DIY Eye Tracker

What 'chu looking at?

Duration: Really scattered, mostly built over a single week in July 2026, testing ongoing

Motivation: I saw this video on Youtube about pianists wearing eye trackers and wanted to try it myself. Most notably I was interested in what I looked at when my hands were moving in two different directions, a use case not explored by the Youtube video.

Outcomes: It works pretty well when the thing the user is looking at matches the calibration state. For example, for the piano use case, I had to calibrate it with my laptop screen on my lap to match how my gaze is pointed downwards. It works really well if I look at anything on my laptop because, well, the calibration is done while looking at point on a laptop screen...

But yeah, didn't really spend too much time on the calibration algorithm, so that could definintely be improved. Also the world-facing camera FOV is quite limited compared to how much my eyes can actually see when my head is pointed any given diection

My Work

Use case -- Typing

How I look when I'm typing cleanly (trial 1) vs making lots of mistakes (trial 2)

Use case -- Playing piano

Context, I am out of practice in all the below videos, brace your ears...