Looking at that information so far on this glove it seems that we are using the Rpi as a multi-channel sound delivery system. to drive small speakers to stimulate nerves on the fingers. I apologize if I have over-simplified the design.
I am making a church bell simulator and needed to play mp3 files of recorded bells with one channel per bell. I needed to use one per bell as I didn't want to lose the reverberation when playing peels.
As part of the design research I came across this very cheap device on Aliexpress called a "DY-SV17F DY-SV19R Audio Module".
It looks like a 4MByte USB memory stick to a PC which makes loading sound files in either MP3 or WAV format easy from any platform. The unit can be triggered to play from a maximum of 65535 sounds in any order with amazing ease using triggers (buttons) or serial commands. The units have a 24 bit DAC and a 5 watt amplifier and cost less than 2UKP.
Using one module per finger the cost is minimal and the wiring almost trivial with no external amplifier required. I will need to process the original 4 channel WAV files with one WAV file per module.
It would be easy to drive them from small microprocessor eg Arduino 8650 or ATTiny85. My plan is to use an ESP32 programmed with MicroPython to trigger the audio modules . One ESP32 could easily drive ten channels i.e. two hands simultaneously. The ESP32 has WiFi making over-the-air updates easy. There is also Bluetooth which could easily connect to an app in a mobile phone.
I already had some modules on order before I got involved in this glove project so will be able to assess their suitability next week.
I have created a GitHub repository called "parkinsons-glove" to share everything. I will happily put other files there for members who are not savvy with computers or GitHub.
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Definitely, the more options the better, and the possibility of driving 10 channels all at low cost sounds very attractive. — What would be the actual output devices/tactors?
Initially I will try the DAEX-13-4SM exciters as they are already part of the design. Sadly, they are currently out of stock. Depending on the actual sounds and the fidelity required there are other miniature exciters including piezoelectric to look at. If the impulses are low frequency then even small (and cheap) buzzers could be used.
Well, after the bHaptics I am somewhat missing the full 10 finger experience with the 8-channel controller of the C-MFs. At least I am occassionally swapping out the stimulation of the pinkies with that of the thumbs, which probably have a larger representation in the sensory cortex anyways.
What is the "official glove"? Even it is was announced today then how many people would be able to get one and at what price? My friend wants to try a glove ASAP and I bet he will get the one I make well before any official product. As for ten channels, I figured that it is easier to use less than ten than design for eight and then realise that ten is a better number. I have been designing control systems for nearly thirty years and that has taught me that it is easier to build-in extra requirements that may be unused than deliver something that needs an upgrade after installation. I have already got that T shirt!
Yes, I thought maybe you had an eye to commercial scale distribution. The official glove would be the one supplied by the holder of a recently granted comprehensive patent backed by the commercial lawyers of Stanford university. I can't see them being concerned by one-off not-for-profit, own - use raffia-work projects,But scalable solutions capable of commercial exploitation, or even just volume distribution on an "open source" basis, in breach of patent, might find themselves on the wrong end of a multi million dollar "loss of revenue" patent protection law suit.
Having a few patents to my name I have suffered the financially painful infringement process. Patent infringement is a minefield where only the Lawyers win. I'm sure that Stanford would be keeping an eye out for exploitation but will also know the "holes" in the patent that will be hard to defend. If I make available parts, which separately are not patented as they have other commercial uses then they would have no claim. If they are assembled by purchasers into a glove then the assembler, as a private person, cannot be sued unless they then sell it which they are unlikely to do. There are already haptic gloves for other purposes. I have downloaded the patent and have started to read the claims. Essentially a signal generator is connected to a number of actuators. The specific sequences or waveforms might be patentable but the delivery system looks like a minefield to defend. My only interest is to make a glove for a friend. If my solution looks viable then others could buy the same parts to make their own I'm sure. My software was originally designed as a church bell simulator where a sequence of wav files send waveforms to a speaker (aka actuator) and was written in 2004. I am merely updating the output technology to miniature speakers and the source of the sounds to a file obtained here.
"If I make available parts, which separately are not patented as they have other commercial uses then they would have no claim"So you're a component manufacturer. You're right. There would be no patent infringement for continuing supply of components with multiple potential uses. "
Only for explaining how to use them.
But this patent stuff is a distraction. If you are planning to build the closest possible replica of the gloves used in the first stanford trial you need 4 channels. More spoil the implementation
I am sure your friend will appreciate his new gloves. As someone who has been using his own DIY gloves for about 7 months in total and 3 months seriously with a "production" version I can assure you that the toughest feature to design is actually using them. Enough. That's 4 hours a day. An enormous commitment in a very restrictive device. Near impossible with both thumbs free as in my glove and Peter Tass glove. But I typed this with my thumbs, can (very awkwardly) use a mouse, and most importantly hold a wine glass by its stem.
With no thumbs you join the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" brigade using the gloves a couple of hours a day nearly most days...
And "quite liking" how they feel whilst using them
I agree, usability is an important issue that affects how long you can and want to wear the gloves. For the moment, I'm using a solution that balances an extremely simple design with okay wearability (while not being quite as comfortable or practical as the bHaptics).
I simply stuffed the tactors into the fingers of a cheap sports glove (amazon.de/gp/product/B08CKG... and ran the wires out at the top of the finger tips and along the back of the glove. The tactors stay in place due to their size, and the flexibility of the glove material allows to put on the gloves within seconds while also gently pressing the finger tips against the tactors and keeping them fixed. I cannot type while wearing the gloves, but I can carefully hold a mug or press the buttons of the remote, plus the thumb and index finger of the glove are coated with a material that allows me to use touch screens (very clumsily).
