A Swedish company called Mionix Labs is developing the NAOS QG (Quantified Gaming) mouse, a device that will track your heart rate, galvanic skin response, and actions-per-minute while playing a video game. The Quantified Gaming mouse will take all those vitals and statistics and will display them on screen to allegedly help you make better decisions and, when used in conjunction with friends that have the same device, coordinate in-game more effectively.
The software that comes with the mouse will naturally allow you to record and analyze your data over a gaming session. In theory, this will allow you track when you were at your most stressful points in a match – whether that be in the mix of a big gunfight or frantically redirecting your marines to avoid a Zealot. All of that is expected in any vital tracking system such as this, but the coolest function of the Quantified Gaming mouse is the real-time data.
On top of the recorded statistics, you will also have the option of displaying your heart rate, skin response, and other tracked conditions on your screen in real time. As shown Mionix Labs’ Kickstarter video, this means that you could, in theory, recognize when you are in too stressful of a situation and need evaluate a way to get around it and make better decisions in the middle of a game.
All of this of course depends on just how accurate the tracking is, considering it’s getting all this information just from your fingers and palm of your hand, and how easily you’ll be able to actually utilize the information. Anyone can see that their heart rate is spiking in the middle of a fight, but how well will you be able to know what to do to reduce that stress?
For me personally, being both a stat junkie and watcher of many Twitch streams, it would be a blast to see in real time just how certain scenarios in games affect the stress of some of the world’s top players. Just how much does a top Hearthstone player’s heart rate spike when he’s about to make a decision, or how many actions-per-minute (in real time!) is that top League of Legends player really putting out? The personal use is something to be desired for sure, but I can see this type of information being extremely fun to have as watching live-streamed games continues to grow.
With all that said, the entire system boils down to how well the tracking actually works. Gimmicky ways to track vital signs while playing games has been around for ages, but if Mionix Labs has a way to accurately track your heart rate and put it into a great ergonomic gaming mouse, they could really be onto something.
As of this writing, Mionix Labs sit at around $33,000 of their $100,000 funding goal for the project on Kickstarter, with 36 days remaining. The cheapest backer perk to guarantee your own NAOS QG mouse is $79 – a limited time offer that nets you the mouse for $50 less than its eventual retail price of $129.
Check out some images of Mionix in action from CES 2015.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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