7 ms·

After my grandfather got Parkinson’s disease circa 2005, I developed hand tremor cancelling software for the mouse [1]. It has gone through a lot of developmen

After my grandfather got Parkinson’s disease circa 2005, I developed hand tremor cancelling software for the mouse [1]. It has gone through a lot of development since then; it is my best work as a developer. It suffers from the common flaw us engineers have of hyperfocus on the product while not caring about marketing enough. It makes enough. I have a hard time talking about it in everyday life for some reason. It feels like a conversation that is hard for others to participate in. Do other founders feel this way? I wish I understood it better. [1] https://steadymouse.com https://steadymouse.com

wnolens 4y ago
Thanks for posting, a real inspiration. This is peak development to me: to write high quality software to solve a problem I care about and make it available for others. If this sold zero copies, it would have all been worth it.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  What about zero downloads?
35mm 4y ago
I would have loved to have had this for my grandfather when he was around. In terms of marketing (if you’re not already doing it), you could write blog posts about different topics around Parkinson’s + tech use. The use a tool like Surfer SEO to make sure you’ve covered the search term topic cluster well, and then more people will find it via Google.
orang2tang 4y ago
This is awesome!
kaoD 4y ago
> It feels like a conversation that is hard for others to participate in My dad has Parkinson's and I can relate. My take is: people feel bad for you but society doesn't have canned responses like we do for more common situations like the death of a loved one. This makes people uncomfortable since they don't know what's an appropriate reaction. Please don't get discouraged though, I didn't even know this existed! The amount of people that will benefit from you bringing this up is >0. My dad's not interested anymore in computers (more about the cognitive overload than the hand tremors) but this would've helped enormously during the early stages.
- Aqwis 4y ago
  I don't think you're right that society doesn't have canned responses for this sort of situation. There's no canned response as brief as "my condolences" or "I'm sorry for your loss", but combine a few vague phrases of the sort "what an awful situation", "it must be horrible to lose control over your body and mind like that" and something about how brave and kind the other person is for helping his grandfather like that, and most people are going to get through the conversation without too much discomfort. It might sound like I'm being ironic, but even if these phrases are cliched and almost contentless in a strict sense, they're very useful for signalling purposes, and when you're talking to someone whose relative is sick or dead, being able to smoothly signal that you care is actually really good for both parties -- comforting for the recipient and convenient for the sender (in the sense that they can easily make their concern and care for the recipient clear without too much hassle).
plasma 4y ago
I remember reading about this project a long time ago, congrats! If you don’t mind me asking, what do you find hard to talk about?
gregsadetsky 4y ago
Out of curiosity, did you consider creating a browser extension version of your software? As a developer of a dictation extension for Chrome [0] I see that it gets a lot of use for accessibility purposes. I once experimented with a tremor-compensating extension and some css that hid the “natural” cursor and overlaid a cursor image instead whose position I controlled (using a basic rolling window average to make it steady). This basic test seemed to hold up. That could potentially open up a whole new market for you…? Just curious if you’ve considered this. Don’t hesitate to reach out by email too if this sounds interesting! [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dictation-for-gmail/eggdmhdpffgikgakkfojgiledkekfdce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dictation-for-gmai...
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  Can you hook the mouse in a browser extension?
  - selcuka 4y ago
    You can detect the location but no, you can't change the position of the pointer using Javascript.
    - tylergetsay 4y ago
      you could draw a fake one
      - gregsadetsky 4y ago
        Exactly. You hide the native cursor with css and show an image on top of the page whose position you move around.
        jmt_ 4y ago
        This would work visually but I think you'd run into a lot of edge cases where JS/CSS/the browser itself is expecting to hook into or access mouse APIs
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scrozier 4y ago
I'm a software developer by trade. I've had essential tremor all my life. Virtually all doctors say, "well, at least it's a benign condition." Right. And it's affected my life in countless ways, none of them good. It's gotten slowly worse over the years. It's not debilitating, but it's frustrating, and it rules out some activities completely. As I type this I randomly touch the touch pad or an unwanted key, and random things happen. :-) Your software looks amazing for me! Your web site describes my situation exactly. It looks like it's Windows only? Any plans for a Mac version? Edit: I accidentally posted a truncated version of this earlier (I deleted it), exactly because of my tremor!
- spike021 4y ago
  Same here. Mine isn't debilitating (yet, maybe). But there are definitely times it's a real pain, and nobody really seems to understand what it's like to have. And in public it gets annoying because older people will come up to me sometimes and tell me "did you know / do you know if you have Parkinson's" even though it's ET.
- z9znz 4y ago
  I'm curious. Would some sort of intentionally-activated eye tracking work? Do your eyes have tremors? Ideally (there's a pun in there, but it's not intentional) we could use our eyes to signal where we want our "focus" to be, but only when we want that signaling to happen. So a simple button held to indicate "track my eyes and focus on where I'm looking when I lift the button" might be useful.
- voisin 4y ago
  Any idea what causes this?
- joek1301 4y ago
  The FAQ suggests a MacOS port is “underway:” https://www.steadymouse.com/faq/ https://www.steadymouse.com/faq/
- splintercell 4y ago
  Your mileage may vary, but I had the same issue and it got fixed after I started lifting and developed more muscle all over my body, especially in the core. It’s like the nervous system can’t just jerk my hand around if there is more muscle for it to control. Now my firearm accuracy makes everyone jealous at the range, people are like “wow, you’re such a natural”.
txdm 4y ago
I got steadymouse several years ago for my father when he developed parkinsons. It's been a huge benefit in his life. Thank you.
rozgo 4y ago
You should consider surrounding yourself with people that can tell the story. It's common to not be able or willing to tell your own story. Others can carry or lift this weight for you, and take it where it needs to go.
micvbang 4y ago
After seeing this on HN at some point, I bought the software for a family member -- as far as I know, they're very happy with it! It's kind of a sore thing to talk about, so I haven't heard it said directly, but last I saw the software was still installed on the machine :)

wnolens 4y ago

Thanks for posting, a real inspiration. This is peak development to me: to write high quality software to solve a problem I care about and make it available for others. If this sold zero copies, it would have all been worth it.

ipaddr 4y ago
What about zero downloads?

