SMI expands eye tracking business with office in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, USA & BERLIN & TETLOW, GERMANY: On January 1st 2014, SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) will open an office in San Francisco to focus on eye tracking integration in the consumer and industrial applications and to be close to leading Universities in scientific research eye tracking

SMI, a leader in eye tracking technology and application, expands its presence in California with a new office in San Francisco. Having an office in California, the hub of high-tech businesses, allows SMI to lay a stronger focus on the growing opportunities with OEM partners in consumer and industrial gaze based interaction applications and with end users in scientific and research applications.

The new presence will play an essential role in serving key SMI customers located at the West Coast including Stanford University, Google, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, HP, Boeing, Sony, Qualcomm, and many more.

After selling its OEM Ophthalmic business unit to Alcon, leader in medical eye care, SensoMotoric Instruments has been growing rapidly due to its leading eye tracking technology solutions and longstanding relationship with best in class partners. SMI has a long track record of innovative product developments.

Two years ago, SMI revolutionized the way researchers gain insights into eye movements in real-world environments. This year, the eye tracking specialist further raised the bar and introduced SMI Eye Tracking Glasses 2.0 with a new Samsung Galaxy smartphone recorder. And besides academic and commercial research, there are fascinating new applications for SMI's mobile eye tracking glasses by combining gaze interaction with a new generation of head-mounted displays as Google Glass and others.

Using the eyes to interact with games, consumer and industrial applications creates entirely new user experiences. SMI's flexible contact free eye tracking platform has gained the confidence of global players who seek to integrate gaze interaction technology into consumer devices such as tablets and into assistive and industrial applications. Recently, Sony's Magic Labs announced that they use SMI RED-oem eye tracking to develop new gaze interaction game concepts for the PlayStation 4.

"The last 12 months have been remarkably dynamic for SMI. We continued to push the envelope in all directions: New products and technologies, new partners, new applications driving a continuously and profitably growing business. We have very strong networks in the Bay Area and the new office will help us further expand them," says Eberhard Schmidt, MD of SMI. "We are very grateful for the strong interest from customers and the focus and energy of our team to satisfy it."