{"id":33945,"date":"2025-06-04T06:12:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T13:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=33945"},"modified":"2025-06-04T06:12:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T13:12:24","slug":"csun-2025-augmental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/csun-2025-augmental\/","title":{"rendered":"CSUN 2025: Augmental MouthPad Smart Mouthwear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Allison interviews Virgie Hoban from Augmental about the innovative MouthPad device, which provides hands-free and more accessible control for personal electronic devices.<\/p>\n<p>The MouthPad is smart mouthwear that enables hands-free control of your phone, computer, and tablet via a Bluetooth connection. Perched on the roof of your mouth, the device converts subtle tongue and head gestures into seamless cursor control and clicks.<\/p>\n<p>MouthPad is used as a trackpad by sliding the tip of the tongue along its surface while tapping or sipping on the device designates left or right mouse clicks, respectively. Alternatively, MouthPad features a built-in motion sensor that detects subtle head movements to trigger trackpad selections or mouse clicks.<\/p>\n<p>MouthPad works with your dentist or one of their dentist partners to perform a scan of the interior of your mouth, similar to how a dental night guard would be fitted. With these measurements, MouthPad is formed to fit snugly on the roof of your mouth.<\/p>\n<p>MouthPad can run continuously off its internal battery for 5 hours and can be fully charged in about 1.5 hours. MouthPad supports macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android devices.<\/p>\n<p>You can sign up to join the MouthPad waitlist at the link below.<\/p>\n<p>The interview setting is the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference show floor at the Anaheim Hilton.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.augmental.tech\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.augmental.tech\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1245\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dt5Vo_fxBto\" title=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Using a Screen Reader? <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/dt5Vo_fxBto\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Transcript of Interview:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Virgie Hoban is here in the MouthPad booth and we&#8217;re looking at what looks like a mouth guard that you would get from the dentist. And I had to stop. It talks about hands-free control for your personal devices. Why don&#8217;t you tell us about the product?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah, so we call it smart mouthwear. Basically rethinking the computer mouse to put it on the roof of your mouth for hands-free, more accessible control to your devices. So it does look like a retainer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Let&#8217;s hold it still for the camera for a moment. So we&#8217;re looking at something that&#8217;s got the impression of somebody&#8217;s teeth here. And there&#8217;s a little, that&#8217;s the trackpad there. And then what&#8217;s over on the side? That&#8217;s the controller?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> So that&#8217;s just tucked in all of our extra electronics, the battery, the Bluetooth enabled chip, and that&#8217;s our serpentine with some secret sauce where it can be customized for different mouth sizes. And then yeah, that&#8217;s the pressure sensitive touchpad.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So the problem this solves is you don&#8217;t have control of your hands and yet you want to control a mouse on a&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> &#8230;phone or a computer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah. All of the devices that have become so sort of integral in our&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, everything?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Everything. Everything. Anything that accepts Bluetooth. So even extending to a smart TV, but yeah, all computers operate&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So it&#8217;s basically a human interface device, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yes. We are trying to push the boundaries of human computer interaction and just rethink what has been a very non-inclusive interface, which is a hand on the mouse, which has been around since like the 60s, I think.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Yeah. So you had it in a little case and I heard you describing to the previous gentleman that you go get fitted at the dentist for this?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah. So that&#8217;s one of my roles is I will call your dentist or one of our dental partners and then just say, &#8220;Hey, we have this device. Your patient needs one. Can you take their quick scan?&#8221; This is the standard intraoral scan you would get for a dental night guard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Intraoral scan. I had to put a bunch of goo in my mouth. Do they scan now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> It&#8217;s back in the olden days! Now, we are&#8230; No, sorry. We were doing that just a couple of years ago, but yeah, a new way is just a little wand scanner that goes inside and takes it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Oh, I hated the goo. I hated that for a mouth guard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. We don&#8217;t like it either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> So this just fits up on the upper palate then?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah. So I can show you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> She&#8217;s going to put it in her own mouth there. Okay. She just fitted it up on her teeth, so she&#8217;s got it in her mouth. Looks pretty comfortable. It looks like.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong>  I&#8217;ll show you this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong>She&#8217;s opening up her phone and, oh, we just saw your passcode. So right now she&#8217;s moving her tongue around on the roof of her mouth and we&#8217;re watching the touch pad on the phone. An example of this is just a demonstration, right, of how it works. And then to select, would you just tap with your tongue?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> That&#8217;s right. Yeah, you just tap on the tongue. It&#8217;s pressure sensitive, so a left click is a tap with the tongue. A right click is a sip, negative pressure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> A sip. You mean&#8230; You suck on it. Oh my gosh, that&#8217;s really cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah, just wanting to add different dimensions. It&#8217;s also very customizable. You can choose either tongue tracking or head tracking because it&#8217;s got the motion sensors embedded as well. So if you do have neck mobility, you can use neck control, head control.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Oh wow, that is really cool. So is MouthPad on the market yet?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah, we started selling it last year. We&#8217;re currently prioritizing people who have disabilities or some level of hand impairment, but we&#8217;re looking forward to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Yeah. Not just the lazy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah, there&#8217;s also some cool applications for when your hands are busy, like surgeons or musicians actually. But yeah, for now, prioritizing people with hand impairments and we&#8217;ll be kicking off with our next production batch this summer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> And how much does it cost?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> It&#8217;s $1,500 and we work with a lot of different organizations to get it funded with assistive technology grants for folks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Okay. People like the VA might be able to help out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Yeah, the VA, a lot of voc rehab programs, Easter Seals, different organizations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Fantastic. This is fascinating. So where would people go to find MouthPad?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> So if you just go to our website, Augmental, like augment and mental, augmental.tech, T-E-C-H, and then on the top right, it&#8217;ll say, &#8220;Join the wait list,&#8221; and then we&#8217;ll screen all those entries. And if you have any kind of hand condition, then we&#8217;ll send you a purchase invitation soon in the next couple of months preparing for our public, sorry, the production launch this summer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Allison:<\/strong> Okay. So augmental.tech is where we could go to learn more about MouthPad. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virgie Hoban:<\/strong> Thank you so much. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Allison interviews Virgie Hoban from Augmental about the innovative MouthPad device, which provides hands-free and more accessible control for personal electronic devices. The MouthPad is smart mouthwear that enables hands-free control of your phone, computer, and tablet via a Bluetooth connection. Perched on the roof of your mouth, the device converts subtle tongue and head [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,147,140,146],"tags":[717,165,1219,7397,7396,7472,6166,119,7395,7479,1609,7476,7478,7481,7480,7474,1220,1636,1221,1075,7475,1224,1223,108,7477,1164,7473],"class_list":["post-33945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","category-blog-posts","category-interview","category-videos","tag-a11y","tag-accessibility","tag-allison-sheridan","tag-anaheim-hilton","tag-assistive-technology-conference","tag-augmental","tag-consumer-electronics","tag-csun","tag-csun-2025","tag-device-control","tag-electronics","tag-hands-free","tag-head-control","tag-motor-disabled","tag-mouse-click","tag-mouthpad","tag-nosillacast","tag-nosillacast-apple-podcast","tag-nosillacast-podcast","tag-podfeet","tag-smart-mouthwear","tag-spsheridan","tag-steve-sheridan","tag-technology","tag-tongue-control","tag-trackpad","tag-virgie-hoban"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/09-Augmental-Thumb.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33947,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33945\/revisions\/33947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}