ATU789 – Kinemo with Nordine Sebkhi and Arpan Bhavsar

Hi, this is Nordine Sebkhi and I am the CEO of Kinemo.

Hi, this is Arpan and I’m the CTO of Kinemo and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 789 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on July 10th, 2026.

Today, listeners, we are going fully hands-free with the folks from Kinemo to talk about their devices, the Kinemo One and the Connect, and how they’re able to assist individuals with accessing their technology. And I, for one, cannot wait to learn more. Guys, welcome back to the show.

Hi, Josh.

Hey, Josh. Thanks for having us again.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. For folks who’ve never maybe heard you before, before we get into talking about the tech, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

Oh, yeah. So my name is Nordine Sebkhi and I am the CEO, a co-founder of Kinemo. And my background is actually in engineering from Georgia Tech and I’ve been working on my PhD on wearable body motion tracking systems for the medical field and our Kinemo system really came out of that research work that was a few years back.

Nice. And Arpan?

Yeah, so my background is fairly similar. So I did my electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech, both my undergrad and my master’s. I did not go on to do my PhD. I graduated in 2019 with my undergrad and 2020 with my master’s. And all throughout that time, I’ve been working with Nordine pretty significantly on the research side of that of my degree on this wearable body motion tracking technology. So we’ve worked on developing this technology for various applications like Nordine mentioned, but the one that we decided to really take forward and especially into the market is the Kinemo technology that we’ll be talking more about today.

Awesome. Awesome, guys. And I got to ask you, what led you to start working on the kind of different access technology?

Yeah. So again, when I was doing my research work with Arpan as my research partner, we were really working on different application for our wearable body motion tracking systems that we are developing. There was a lot of things in speech application. So one thing that we’re very lucky is that the Shepherd Center is here in Atlanta where Georgia Tech is. So we’re able to learn about that need for accessibility or innovation in accessibility.

So we had the chance to work on the study with Brooks Rehabilitation Center in Jacksonville, Florida that enabled us to try the technology with people that have a spinal cord injury. And when we saw on the face that they were really happy to see this kind of new innovation coming out of a research lab and by talking to the clinicians, caregiver, and pretty much all stakeholders, we really realized that there was a large need for a new type of way for people with disability or physical disability to interact with their technology.

So this is where we decided with Arpan at the time that, hey, let’s focus on this application and let’s take our system out of the lab and into the market in order to help people with physical disability to take advantage of the latest technology advances in wearables and motion tracking and human computer interface in order for them to have a better access to their devices.

Awesome. I guess there’s a few different control devices here. So can we start off with talking about the Kinemo One? What is it?

Yeah, so Kinemo Connect and the Kinemo One are similar devices. The core technology of Kinemo and with the value proposition or the innovation we’re bringing is that we want people to use any part of the body that they can still move to control the devices. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

As I think your listeners would know, people that have a physical disability, and we’re talking here specifically with people that have a limited function of the hands, they cannot use a mouse, a keyboard, a touchscreen. All of that requires the use of your hands and your fingers. So for those that cannot use their hands is what else can they use to control the devices? Okay?

Mm-hmm.

Of course, you hear a lot about brain-computer interface. Right?

Yeah.

There’s all talk about that, but as of today, we don’t see any product that’s going to come out anytime soon. So in the meantime, what can we do? So this is where the idea is like, “Hey, whatever they can still move, let’s take that body movement, that body gestures, and let’s use that as a way for them to emulate a mouse, a keyboard, or any sort of human computer interactions.” Okay?

Mm-hmm.

And the way we do that is thanks to very small motion sensors that you can attach directly on the body and those are the size of a fingernail.

Oh, wow.

So they’re pretty small and inconspicuous and you can put it underneath your clothes. So very inconspicuous as a design, but you can place those very tiny motion sensors on the body and then the sensors can detect that movement of the body, even tiny movement. And then what we do with our Kinemo system is that we translate that movement into a digital comment. And this can be moving a mouse cursor, this can be doing a left click or right click on your computer, or it can emulate a switch for people that use switch access on their devices. And a lot of other application we can talk about, but that’s the premises of Kinemo. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

Translate body gestures into digital comments.

Very cool. Can you give me some examples of some of the different body gestures, just some examples of different ones I might be able to use?

