“The Somatic is a wearable keyboard and mouse that’s comfortable, unobstructive, and ready for all-day wear. It’s loaded with all the hardware to translate hand signs and motions into actions, like the somatic component of a spell in Dungeons and Dragons.
For the most up-to-date design files, code, and utilities, visit the project page on GitHub.
Each knuckle has a Hall sensor, and the first segment of each finger has a magnet. Flexing a finger pivots its magnet out of position, allowing the Somatic to map your hand.
An EM7180SFP IMU near the thumb provides 9-degree tracking. Eventually, this will allow you to move a mouse cursor by pointing, and type letters by drawing them in midair.
The Somatic is still an early-stage project, and will be a challenging build for experienced makers.
The Somatic project’s priorities are:
Control any wearable computer with a heads-up display
Ready to use all day, instantly, with no Internet
Doesn’t cause fatigue or interfere with other tasks
Fast enough to do a quick search in less than 10 seconds
The Somatic will not:
Reproduce your hand in 3-D space
Let you type on a virtual keyboard
Use any cloud services at all
The Somatic project is MIT licensed, copyright 2019 Zack Freedman and Voidstar Lab.
Thanks to Alex Glow for modeling the Somatic!
Supplies:
4x three-lead JST harnesses
4x A3144 Hall sensors
At least 4 10mm x 4mm neodymium cylinder magnets
One pair of weightlifter’s half gloves
1/8” paracord
1/8” or 3/16” heatshrink tubing
PLA or PETG filament
TPU filament
4x 6mm M2.5 screws
4x 8mm M2.5 screws
8x M2.5 nuts
1x 303040 Li-Ion battery
Electronic components (see schematic in repository)
Stripboard
Solder
Stranded wire, preferably silicone-insulated and flexible
Bus wire, for constructing stripboard circuits
Recommended: Mannequin hand
You must have access to a printer that can print both a rigid material like PLA and a flexible material like TPU.”