Myo Alpha Get To Know

Getting To Know Myo

Myo's Physical Ch ar acteristics

The following image illust r at es t he m ain components of Myo Alpha:

Myo is designed to be "wear and play", requiring minima l physical interaction. The eight segments
of expandable casinghouse Myo's component s and are connected using str et chable material that
allows them to expand an d cont r act relative to each other, so t hat M yo can comfortably fit each
user's unique physiology . The electrical sensors measure electrical signals traveling across the
user's arm, which Myo trans lates into poses and gest ur es.

The USB charging port a llows you to charge Myo's inter nal battery using a USB pow er adapter or a
conventional USB port on a computer.

Myo Alpha provides two additional features. The status LED light s up in green when Myo is ready to
be connected to a device. Once M yo is connected, it lights up in blue instead. The pinhol e reset
button can be used to reset My o in case of a device malfunction.

Myo is connected to a device (e.g. a computer, tablet, or smart phone) using Bluetooth 4.0 Low
Energy. The SDK takes c ar e of a ll o f the low level details related to Bl uet oot h connections and data
transmission.

Note

The pictures and description above depict Myo Alph a. Pr oduction Myo will be similar b ut
differ in shape and specifi c c har act eristics.

A Developer's View Of Myo

At its core, Myo provides two k ind s of data to an application, spat ial data and gestural data.

Spatial data informs t he application about the orientation and movement o f the user's arm. The Myo
SDK provides two kinds of spatial data:

• An orientation represents which way Myo is pointed. In t he SDK thi s or ientation is provided

as a quaternion that can be converted to other representat i ons, like a rotation matrix or Euler
angles.

• An acceleration vect or represents the acceleration Myo is undergoing at any given time.

The SDK provides this as a thr ee-dimensional vector.

Gestural data tells the ap pli cat ion what the user is doing with their hands. The Myo SDK provides
gestural data in the form of one of several preset poses, which represent a pa r t icul ar configuration
of the user's hand. For example, one pose represents the hand ma k in g a f ist , while another
represents the hand being at r est with an open palm.

An application can provid e fee dback to the wearer of Myo by issuing a vibration command. This
causes Myo to vibrate in a way that is both audible and sensed through touch.