Yeah. So for example, we work a lot with people with spinal cord injury and we’re talking here about people that cannot move anything below their shoulders. So what we do is that we can use a shoulder shrug in order for them to do a left click on their computer.

Nice.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

Or to do a tap on their phone. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So some type of clicking, they can do that by just shrugging the shoulder. Other examples will be we place our sensors on the head. Typically, we place it behind the ear like this. It’s really hidden away. And that sensors can convert head movement into mouse control. So now you can move your head and pretty much what you’re looking at at the screen, this is where the mouse will move, and then you can click by shrugging your shoulder.

Nice.

So that would be a simple way for somebody to be able to do, let’s say, 80% that what you need to do on the computer, which is what we call point-and-click, which is basically moving the mouse pointer somewhere and then clicking. So they can do that by just moving their head and shrugging the shoulder. So that’s an example of a setup that we use a lot.

But there are people that cannot, let’s say, shrug the shoulders, but they can twitch their cheek. Right?

Mm-hmm.

So let’s think about people with advanced stage of ALS. Right?

Yeah.

So they cannot move anything beside facial movement so we will use their cheek. If they twitch their cheek, that can be a click.

Nice.

If they raise the eyebrow, that can be another function. Let’s say that can be a right click on your computer. Right?

Mm-hmm.

Or for switch control, it can be moving to the next item by just moving your cheek and can be selecting an item by raising your eyebrow. Okay?

Cool, yeah.

So those would be examples of how to use our system.

So I’ll just add that the fact that we can put this on different parts of the body goes into really how we came up with the technology and the problem we were trying to solve with Kinemo. So a major, I guess, revelation, you could say, that we learned is that every condition is extremely unique. It doesn’t matter if you have a spinal cord injury, if you have ALS, you have muscular dystrophy, so on and so forth. Even if two people have the exact same condition, their condition will present itself very differently. So every condition is entirely unique.

So when we were trying to come up with a way for these individuals to be able to control devices, we realized there was a lot of customization that was needed in the field. So what we wanted to do was create a condition-agnostic device. So that’s a reason why the sensors are so small and the reason why we can attach it to different parts of the body and that’s all by design so that we can adapt to whatever condition a user might have. So if someone wants to use their eyebrow all the way down to even using their foot or their toe, we can adapt the exact same device and just configure it for that use case.

So I think it really goes into I think our device really tries to solve that, I guess, that need, that every condition is entirely unique, everyone moves their body differently, and what we want to do is create a device that’s highly adaptable and customizable to whatever movement a user might have.

Nice. I guess guys, what does setup and calibration look like?

Well, it’s pretty straightforward. Literally what you have to do is you just place that sensors on the body part that you want to use. And what’s good with our system is because we use motion sensor, the placement doesn’t have to be precise.

Nice.

Okay?

Mm-hmm.

We know with other type of sensors, for example, with EMG sensors, those are the sensors that look at muscle activity. You know?

Mm-hmm.

It’s really great as technology, but one of the big issue that we learn from clinicians is that it’s really hard to place them in order to get that muscle activity right. So that’s why we decided early on, let’s not use a sensor, let’s just use a motion sensor. Because as long as it can detect some movement of that body part, again, it doesn’t matter where it’s placed, if you can detect that movement, that’s all what you need.

So it’s fairly simple setup and then calibration, well, it depend on the use case. For a lot of use cases, there is no calibration. So it’s really plug and play-

Nice.

… because again, we just look at movement and our algorithm is able to figure out what is an intended movement from the user to do an action versus what is just normal body movement. But if you want to move a mouse cursor, that’s the only case where you need to do a calibration and the calibration takes literally two seconds.

Oh, nice.

The only thing you have to do is look at your screen and move your head up. That’s all what we need for a system to figure out all of the parameters that it needs for the user to now start moving that mouse cursor. So less than a minute, you should be going from caregiver placing the sensors on you to you’re ready to control your device.

Awesome. Awesome. And you kind of already answered my next question about the maybe not involuntary movements, but can it tell the difference between the movement I’m trying to execute in order to do the task and ones that are maybe just normal kind of movement? So I love that it’s able to differentiate between those. That’s got to really cut down on frustration for the user.

