Mudra Link Is A $200 Meta Neural Wristband Alternative For Any Device

A device at CES 2025 called Mudra Link claims to offer similar functionality to Meta's upcoming neural wristband.

As I experimented with various hand gestures during the demo, I saw what appeared to be a real-time representation of the neural signals passing through my wrist to my fingers on the screen behind me. Repeated actions would seem to yield similar patterns on the screen and, when a rep from the company moved my finger, I saw no signals to indicate that it was actually reading the commands I was sending my finger just a few seconds earlier.

Mudra Link representatives describe its sensors as "Surface Nerve Conducting (SNC)", and the description of how it works sounds very similar to Meta's neural wristband, which Meta describes as using sEMG (Surface electromyography). Both devices sense the electrical signals passing through your wrist to the muscles in your hand, your brain telling your fingers to move, in order to detect the positions and movements of your fingers without the need for optical hand tracking.

Representatives also pitched the idea of a pair of the wristbands, one each for mouse and keyboard, but I didn't test this myself. While bands like TapXR also enable this functionality, it is fascinating to imagine the dual-band input concept refined within an operating system supporting other input devices as well, with strong potential for powerful effects giving haptic feedback in connection with specific gestures sending commands to devices surrounding you.

One particularly exciting new feature I experienced was the wristband’s ability to detect pressure levels. Many input systems I've tried, like current open air hand tracking systems, only seem to recognize a singular pinch gesture signifying when fingers are touching. Representatives for Mudra Link, however, pitch their product as also measuring the intensity of pressure being applied between the fingers. Watching the gauge fill as I squeezed my fingers together pointed to the possibilities that this approach could potentially unlock.

At CES 2025, a representative wore TCL's RayNeo X3 Pro AR glasses while showing the basic concept for controlling menus with the wristband.

The price for the Mudra Link wristband is $199 as of this writing, with plans to ship in the coming weeks.

Wristbands like Mudra Link are an exciting development in wearable technology and hold a lot of promise for robust input within glasses and headsets. With precise control, pressure detection features, and potential wide compatibility with AR and XR devices, the Mudra Link wristband and similar upcoming devices could play a crucial role in the future of how we interact with our augmentations, virtual environments, and all the other devices around us.

While my demo was exciting and showed the potential for this tech, it wasn’t perfect. The system uses Bluetooth and there was a lot of interference at CES, and the limited time demo on the show floor wasn't enough to consider whether this device would be useful for real world tasks in the near future.

We're hoping to get a unit into our studios for further testing and once we do we’ll be able to share more about the potential use cases and reliability. Until then, I look forward to hearing more from Mudra Link and about other wearable XR technologies.