and if you have any questions at all or would like to know more about these and their other products then you can find their website at www.smivision.com or you can email Andy Shaw via andy@tracksys.co.uk.

You can also find another option from Imotions here.

Let us know your experiences and thoughts below in the comments!