Yeah, indeed. And this is really what one part of the innovation is. Well, with the Kinemo system, I would say there is two main category of innovation. One is the design of the system, how we made it in a way that is easy to set up and calibrate, but the other one is all this algorithm that we have developed that is parsing those motion data in order to try to capture the user intent when they’re moving the body. And that’s not a trivial problem to solve, but this is why Arpan and myself and our clinical partners, we collected a lot of data and developed those algorithms over time to try to get better and better at discerning that user-intended movement.

What kind of devices could I connect to the Kinemo and what all different functions could I be able to control?

Yeah. So with a Kinemo product, you are able to control any device that can receive an input control, so that’s very broad. If you want more specific applications, so any type of smartphones. Android, iOS doesn’t matter. Any type of tablet, any type of computers, MicroS, Windows, Linux, doesn’t matter. Why? Because we are seen as a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So the only thing you have to do is just pair a device the same way you will pair a mouse Bluetooth to your device and that’s it. And now we can communicate with your digital device.

Nice.

Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So that’s, let’s say, personal digital devices that you can control, but then there is more specialized equipment. So for example, communication devices, like an AAC device, so you are able to control that with our system. Power wheelchairs, so you can plug our system … Although it typically will use Bluetooth controls, so it sends data through Bluetooth, but also devices can send data through a wired jack cable. And why we use a wired jack is because there are still a lot of adaptive equipment that is using that as a way to be controlled. So basically a wheelchair, a power wheelchair, they have jack input to do changing the speed of the wheelchair, turn on and off the wheelchair, those kind of actions.

So we also can do that with our system, but we have also shown that we can do more advanced controls. For example, robotic arms. There is one company we worked with that’s called Kinova that they are develop or they are selling that it’s called a Jaco arm, which is a very advanced robotic arm that can be connected to their power wheelchairs for the user to be able to interact with a physical environment using that arm. So typically, you will use a joystick to control that arm. But again, for those that cannot use a joystick because they cannot use their hand, then we were able to show that using other part of the body, you can control that robotic arm.

Very, very cool. Yeah. So talked about that there were two different versions, the One and the Connect. What are the differences between the two?

Yeah. So we started developing the Kinemo Connect and what the Kinemo Connect is, it’s a way to have up to three sensors that you can put on your body, so up to three body parts, that you can use to control your devices. And with that, it gives you so many options that you can do very advanced human computer interactions. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So with the Kinemo Connect, you can move a mouse cursor using, let’s say, your head, you can even use your hand for those that can still move their hand but cannot move their arm to use a mouse or a joystick, or they can use their foot.

Nice.

Typically, those would be the three body parts that you will use to move a mouse cursor. And then the other body movement, you can use that to click, to swipe, to scroll.

Nice.

You can pause our system also like this, you can talk to people, do other things without sending controls to your devices. And also, the Kinemo Connect can be paired up to three Bluetooth devices. So you can go control your smartphone, your tablet, and your computer, for example, and the user themselves can use a body gesture to switch from one device to the other. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So the idea here is to give them as much independence as possible by giving them a lot of options through those three, what we call, activation sites on the body. Okay?

Yeah.

So that’s what the Connect can do.

Now, when we were showing those early prototypes of the Connect to clinicians, they were telling us, “This is great. It’s awesome. You have all this options. It’s going to help a lot of our patients. But you know what? We also have patients that they are so limited in their movement that they only use a switch. They have a push button and that’s all they can use right now. Do you have something that’s going to be a little bit easier to use and program and put on the body that is very advanced device?” And that’s why we come up with idea of the Kinemo One.

Nice.

So we call it One because it’s one sensor. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

We can only use one body part and you can see that device as a wearable body switch. Instead of somebody having to press a button, a physical button, or flip a switch, it’s like, “Okay, let’s use your body and whatever that body movement, that’s going to be your switch.” Okay?

Mm-hmm.

So the fact that it’s wearable, it makes a huge difference for those people who are using switches because a big problem is the fact that the switches have to be precisely placed for those users to be able to hit them or activate that switch. Why? Because the majority of our users are so limited in their movement that they may have just few, we say, millimeters of a movement they can do. So the caregiver has to precisely place those switches, which is very, very cumbersome to do that.

