Tobii
More info
- Creator
- John Elvesjö, Mårten Skogö, Henrik Eskilsson
- Released
- 2001
- Type
- Eye tracking
- Website
- tobii.com
The Stockholm company that taught computers to see where you're looking — first for people who can't use their hands, later for games and VR.
Three engineers founded it in 2001 around a prototype built in a flat: infrared LEDs and a camera that work out gaze direction from the corneal reflection and the position of the pupil. The first serious market was accessibility — people with ALS or cerebral palsy typing, speaking through speech synthesis and driving a computer with their eyes. That business was spun off in 2021 as Tobii Dynavox and listed on its own.
The rest of the company went after research, driver-drowsiness systems for cars and consumer gear. Its biggest win is the eye tracking inside Sony's PlayStation VR2 (2023), which renders only the spot you're looking at in full resolution. That desktop gamers never really asked for gaze-controlled menus is a lesson Tobii paid for.