alt.hn

7/25/2026 at 7:51:19 AM

MouthPad: A Tongue-Controlled Touchpad

 https://www.augmental.tech/

by ZaninAndrea

7/25/2026 at 2:12:53 PM

As someone who uses head, eye and facial gesture tracking regularly while doing long medical treatments which tie up both my hands, I would really love something like this.

by arm32

7/25/2026 at 3:24:52 PM

I never even thought of that use case! What kind of stuff do you do on a computer while doing procedures? Like reference material? Tracking what you’ve done?

by hosel

7/25/2026 at 4:24:58 PM

A lot less cool than you’d imagine, but hey this is real life. The computer my comfort place, so it’s there to keep my mind occupied and distracted from the treatment’s (iontophoresis) pain. A lot of feel-good scrolling, browsing HN, Reddit, my inbox, multitasking YouTube, etc. If I’m feeling particularly motivated I’ll use STT in my IDE and get some planning done.

by arm32

7/26/2026 at 7:15:58 PM

Super cool. I was thinking about using a ThinkPad trackpoint instead of a touch pad. But as far as I know there is no water resistant trackpoint device.

by Lutzb

7/26/2026 at 8:43:08 AM

Somewhat tangentially related, I sometimes use my (above average sized) nose to swipe away notifications on my smartwatch when I'm holding things on both hands and don't feel like putting anything down. My wife always finds this incredibly amusing, but given the length I feel like I might as well use it for something!

by saghm

7/25/2026 at 12:41:43 PM

If it can be made comfortable and cheap enough, this could be useful as an interface for AR glasses. The tongue is very sensitive and dextrous, and I imagine that even swipe typing with this kind of touchpad is probably feasible.

by t-3

7/25/2026 at 11:59:56 AM

So refreshing to see such and interesting innovation in the hardware space! Curious as to what’s the business play here, as at $1400 a piece these don’t seem like mass-market devices. And the high-end market is even more constrained with the size of the subpopulation it is aimed at. Regardless of the business model, fingers crossed that more great assistive tech like this one ships!

by rad-b

7/25/2026 at 2:23:16 PM

It's a relatively low volume, customised product, likely with high development costs (even if it doesn't fall under medical device regulations, making something battery- powered that you stick in your mouth is gonna need a good safety case). It's also very valuable to those who use it, so the market can support the high price needed to cover development (the per unit costs are likely much smaller: note you can buy two for nearly the same price as one).

by rcxdude

7/26/2026 at 2:07:27 AM

They definitely need to follow regulations as otherwise this misses the entire market that it's aiming at. You are far better of incorporating this into medical settings than just people with disabilities and disposable income.

by ktallett

7/26/2026 at 11:17:16 AM

For devices like this it's not super obvious how well the tradeoff works: the cost of development can multiply, even if the sale price to the insurance companies can go up correspondingly. There's a growing trend of companies developing assistive tech that is affordable without insurance, specifically because the overhead that is added by the insurance and medical device development process is so large (and often questionably valuable to a lot of patients).

by rcxdude

7/26/2026 at 1:52:59 PM

I'm not exclusively suggesting the US market. I'm suggesting the rest of the world where you can get a contract and sell in bulk to national healthcare. Whilst I do agree that there are a few companies like this, the negative is discovery and these being unavailable to people who are tech illiterate or unable to set it up which in this case is a significant number. Considering how useful it could be for people with significant paralysis, having a device that your health are provider can't recommend, aid you with, etc would be infuriating.

by ktallett

7/25/2026 at 12:25:10 PM

Because there is no mass market, relatively speaking.

by thih9

7/26/2026 at 2:06:28 AM

But they also don't have iso accreditation for medical use.

by ktallett

7/26/2026 at 7:59:32 AM

The promotion video popup up in my YT feed yesterday, it has been a long time that I didn't see innovation that helps people to fulfil their passion. I wish them a huge success!

by Oras

7/25/2026 at 11:05:24 AM

This seems really clever. I don't know anything about what it takes to serve the targeted needs, so I could be wrong. But it's the sort of thing that pops out as really cool and useful, tech that makes the world better.

by astrashe2

7/25/2026 at 11:08:39 AM

This looks great for accessibility specifically. My fiancee is partially-sighted, so (while not directly related) I'm extremely supportive of developments in assistive tech. There's a lot of difference to people's lives that can be made.

