Thread by @AlexandraErin

So, I am testing a new wearable device, a "wearable" keyboard called (and I swear I am not making this up) a Tap Strap. It uses a somewhat idiosyncratic alphabet of tap-based gestures for input, which means you can't just use it out of the box. The included training app is good.

I got this device for potential accessibility uses, but so far it feels as though typing this way requires more mobility in the arm and wrist than just typing. It is also considerably slower.

Time will tell how much of that is inexperience.

The preceding two tweets were written (slowly and with much backspacing) entirely using the Tap Strap, but I'm switching to an actual keyboard because my shoulder and wrist are getting tired. Which is not a good sign, but again, maybe inexperience.

To be clear, I didn't wear myself out writing two tweets. I only attempted those tweets after my second time all the way through the tutorial drills to learn the gestures. So I had a pretty good workout.

I got this, as I said, in part for accessibility reasons. Now, I walk around with an honest to goodness wearable PC so I have everyday uses for this, if it's seamless enough. But I also have a forearm mounted keyboard/touchpad if I want it.

The accessibility purposes is those days when I don't have the energy to do anything but lie there (as I just went through many such days)... if I could use a wearable display and a wearable input device that only requires small movements of one hand, that's ideal.

And heaven forbid there's some life changing alteration in the trajectory of my condition... so long as I have one eye and one hand I could still read, write, watch things, tweet. Work.

So here are some of the major weaknesses that I'm not convinced are *me* issues.

It's advertised as go anywhere and work on any surface, but it only registers a "tap" if you encounter the sudden stop provided by a firm enough obstacle.

So sitting a table, I could get it to register taps consistently against the table, but not against my leg. If I can put my hand on a table, why am I not using a folding keyboard?

I'm willing to be proven wrong as I get better at using the tap code. Maybe it is me.

I should perhaps describe the device. It's a set of little accelerometers you wear on your fingers like rings, joined together by cords. Very adjustable, comes in two sizes and the large fits my fingers with lots of slack.

The thumb one has an optical mouse in the side. In theory the optical mouse engages when you push a little plate on it against any surface. When the mouse is on, the "keyboard" is replaced with mouse clicks. Index finger left click, and so on. Gestures for scrolling.

Now, for the life of me, I could not get the mouse sensor to detect when I put it against my kitchen table. And the sensor I'm talking about is not optical, and also the table has a protective cover that's not shiny. So it wasn't a laser issue.

The mouse *would* deploy correctly when I put it on my leg or my stomach, against the material of my clothes. I don't know if it's a conductivity thing or a texture thing, I don't know what kind of sensor it's using.

So while the thing as a whole is usable, the biggest issue I'm encountering right now is that the surfaces on which the mouse functions, the keyboard doesn't, and vice versa.

The people selling it tout its use in immersive VR and AR experiences and suggest that you in fact can tap against your side or whatever. I guess it might work against your other forearm, but again... I can strap an actual keyboard there.

Now! I paused some firmware updates out of the box because it won't install them if it's not more fully charged and I wanted to try it. And one of the updates includes customization, remapping gestures, etc.

So it's very possible that some of the issues I'm talking about here have been addressed in an update, which is the other reason I didn't keep typing using it. It's charging now so tomorrow I can install the updates. Maybe it's a lot better already.

The other big weakness compared to a physical keyboard or other solution is that... some letters are just *harder* than others, to a greater degree than is true with a keyboard layout. Human fingers don't all bend with the same degree of independence. Some of the combos are iffy.

Most of the worst ones have an alternate shortcut, usually double-tapping a more common letter. For instance, i can be all the fingers except the ring one (hard), or double tapping i (the middle finger).

I have not successfully done it the "normal" way.

Of the letters that *don't* have an alternate, the hardest for me are X (index, middle, pinky) and P (thumb, index, and pinky, which shouldn't be hard but the movement for the thumb is sort of subtly different in a way that throws me on this one).

P being a little finicky would only make me a little slower typing words with it in it, but the fact that they make double tap and triple tap on P the shortcuts for ( and ) make it almost impossible for me to get them. So far. Again, I've only had it one day. I expect to improve.

But if the surface contact issues persist, then my near-zero mobility solution might just be having an optical mouse or trackball under my hand and using an on-screen keyboard. Slower but accurate and requiring less movement.

Also I just noticed that I was so intent on individual keystrokes I put the quotes in the first tweet around "wearable" and not "keyboard". It is definitely wearable. It is nominally a keyboard.

So, I did the firmware update and it is now working much better in terms of different surfaces. The mouse works on the table and the tap works off of it. On the other hand, the sensitivity of the device seems to have changed in the update in ways that are throwing me off.

So, I would say definitely do the firmware update before running the training game. Save yourself re-learning.

It seems like the firmware update just made it more sensitive in general, so it takes smaller movements. Which is good, because before I had to get really exaggerated. But I'm getting more "false positives" on fingers I'm not trying to tap as part of the gesture.

It does seem like something practice will fix, though as I got better over the course of the two tweets I wrote with it (the first two added to this thread today.)