Thalmic

Thalmic, officially Thalmic Labs, was a Canadian hardware technology company founded in 2009 by Stephen Lake and Aaron Brown in Waterloo, Ontario. The firm specialized in wearable computing and human-computer interaction, developing early consumer-oriented gesture-control devices.

Its flagship product, the MYO armband, was a wireless wearable that used surface electromyography sensors to detect electrical activity from forearm muscles. The MYO rendered muscle activity into gestures and motions to control computers, presentations, and other devices, and was supported by a software development kit for developers and partners.

In 2019 the company rebranded as North and shifted away from consumer wearables toward enterprise and augmented-reality hardware, with a public focus on North's smart glasses and related technologies. The Thalmic name and consumer MYO product were gradually retired as the company reorganized.

In 2020 North was acquired by Google, and the business unit and technology were integrated into Google's hardware efforts. The North/Focals product line was discontinued as an independent brand, with the assets absorbed into Google's wearable strategy.

Thalmic’s work contributed to early demonstrations of EMG-based gesture control and influenced subsequent efforts in wearable computing, augmented reality, and virtual reality interface design. The company played a notable role in Canada’s tech startup scene during the 2010s.