For me personally - maybe because I'm not a very nice person, or maybe it's an association that many people would make - clever as the pun in the product name is, it does make me think of saying "mousepad" with a lisp. This seems like a non-ideal association.

by gabriel666smith

7/25/2026 at 2:14:00 PM

I vote we rename it to "Ling", short for "lingual"!

by arm32

7/25/2026 at 8:14:47 PM

Big tech will harvest your mewing data now

by putergoon

7/25/2026 at 10:13:34 AM

This is a very novel UX and assistive tech, and I know more users globally (and in India for me) would find this useful.

by anilgulecha

7/25/2026 at 9:27:50 PM

Does it work? There seem to be screenshots and nuanced wordings that implies it's currently more often configured like a gyro mouse with a touch button...

by numpad0

7/25/2026 at 10:04:42 PM

As a replacement for a desktop user's mouse? No. Could write paragraphs about how it's a special niche, and the device shines in that niche.

I've been in the HCI-enthusiast space due to carpal tunnel for a while now. I actually caused myself to have to have the surgery after going all out with QMK mouse keys, which ended up just moving the problem to a different set of fingers. (So maybe not an expert.)

by ComputerPerson

7/25/2026 at 11:27:54 PM

The part I'm not sure is if they have precise tongue location working, of if they have resorted to the pad as mostly just hot corners. I don't have that much doubt about the concept.

by numpad0

7/25/2026 at 3:33:47 PM

Surgery robots have a tongue controller. It takes a while to train on that, but when you‘re trained your tongue muscle is the most precise way to control, say, subtle incisions deep inside the brain.

by Tomte

7/25/2026 at 3:55:41 PM

Do you have a link to those? It seems ... somewhat implausible.

by pavel_lishin

7/25/2026 at 5:22:00 PM

A doctor told me that a few years ago, but googling it myself now, I don‘t find anything, either. I think I missed a joke back then.

Flag my comment, it‘s wrong.

by Tomte

7/25/2026 at 4:42:44 PM

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11118463/

If anybody reading this wants to hire someone to devote their life to this tech, hit me up. Autistic special interest.

by arm32

7/25/2026 at 4:57:44 PM

That’s cool but also definitely not the same thing that GP claimed.

by dpark

7/25/2026 at 3:18:10 PM

Wonder if tongue would get tired from it or not an issue.

by victorbjorklund

7/25/2026 at 3:20:21 PM

At first yes but just like any muscle it would adapt and probably quickly.

by datakan

7/25/2026 at 5:13:52 PM

One of the strongest muscles in the body, too. Along with your jaw and uterus.

by trollbridge

7/26/2026 at 12:08:51 PM

That white trash girl who could tie a cherry stem with her tongue is finally hirable

by silverlimetea

7/25/2026 at 8:38:26 PM

As much as I'd like to support this, $1400 places it squarely in the "disability tax" bracket that accompanies products targeting this market.

by mellosouls

7/25/2026 at 11:11:39 PM

Perfect the enemy of the good there?

The more support they get, the easier it becomes to justify dropping the price. The more likely a cheaper competitor shows up.

Would this product have launched if a minimal profit cap were regulatorily mandated?

by Barbing

7/25/2026 at 9:21:43 PM

Are you saying the company is overcharging people 10-1,000x?

(That would let Google Glass also fall squarely into this bracket...)

by rrr_oh_man

7/25/2026 at 11:36:34 AM

I can see exam candidates having mouth inspections in the future.

by angry_octet

7/26/2026 at 10:15:52 AM

great vision and insight to problems.

by nutifafa

7/26/2026 at 12:54:47 AM

The lady mentioning that she uses it to connect with her vibrator certainly wasn't what I was expecting in a glossy product marketing video. Between that and the video call from Rocky's Australian e-girlfriend(?) the video felt like it was sliding into the surreal near the end.

But, I mean, cool. I hope they have fun with it and it improves their lives.

by georgemcbay

7/25/2026 at 3:34:19 PM

chocolate flavored touchpad please

by vivzkestrel

7/25/2026 at 10:45:14 AM

Haven’t these existed before for military purposes?

by newsclues

7/25/2026 at 10:50:31 AM

I remember reading about tongue based sonar for divers, where the output of the sonar would stimulate electrodes on various parts of the tongue to indicate relative direction.

by elric

7/25/2026 at 2:26:49 PM

Step aside Codex Micro!

by gulmothrowaway

7/26/2026 at 2:09:18 AM

The price seems high for straight to end user sales avoiding the medical regulations needed for use in medical settings. I'm curious why that is and also why you wouldn't design with iso accreditation in mind and get approval. That opens up the market far more.

by ktallett

7/25/2026 at 6:09:04 PM

it's magic!

by kimjune01

7/25/2026 at 5:14:56 PM

Love the name.

by therealdrag0

7/25/2026 at 5:32:01 PM

[flagged]

by neet_dev