Skip to main content

OptiKey is an open source on-screen keyboard that lets you type and click with your eyes

Typing and clicking on a computer using only your eyes might seem like nothing more than a parlor trick to the everyday user, but to people with neurological disorders, it’s life changing. Julius Sweetland, a 32-year-old software developer in London, has spent the past 3 1/2 years using his spare time to build OptiKey, a free and open-source assistive on-screen keyboard for Windows compatible with low-cost eye-tracking devices.

Up until now, the technology required to enable those with motor and speech conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease) or other motor neuron diseases (MNDs) to communicate in this fashion can cost up to around $20,000. “OptiKey was written to challenge the outrageously expensive, unreliable, and difficult-to-use AAC (alternative and augmentative communication) products on the market,” Sweetland wrote on the GitHub page for OptiKey. “It is, therefore, fully open-source and free. Forever.”

Recommended Videos

Sweetland says OptiKey can work out of the box with low-cost eye-tracking devices, such as the Tobii EyeX, which costs $139 ($164 with shipping). It’s an alternative to a physical keyboard and can be used to type into any application. OptiKey also features an optional swipe-like functionality, reminiscent of swipe-to-type features found in many smartphone keyboards. So, for instance, typing the word “click” requires the user to select “c,” then glance at “l,” “i,” “c,” and select “k.”

“Basically you don’t have to complete the selections on the middle letters, just the first and last and make sure you ‘touch’ the other letters in between,” Sweetland explained in a well-received Reddit thread he started about OptiKey. “It then matches to the dictionary of known words and phrases.”

An on-screen “Speak” button will convert the inputted words into speech that the computer will say out loud. OptiKey also allows users to click on their screen without using a mouse.

“Maybe releasing this for free will disrupt the market a bit and bring the cost of the ‘off the shelf’ software down. That would be something,” Sweetland wrote in a Reddit comment.

Rather than accepting donations, Sweetland is directing people who want to express their support to a JustGiving page set up to raise funds for Cancer Research UK. He found inspiration to code OptiKey from the death of his aunt, who had an MND. Sweetland recently began testing OptiKey with a patient at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability.

Jason Hahn
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…
Google Gemini’s best AI tricks finally land on Microsoft Copilot
Copilot app for Mac

Microsoft’s Copilot had a rather splashy AI upgrade fest at the company’s recent event. Microsoft made a total of nine product announcements, which include the agentic trick called Actions, Memory, Vision, Pages, Shopping, and Copilot Search. 

A healthy few have already appeared on rival AI products such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, alongside much smaller players like Perplexity and browser-maker Opera. However, two products that have found some vocal fan-following with Gemini and ChatGPT have finally landed on the Copilot platform. 

Read more
Rivian set to unlock unmapped roads for Gen2 vehicles
rivian unmapped roads gen2 r1t gallery image 0

Rivian fans rejoice! Just a few weeks ago, Rivian rolled out automated, hands-off driving for its second-gen R1 vehicles with a game-changing software update. Yet, the new feature, which is only operational on mapped highways, had left many fans craving for more.
Now the company, which prides itself on listening to - and delivering on - what its customers want, didn’t wait long to signal a ‘map-free’ upgrade will be available later this year.
“One feedback we’ve heard loud and clear is that customers love [Highway Assist] but they want to use it in more places,” James Philbin, Rivian VP of autonomy, said on the podcast RivianTrackr Hangouts. “So that’s something kind of exciting we’re working on, we’re calling it internally ‘Map Free’, that we’re targeting for later this year.”
The lag between the release of Highway Assist (HWA) and Map Free automated driving gives time for the fleet of Rivian vehicles to gather ‘unique events’. These events are used to train Rivian’s offline model in the cloud before data is distilled back to individual vehicles.
As Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe explained in early March, HWA marked the very beginning of an expanding automated-driving feature set, “going from highways to surface roads, to turn-by-turn.”
For now, HWA still requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road. The system will send alerts if you drift too long without paying attention. But stay tuned—eyes-off driving is set for 2026.
It’s also part of what Rivian calls its “Giving you your time back” philosophy, the first of three pillars supporting Rivian’s vision over the next three to five years. Philbin says that philosophy is focused on “meeting drivers where they are”, as opposed to chasing full automation in the way other automakers, such as Tesla’s robotaxi, might be doing.
“We recognize a lot of people buy Rivians to go on these adventures, to have these amazing trips. They want to drive, and we want to let them drive,” Philbin says. “But there’s a lot of other driving that’s very monotonous, very boring, like on the highway. There, giving you your time back is how we can give the best experience.”
This will also eventually lead to the third pillar of Rivian’s vision, which is delivering Level 4, or high-automation vehicles: Those will offer features such as auto park or auto valet, where you can get out of your Rivian at the office, or at the airport, and it goes off and parks itself.
While not promising anything, Philbin says he believes the current Gen 2 hardware and platforms should be able to support these upcoming features.
The second pillar for Rivian is its focus on active safety features, as the EV-maker rewrote its entire autonomous vehicle (AV) system for its Gen2 models. This focus allowed Rivian’s R1T to be the only large truck in North America to get a Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
“I believe there’s a lot of innovation in the active safety space, in terms of making those features more capable and preventing more accidents,” Philbin says. “Really the goal, the north star goal, would be to have Rivian be one of the safest vehicles on the road, not only for the occupants but also for other road users.”

Read more
Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan hit the brake on shipments to U.S. over tariffs
Range Rover Sport P400e

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will pause shipments of its UK-made cars to the United States this month, while it figures out how to respond to President Donald Trump's 25% tariff on imported cars.

"As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans," JLR said in a statement sent to various media.

Read more