Which Eye Tracker Is Right for Your Research? Performance Evaluation of Several Cost Variant Eye Trackers

Abstract

Though not often mentioned, the price point of many eye tracking systems may be a factor limiting their adoption in research. Recently, several inexpensive eye trackers have appeared on the market, but to date little systematic research has been conducted to validate these systems. The present experiment attempted to address this gap by evaluating and comparing five different eye trackers, the Eye Tribe Tracker, Tobii EyeX, Seeing Machines faceLAB, Smart Eye Pro, and Smart Eye Aurora for their gaze tracking accuracy and precision. Results suggest that all evaluated trackers maintained acceptable accuracy and precision, but lower cost systems frequently also experienced high rates of data loss, suggesting that researchers adopting low cost systems such as those evaluated here should be judicious in their research usage.