By Charles Q. Choi 

Imagine the ability to control machines with your mind instead of having to type on a keyboard or click on a mouse. Now Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is aiming for the next best thing—a new wristband that can, with the help of AI, infer electrical commands sent from the brain to muscles and convert them into computer signals, all in a noninvasive way. Although experts doubt it will replace keyboards and mice for traditional computing, it might have new uses for a wide range of applications, such as wearable interfaces for mobile devices, or thought-controlled assistive technologies for people with disabilities.

Previous “neuromotor” devices, such as the discontinued Myo armband, also sought to use sEMG for computer interfaces. A key challenge these earlier devices faced was how they each needed time-consuming personalized calibration for each user to account for differences in human anatomy and behavior.

In contrast, Meta says its bracelet can essentially work off the shelf. The key was training deep-learning artificial intelligence systems on data from more than 6,000 paid volunteers who wore the device. This generated models that could accurately interpret user input across different people without requiring individual calibration, says Joe Paradiso, head of the Responsive Environments Research Group at the MIT Media Lab, who did not participate in this study.