PS: Yes, there are 5 tactors in the glove, while I only have 4 channels per hand on the controller - but this way I can easily change which fingers should be stimulated (e.g., occassionally swapping the pinkies for the thumbs). But I would't mind having 5 channels.
I have been reading about how intricate and complicated these gloves are to build and how difficult it
would be to reproduce the gloves and controllers of DrTass. I am in the process of a build courtesy of Mr Buzz. Sorry I can't remember his full handle or name. I appreciate him and other sharing their indept technology. I will hope and pray that my wife will find some relief or positive results from this build. It may not be as effective as Dr Tass. But the later part of 2026, the predicted time of FDA and market production by Synergic Medical Technologies. Is a long wait for so many of us. But considering how a series of such basic incidences that could be the begining of this long re-discovered medical technology we know as neuromodulation/ vibration was secondary to to wagon wheels traveling over rocky roads and the brilliant observation of Dr Charcot. I really expect that some application of vibration is better than none. I could be very wrong. But what could be more natural than symetics and rhythm? Just a thought. Actually all living things depend on rhythm, and patterns. I
I think you are very probably correct. Many vibration devices exist which appear to be therapeutic (beneficial). I think there is probably something inherently relaxing about (gentle) vibrations. I always used to comment, long before my PD diagnosis how mowing the paddocks on the ride-on tractor mower was "therapy" after a stressful week. But Peter Tass's work is about "coordinated reset". Stopping groups of neurons from firing in a synchronised low frequency rhythm, by stimulating them to fire in an unsynchronised way by triggering a different pattern. It is the frequency of that pattern which is "custom" to the original pathology.
The vCR therapy is in the interference with an existing locked rythmic synchronisation. Not the soothing effect of vibrations (although that is an agreeable by-product)
It's the "CR", not the "v" which is the important bit. The internet is full of "v's"
Jean-Martin Charcot, visionary doctor who discovered diseases such as ALS, multiple sclerosis and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, downgraded by a DYS glowes who says more than once that he has a therapeutic lawnmower, sorry beneficial (v), which gives more positive results and in a short time than his gloves (CR) ... WTP I would ask myself a few questions before teaching the subject to others with definitions of vCR altered compared to what Tass himself writes..
from your post above:
“The vCR therapy is in the interference with an existing locked rythmic synchronisation.”
So we end up with 2 products: one cheap and simple and effective providing temporary relief that is not now available but is begged for, and the other a very sophisticated devise , many thousands of dollars that semi permanently resets the brain, maybe. There is a market for both.
But remember, Beta vs VHS video cassette recorders Beta technically was the best. VHS was the least expensive. Beta lost never to be seen again.
Panasonic television vs everybody else was the best by far ,best picture no blur etc but much more expensive and they were the best in the world but no longer make televisions.
IBM personal computers also invented the main frame computer. Who?
Research in motion blackberry cell phones used by the US army and CIA, world governments Kings and queens because of security, very expensive. no longer made. millions of throw away phones made by others in China instead.
and many more make it inexpensive or go home
Invent a cheaper mouse trap and they will beat a path to your door . They just want to kill the mice not photograph them and send pictures by email via WIFI. Wood, spring and killing hinge with cheese holder $1.19 for two. when it gets stinky throw it away.
My crystal balls may need polishing, but I don't think the Betamax analogy works. Think Red book for cd's and the various enhancement versions like HDCD , SACD
I would not expect Stanford to allow a basic version made by others, and their own device will come as a modular device, with a fairly standard (but less farm-made) universal gloves and add-on modules for different situations.
As for the cheap & simple, available now - do you mean "now" or "very soon". Very soon implies an FDA authorised Synergia model. My expectation is Stanford would be unhappy with that.
"Now" implies the "nearly off-the-shelf" haptic style options. And as I noted elsewhere, they are "v" devices - not "CR" devices. That's one of the perils of the unregulated "wild west" DIY arena we are all floundering around in. But I'll risk a small wager, that no authorised approved device is going to use large contact area xy axis actuator. And certainly not an ERM.
I think my analogy works just fine . What has any CD technology got to do with VCR . other than replace it. The VCR war was won by VHS in rental movie houses to coast to coast broad casting affiliates to video cameras . Beta was un-afordable by too many. Having witnessed close up Companies investing in machinery development with every kind of P. Eng . at tremendous cost and very hard work, doing everything from blue sky research to proto typing to field evaluation from Patent protection to market studies about one project in 5 made it to a real live working successful saleable product. Meanwhile companies hid in the bushes spending nothing on R & D , copied the equipment and without the cost of research to off set they offered much cheaper and survived. Amana microwave ovens ? Allen Bradly PLC's first in the world, no longer made. Electrolux is the only exception I know of , well maybe Texas Instrument scientific hand held calculators. (Eng. were still using slide rules when I joined the work force) Over the years we changed from inventors to copyers to buyers of other companies. One reason , patents very seldom protected you, the other guys bought copies of the patent so they could better understand your ideas and break it. It takes a lot of experience to write an enforceable patent. I think the doctors people may be delaying approval because they need a lot of patents that are not ready. Plus from the beginning in my opinion they have let out too much information. I think they needed investors and wanted to prepare the market and also get a bit of glory.
Likewise. I enjoy your contributions. You mentioned delays getting patents, but there are 2 recent developments. Sergie Brin (Google founder) who has invested $1billion in Parkinsons Disease research is investing in bringing Peter Tass gloves to market, and this patent has been filed
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