Nictavia — one page for clinicians
A browser-based AAC interface driven by eyelid closure. Free for individuals. Not a medical device; no diagnostic or therapeutic claim.
Candidate profile
- Reliable voluntary eyelid closure of roughly half a second or longer, with preserved cognition and vision adequate to see a screen.
- Typical diagnoses: ALS/MND, locked-in syndrome after brainstem stroke, advanced MS, high cervical SCI, prolonged Guillain-Barré.
- Works with ptosis and with one eye only (left/right/both selectable). An optional wink can be mapped to “back”.
- Not suitable where eyelid closure is not under voluntary control, or where sustained attention to a scanning display is not possible.
Requirements
Any laptop or tablet from roughly the last five years with a webcam and a current browser. Front lighting on the face. No installation, no account, no purchase. Setup takes about five minutes plus a three-minute blink calibration that the patient can complete unaided.
How selection is made safe
Involuntary blinking (15–20/min) is the reason simple blink switches fail. Calibration measures the patient’s own involuntary blink distribution over 60 seconds, then ten deliberate closures, and places the selection threshold in the gap between the two — reporting honestly when no clean gap exists. Eye-openness levels are re-estimated continuously, so fatigue and drooping do not degrade accuracy. Scanning freezes the moment the eyes close, so the highlight cannot move under a closure in progress.
Compared with eye-gaze systems
| Aspect | Dedicated eye-gaze | Nictavia |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to the family | €8,000–15,000 (PLN 35,000–65,000) | €0 |
| Hardware | Tracker + mount + dedicated device | The laptop they already own |
| Time to first use | Weeks to months (funding, delivery, fitting) | Minutes |
| Calibration | Specialist, repeated; sensitive to head position and light | 3 minutes, patient-led, adapts during use |
| Suits late-stage ALS with ptosis or restricted gaze | Often not | Yes — a single eyelid is enough |
| Data | Varies by vendor | Camera never leaves the device; content stored locally only |
| Text entry rate | Faster where gaze is reliable | Comparable to other single-switch scanning (2–5 wpm), with word and phrase prediction |
Nictavia is not a replacement for eye-gaze where gaze control is reliable and funded. It is what a person can use today, and what still works when gaze no longer does.
Function
Speech output; scanned 6×6 frequency-ordered keyboard with on-device word, next-word and phrase prediction; fixed quick phrases in permanent positions; email and text messaging; a curated reading view; and a carer alert that sends email, SMS and a phone notification simultaneously, sounds a local alarm, escalates after two minutes and alerts if the camera loses the patient for a minute. English and Polish.
Data protection
Camera frames are analysed in the browser and discarded; no image data is transmitted or stored, enforced by an automated check in the build. Composed text, phrases, contacts and settings remain in the browser on that device. Alerts, mail and messaging traverse an EU server only when the patient triggers them; alert records are deleted after 24 hours. Full inventory and impact assessment available on request; summary at nictavia.com/privacy.
Trying it
The live demo at nictavia.com runs the real detection engine on your own face in ten seconds. For an evaluation or a ward pilot, write to [email protected] — we provide setup, training and support at no cost.
Nictavia · Warsaw · [email protected] · nictavia.com — communication aid, not a medical device.