HMDspeller: Fast and Hands-free Text Entry System for Head Mount Displays using Silent Spelling Recognition

As virtual reality and augmented reality technology become more popular in office and communication contexts, the need for simple and efficient text input methods for these devices becomes more evident. We propose the use of an HMDspeller, which allows for text input at a speed of more than 30 words per minute without the need of using hands. Our method utilizes a technique called "silent spelling," which serves as a compromise between text entry and silent speech. The HMDspeller uses an infrared camera to capture the user’s silent spelling and decode the words, achieving a character error rate of 13.9% for seen words and 26.6% for unseen words without using language models or dictionaries.