Again, Easter Monday now, a “bad hand day” occurs.

Not out of the ordinary given recent experiences, but, there you go. As it appears, we are here to “try out” this new wildebeast that Touchbionics built, the iLimb Ultra Revolution.

Here is the rundown.

• Put on liner.
• Put on iLimb with socket.
• Connected electrodes.
• Tried to log in iPad.
• Wrong user / password despite this being a single user / single hand setup.
• That takes ages.
• Logging in to hand.
• Switching it on and off several times.
• The software has a very hard time connecting.
• Trying to go >Grips >Custom grip page (3/3) >
• Defining a new grip?
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Check – nothing is saved.
• Defining a new grip, attempt 2.
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Check – nothing is saved.
• Defining a new grip, attempt 3.
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Check – nothing is saved.
• Trying to find handbook online.
• Found handbook.
• No information on the software.
• Trying to use “my iLimb software”, again.
• Several attempts to reconnect to the “my iLimb software” fail.
• Lengthy disconnect and reconnect with restart of Bluetooth and iLimb hand ultimately work.
• Defining a new grip, attempt 4.
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Check – nothing is saved.
• Also, no individual finger setup option anywhere.
• Trying to find handbook online, again.
• Found handbook.
• Now, information on the software.
• Trying to use “my iLimb software”, again.
• Several attempts to reconnect to the “my iLimb software” fail.
• Lengthy disconnect and reconnect with restart of Bluetooth and iLimb hand ultimately work.
• Defining a new grip, attempt 5.
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Check – nothing is saved.
• Also, no individual finger setup option anywhere.
• The handbook does not help.
• Checking handbook (PDF).
• Trying to use “my iLimb software”, again.
• Several attempts to reconnect to the “my iLimb software” fail.
• Lengthy disconnect and reconnect with restart of Bluetooth and iLimb hand ultimately work.
• Defining a new grip, attempt 6.
• Typing in title.
• Hitting “save” without further ado.
• Finally, a grip title is shown.
• Opening grip again. Title appears on top.
• Now, hitting “start” or so.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Wiggling thumb.
• Hitting save.
• Opening grip again.
• Finally, individual finger setup option anywhere.
• Trying to “share” grip does not yield me a QR code for own backup purposes.
• Reading another iLimb QR code into QR reading software shows a code that is stored in the iLimb grip QR codes (e.g., my-grip:typing:0:0:823A:0:385:0).
• Trying to encode one of these into a QR code to read back into the hand.
• Trying to use “my iLimb software”, again.
• Several attempts to reconnect to the “my iLimb software” fail.
• Lengthy disconnect and reconnect with restart of Bluetooth and iLimb hand ultimately work.
• Trying to scan QR code into a custom grip.
• Only works with iLimb QR codes but not normal QR codes that encode the grip programming string (e.g., my-grip:typing:0:0:823A:0:385:0).
• So Touchbionics does not want us to encode and save our own grip codes. They want to monopolize the grip definitions all by themselves.
• Back and forth within QR coding, handbook and “my iLimb” software is massively tedious.
• Trying to use “my iLimb software”, again.
• Several attempts to reconnect to the “my iLimb software” fail.
• Lengthy disconnect and reconnect with restart of Bluetooth and iLimb hand ultimately work.
• For some reason, the hand gives up on me.
• Hand health check and battery (80%) are good.
• Checking myo signal levels (GREAT DIAGNOSTICS) show that no signal is given on the “close” side.
• Electrode replacement, pressuring, skin check, no success.
• I give up.
• The hand managed to survive 1/2 an hour of attempts to use and program, export and share grips, but this QR code trickery seems to be some sort of internal Touch Bionics dead pool of sorts.
• Why that is, is entirely beyond me. Are we afraid of “grips we do not know of”.
• If I was them, I would thoroughly document the text strings for grips, such as “my-grip:typing:0:0:823A:0:385:0”, and get folks to encode and share their own QR codes all across the scenery.
• I would start by using these as a backup, and a numerical access to this is great for fine tuning.
• A year after a year trying to get decent reliable myo arm controls, but, screw it.
• Reliable myoelectric control sure seems very far away.
• So, give a minute for every line that you read here.
• You understand how that is frustrating, maybe?
• I once tried to take out a garbage bag. I ended up trying to switch grip patterns after three or so minutes standing at my front door. They just would not switch.
• Do I rather give up on grip switching or on taking out garbage? Alright, too much philosophy, I know. Sorry, guys. The iLimb was “for the little things” not for big 35L bags.
• Ultimately, the Touch Bionics guys are a bit paranoid, but then, the technology they totally bank on -myoelectric skin electrodes – certainly just stops working out of nowhere all the time, why that is not a priority, who is to tell.
• Given they want to strive by selling insanely overpriced gadgetry, getting any function out there must be the unconditional goal, whatever it is people can use must be immediately put to use. Not sit on stuff, not encode stuff. But I am sure they have their reasons. Can I then have mine?
• But then, who knows what that software all logs, saves, processes and stores.
• The last time, these electrodes crapped out on me some 5 minutes into vacuum cleaning the house. Then it was sweat.

With that, an otherwise fabulous Easter comes to an end. I swam a few nice ones, worked a lot, and we otherwise had a perfect weekend.