Project Activate

Research at Google

About this app

Text a loved one, get a caregiver's attention, or laugh along with friends. Project Activate is designed for people who are unable to speak or use technology with their hands, including those who have ALS, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, or multiple sclerosis, and those who have had a brainstem stroke or cervical spinal cord injury. This app enables you to activate customized preset communications by making facial gestures, such as smiling or looking up.

With your face, you can
• Play a text-to-speech phrase
• Play audio to express yourself or control a smart speaker
• Send a text message
• Make a phone call

With direct access, a loved one or carer can
• Customize communications
• Adjust the face gesture sensitivity

Notes
• Project Activate is designed as a general communication app and not as a call bell. The app is not intended or designed as a means to communicate in the event of an emergency or as a backup to any device that may be used in connection with an individual's medical care.
• Project Activate is not meant to replace a speech-generating device (SGD / AAC). People who typically use an SGD may find Project Activate useful for quickly expressing short phrases like “please wait” or “hah!”, as a secondary device, and on its own in situations where it is impractical to set up and calibrate an SGD.
• Sending text messages and making phone calls require that the device has a phone plan, and your plan's standard calling and messaging rates apply.
• If you are running Project Activate continuously, close the app or turn off your device for an hour every few days to minimize wear on your device.

Ratings and reviews

This is a really awesome approach! I'd be interested to see this supported as an API to configure nonverbal control within apps where you can map or reprogram these facial gestures to actions in an app. I wrote an app called ChatPaths for my daughter who is nonverbal and has CP and it can be challenging to use on its own without fine motor control. Being able to use eye movements to indicate left, right, select; or map to a resourceid that can call the desired action I could see being useful.

This is the kinda projects I want to see more of the person that would use this would need help setting it up and I think coping mimo's tutorial or at least the tutorial that epic uses for how and what buttons do is a must I was in ed LD classes all my school life I worked with alot of people that can't move there not dum just need defforent help I am happy to see Google making an effort I want to see the text to speak to be better for me personally and a way for this app to help them read

Cool idea! I was just trying it out. The app has a good degree of polish and would probably be usable in some circumstances

What's new

Initial Play Store listing