Meet Greg
Greg is a 38-years old gentleman, who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He was walking around 10 years ago, but he can barely use his hand to control the chair with a joystick nowadays.
“I struggled to use the normal R-Net joystick for some time and found driving outside impossible due to more strength needed to use joystick so my caretakers used to drive chair for me outside.”
– explains Greg
A few years later, once his condition made it difficult for him to use the regular joystick he’s tried many alternative controllers. He tried an eye gaze-based driving prototype but according to him, it was quite problematic. He’s looked into other “regular” head controls but he found them visually unappealing.
He started searching for alternatives on the internet, and that’s how he’s found our GyroSet™ Glory originally back in early 2019. He’s reached out, and we’ve set him up with a headset quickly.
Greg: “After a bit of practice, it’s almost like it’s part of you when you drive. It’s enabled me to drive myself outside without having to have a carer drive me and I’m better at it than using a joystick. You sometimes see people looking at you and you can tell they are thinking how’s he driving that no-handed”.
Other than an alternative head-controller for wheelchairs, the Glory can also be used as a computer head mouse, so Greg was able to use the headset for his work too. We were amazed when he sent us this photo of himself mixing and mastering music for Universal Records with our Glory.
Getting feedback from actual users has always been our priority when developing our products, so when we’ve released our latest headset, the GyroSet™ Vigo In November 2019 we’ve immediately asked Greg to become our beta user and tell us his thoughts.
“Yeah using it every time I'm out. Especially as fingers have been getting worse, I've been getting on so well now I have the Vigo...It’s awesome! I’ve been driving around ships, museums, in town and hills!!!”
– replied Greg when we’ve asked him after a few weeks how he’s getting along with his new Vigo.
Both Greg and we are excited to release our new firmware in May 2020, which will allow him to use the Vigo as a computer mouse too.