So now, with this wearable sensor with a Kinemo One, it takes all of that away. They just have to put that sensor on that body part that they want to use as a switch and then they move that body part. That can be a small finger movement. That can be a small knee-jerk. It can be your toe wiggling. It can be, like we talked about, a cheek, an eyebrow. Whatever it is, they can use that as a way to activate a switch and then that will do some actions in the target device.

Cool.

Okay?

Mm-hmm.

That is great as a clicker, for example. Right?

Mm-hmm.

People that use Eyegaze system on their devices, a lot of them have to use what they call Dwell Control. Right?

Yeah.

So they have to look somewhere and then they have to stare at that button or widget on the screen for a certain time before it’s been activated and that’s very fatiguing when you have to do that. So the idea here is that with the Kinemo One, hey, you just need a way to click. That’s all what I care about. So let’s just have this one body part I can move and this will click on my device.

Nice.

So that’s really the difference between the Connect and the One. It’s the same sensors, it’s the same core technology about converting body movement into controls, but it’s just two different application or use cases.

Nice.

Kinemo One is you have a switch that you want to replace with a wearable device. Kinemo Connect is you want to do a lot of advanced controls on your devices.

Cool. Could you tell me a story about someone’s experience using Kinemo?

Yeah. So we have one user and their husband is someone who was talking to us and they were mentioning that their wife is someone who’s diagnosed with ALS. So this is someone who has really no use of any of her limbs and she needs use of her iPad for day-to-day activities. So they’ve been struggling for a really long time to find a good way to access it and they’ve been using Eyegaze, as well as using other switches, but primarily using Dwell. And that’s been kind of problematic and it’s been resulting in a lot of frustration with the device. And we very recently sent them a Kinemo One and the reaction to that was absolutely incredible.

So I mean, I’m going to quote exactly from the email, but their reaction was, “The reduction in frustration is amazing. Oh my God, I can actually type something.” So just seeing something like that, obviously it makes really everything that we’re doing so worth it. But essentially what our device was able to do is have that user not have to use Dwell Control anymore and be able to more instantaneously click on whatever they needed to on their iPad to be able to control it much more independently and with much, much less frustration. So I think that’s one really good use case.

And another one I really want to mention real quick is one user who really had no control of their body except her foot. And that’s a really interesting one because what they were doing … The foot is something you wouldn’t think of as being used as a means of control. And what this individual was doing is they had a switch placed right next to her foot, but that switch, placing that switch precisely is extremely difficult. It moves throughout the day, caregivers may change throughout the day, so every caregiver might place that switch a little differently. And then also, the range of motion throughout the day of that user will change.

So to alleviate all of that, when you have a wearable device like ours that can be placed anywhere like the foot, one, it removes any sort of mounting, and two, it really will just detect whatever range of motion that a user would have for that day. So all of those features combined, it was really amazing to see. I think the reaction from that one was just, “We’re finally able to use something that we’ve been struggling with so long,” which was her foot, “to be able to control a tablet.” In this case, it was for communication. So hearing that reaction was really, really gratifying.

If our listeners want to find out more, what’s a good way for them to do that?

The best way is to go on our website, which is kinemo.io, but also, ours is to go on our social media. This is where we post regularly.

So they can find us on LinkedIn. They can search for Kinemo. On Instagram, you can find us @KinemoInc and then Facebook as well, that’d be Kinemo Inc. And hopefully we can have all these links available in the show description.

Perfect. We will add all of those down there.

Yeah, I would like to give a shout-out to our partners that were able to help us make Kinemo a success. So for one, I would like to give acknowledgement to the IMPACT Center for the University of Pittsburgh that really enabled us to connect with the community and help us go through their startup accelerator. But also, I want to give a shout-out to the National Institute on Disability, or NIDILRR. That was one of the government entity that founded the first prototypes of Kinemo. And also, I would like to shout out to the Georgia Research Alliance that also has been with us since our research day at Georgia Tech and really believed that this technology can be a product that people would love. So they have been our first sponsor and have been with us for the past eight years, so thank you very much. And also to Georgia Tech that enabled us to work on this technology during our research days.

Nordine and Arpan, thank you so much for coming back on for telling us all about Kinemo and just how it’s able to really just help folks access the different technology that they need to in the way that best fits them. So thank you so much.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Josh.

Thank you, Josh. It’s great.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject.

Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation, or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com.

A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host.

This was your Assistive Technology Update and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.