Hi there. We're a bootstrapped hardware startup in New Zealand. Been working on this for a couple of years. Its been a long hard slog but getting there. In our first prototype (which cut the hair in the video), we tracked the head position using a realsense depth camera, and tracked the handheld device with the Valve lighthouse system. This worked well and could track the handhelds position on the head down to 2mm, even with the head moving. Our next prototype we're gonna make tracking a lot less complex.
Woah. This is an ingenious approach. Obvious in retrospect, but that makes it even more impressive.
It looks like it will have difficulty with some hair types and for more complicated haircuts, e.g. with blending. Also the neck line and around the ears will probably need manual trim too.
Kudos for tackling something that seems largely impossible to do. Break a leg.
Hey thanks, appreciate your comment. We sort of approached it from first principles i.e if we are going to be able to control length cutting at a high resolution then we need to capture hair near the base to know what hair you have captured. Then you need to straighten and apply slight tension to to able to cut it to the right length etc. And it formed from there. After the fact it's interesting how its quite similar to what a hairdresser does. Take a section of hair, cut it and move to the next. Haven't done testing on a wide range of hair types but yes that will likely be limited i.e if its to tight to run a comb through. We are implementing a new clipper mode that will auto adjust hair clippers heights as it moves, so should be able to handle blends on neck, but you are right, behind the ears is our achilles heel haha. I think the fact that it seems impossible is what keeps us interested :)
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Let me know what you think. Also any ideas on making hardware contacts US please let me know!
It looks like it will have difficulty with some hair types and for more complicated haircuts, e.g. with blending. Also the neck line and around the ears will probably need manual trim too.
Kudos for tackling something that seems largely impossible to do. Break a leg.