Well, we’ve decided. We’re going with SMI systems. They offer both a glasses-based and a relatively portable tabletop system. Their tabletop system can be used on not only traditional computer kiosks on a table but also larger screens mounted on a wall, or even projection screens in a theater. Their glasses offer HD resolution “scene video,” that is, the recording of what the subject is looking at over the course of the trial as their field of vision (likely) changes. We got an online walk-through of their powerful software and could see instantly all the statistical methods we could use. After comparing to the systems we saw in Dr. Hornof’s lab, this was the clear winner for use.

Are they a perfect fit? Well, no. They seem to have a relatively small sales force, and that made scheduling a bit of a headache and resulted in a couple of errors in quotes. Those got resolved, but it makes us wonder a bit about how big their technical and support staff is, should we have issues with set up. That was one of our major concerns with another company with a great-looking product, and, if you recall, is one of my personal concerns with fancy new technology. SMI has been around for 20 years, however, and other signs point to them being well-established. They also don’t offer all the features we would love to have in our software in their base package, so they are a bit more expensive overall. But the other company offering a lot of software features was even more expensive and didn’t sell their own hardware. Their hardware isn’t easy to repair ourselves as are some systems that use more off-the-shelf optics. Oh, and they rely on a physical USB “dongle” for their license for the software. None of these outweighed their advantages in the long run.

Now, we have to let down all the other companies, write the grant application, and cross our fingers that the matching funds come through … which we won’t know until January.