35mm 4y ago

I would have loved to have had this for my grandfather when he was around. In terms of marketing (if you’re not already doing it), you could write blog posts about different topics around Parkinson’s + tech use. The use a tool like Surfer SEO to make sure you’ve covered the search term topic cluster well, and then more people will find it via Google.

orang2tang 4y ago

This is awesome!

kaoD 4y ago

> It feels like a conversation that is hard for others to participate in My dad has Parkinson's and I can relate. My take is: people feel bad for you but society doesn't have canned responses like we do for more common situations like the death of a loved one. This makes people uncomfortable since they don't know what's an appropriate reaction. Please don't get discouraged though, I didn't even know this existed! The amount of people that will benefit from you bringing this up is >0. My dad's not interested anymore in computers (more about the cognitive overload than the hand tremors) but this would've helped enormously during the early stages.

Aqwis 4y ago
I don't think you're right that society doesn't have canned responses for this sort of situation. There's no canned response as brief as "my condolences" or "I'm sorry for your loss", but combine a few vague phrases of the sort "what an awful situation", "it must be horrible to lose control over your body and mind like that" and something about how brave and kind the other person is for helping his grandfather like that, and most people are going to get through the conversation without too much discomfort. It might sound like I'm being ironic, but even if these phrases are cliched and almost contentless in a strict sense, they're very useful for signalling purposes, and when you're talking to someone whose relative is sick or dead, being able to smoothly signal that you care is actually really good for both parties -- comforting for the recipient and convenient for the sender (in the sense that they can easily make their concern and care for the recipient clear without too much hassle).

plasma 4y ago

I remember reading about this project a long time ago, congrats! If you don’t mind me asking, what do you find hard to talk about?

gregsadetsky 4y ago

Out of curiosity, did you consider creating a browser extension version of your software? As a developer of a dictation extension for Chrome [0] I see that it gets a lot of use for accessibility purposes. I once experimented with a tremor-compensating extension and some css that hid the “natural” cursor and overlaid a cursor image instead whose position I controlled (using a basic rolling window average to make it steady). This basic test seemed to hold up. That could potentially open up a whole new market for you…? Just curious if you’ve considered this. Don’t hesitate to reach out by email too if this sounds interesting! [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dictation-for-gmail/eggdmhdpffgikgakkfojgiledkekfdce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dictation-for-gmai...

DeathArrow 4y ago
Can you hook the mouse in a browser extension?
- selcuka 4y ago
  You can detect the location but no, you can't change the position of the pointer using Javascript.
  - tylergetsay 4y ago
    you could draw a fake one
    - gregsadetsky 4y ago
      Exactly. You hide the native cursor with css and show an image on top of the page whose position you move around.
      - jmt_ 4y ago
        This would work visually but I think you'd run into a lot of edge cases where JS/CSS/the browser itself is expecting to hook into or access mouse APIs

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

scrozier 4y ago

I'm a software developer by trade. I've had essential tremor all my life. Virtually all doctors say, "well, at least it's a benign condition." Right. And it's affected my life in countless ways, none of them good. It's gotten slowly worse over the years. It's not debilitating, but it's frustrating, and it rules out some activities completely. As I type this I randomly touch the touch pad or an unwanted key, and random things happen. :-) Your software looks amazing for me! Your web site describes my situation exactly. It looks like it's Windows only? Any plans for a Mac version? Edit: I accidentally posted a truncated version of this earlier (I deleted it), exactly because of my tremor!

spike021 4y ago
Same here. Mine isn't debilitating (yet, maybe). But there are definitely times it's a real pain, and nobody really seems to understand what it's like to have. And in public it gets annoying because older people will come up to me sometimes and tell me "did you know / do you know if you have Parkinson's" even though it's ET.
z9znz 4y ago
I'm curious. Would some sort of intentionally-activated eye tracking work? Do your eyes have tremors? Ideally (there's a pun in there, but it's not intentional) we could use our eyes to signal where we want our "focus" to be, but only when we want that signaling to happen. So a simple button held to indicate "track my eyes and focus on where I'm looking when I lift the button" might be useful.
voisin 4y ago
Any idea what causes this?
joek1301 4y ago
The FAQ suggests a MacOS port is “underway:” https://www.steadymouse.com/faq/ https://www.steadymouse.com/faq/
splintercell 4y ago
Your mileage may vary, but I had the same issue and it got fixed after I started lifting and developed more muscle all over my body, especially in the core. It’s like the nervous system can’t just jerk my hand around if there is more muscle for it to control. Now my firearm accuracy makes everyone jealous at the range, people are like “wow, you’re such a natural”.

txdm 4y ago

I got steadymouse several years ago for my father when he developed parkinsons. It's been a huge benefit in his life. Thank you.

rozgo 4y ago

You should consider surrounding yourself with people that can tell the story. It's common to not be able or willing to tell your own story. Others can carry or lift this weight for you, and take it where it needs to go.

micvbang 4y ago

After seeing this on HN at some point, I bought the software for a family member -- as far as I know, they're very happy with it! It's kind of a sore thing to talk about, so I haven't heard it said directly, but last I saw the software was still installed on the machine :)