My Journey to Create EyeKonect

By summer of 2020, I had constantly been on Zoom or Teams calls for business and personal meetings. I noticed they gradually lost liveliness and became more of a drudgery for most people on the calls. Later in mid-2021, I made a few short videos for YouTube, but found that my presentations were lacking eye contact with the audience. My eyes were all over the place except connecting with the audience consistently, so I had to redo them 2-3 times to really make them worthwhile.

I realized that in my desire to connect with the audience, I was looking into their face on the screen, but failing to look into the camera which shows eye-to-eye contact. On the contrary, if I looked at the camera briefly, I was missing the audience’s reactions, which forced me to look downward to see their faces. It was a constant struggle! When this happens, the audience are looking at my forehead mostly with a downward gaze (droopy eyes). In a way, they may perceive that I am not looking at them, but focused on my computer screen looking at something else. And this happens on both sides!

Then a thought ran through my mind.? Since I am a genuinely conscientious person who makes every effort to connect with my audience on video calls and YouTube videos, and am struggling, then this might be a problem for millions of people out there.? People who are interviewing, making a sales pitch, teaching, etc. must be having the same problem. ?A cursory search showed that this indeed was a problem as there were already ample articles on the importance of eye contact during video calls, verifying eye contact can make or break a scenario depending on the context. In a panel interview, the applicant failing to make a genuine eye contact could send wrong signals to the interviewing panel. The panel who was watching the applicant’s facial expressions could easily draw negative conclusions. I found this to be true in so many other examples relying on video conferences to meet business objectives.

To avoid this situation, I found the best thing is to place my audience, single person, or a group, close to the camera. I completed the proof of concept using a prototype.?? EyeKon monitor, a sleek modern design with features and flexibility, allows me to look eye-to-eye as my gaze shifts upwards looking straight into the camera providing a teleprompter effect. I look into the camera as I focus on the audience faces, because both my audience and camera are in the center of my eye focus. That’s how EyeKonect works. It’s an effortless way to connect with the audience eye-to-eye by focusing on their face, which is what we would like to do naturally.