( CNN ) -- Take two video-game console cameras and one pair of horn-rimmed glasses and for around $ 30 you have a device that will allow you to control a computer or , potentially , even a wheelchair with your eyes . Previously , if you wanted to buy similar eye-tracking equipment it would have cost you upwards of $ 8,000 . Now , scientists in London have pioneered a device , the GT3D , using components anyone of us can buy from the shopping mall . Watch Make Create Innovate on Quest Means Business . The breakthrough could help millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis , Parkinson 's , muscular dystrophy and , potentially , opens the door to a new era of hands-free computers , allowing us to use them without a mouse , keyboard or touch screen . For the lead researcher Dr Aldo Faisal , a neuroscientist at Imperial College in London , the new device only came about because of his obsession with disassembling gadgets . `` I like to play with gadgets and was playing with a popular video-game console , '' he said . `` I hacked it and discovered it was very fast and better than any webcam for movement . Actually , it was so fast that I found we could record eye movement with it . '' Tracking eye movement is no mean feat . Our eyes moves 10 to 20 times a second , so a standard webcam or even film camera will miss most eye movements and where we are looking . As such , it is perhaps no surprise commercial eye-tracking devices are so expensive . Watch a demonstration of the technology . Luckily for Faisal and his team of researchers , video game console makers have been willing to bulk buy the technology needed to make good enough cameras . They make a loss on the console cameras in the expectation of making it back on accompanying video game sales . `` We originally created the device for £39.80 ( $ 64 ) but recent falls in the price of video game console cameras mean we could now actually make the same device for about £20 ( $ 32 ) , '' says Faisal . The eye-tracking device works by first establishing where the eyes are looking , through a relatively straight-forward calibration process . The user puts on the glasses , with the two attached cameras , and stares at a computer screen full of dots . They are then told to look at different dots , with software developed by the researchers working out how the eye looks at each dot . Opinion : 'Teach young people to be more innovative ' Once calibrated , the device can be used to control a mouse on the screen and is so accurate that if you were in a normal-sized room and wearing the device it would be able to locate where you were looking to within the size of a grapefruit , say its developers . Existing commercially available devices such as the Tobii PCEye and the EyeTech TM3 also allow users to control a computer with their eye instead of a mouse . Like the GT3D , they use two cameras and say they can be used to surf the web , send emails and do anything a handheld mouse can do -- but they are priced between around $ 5,000 and $ 7,000 . And if you search online , you will find many amateur attempts to create eye-tracking devices just like the GT3D . But Faisal says the difference with his is that it has been properly tested and proven to work -- a demonstration of his device has been published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Neuroscience . Unsurprisingly , the interest in his technology has been huge , he says . Several companies have already approached him to develop and mass-produce the device . However , Faisal says , none have so far embraced his ambition for making it available at a low cost to millions . Instead , they all preferred to undercut existing eye-tracking devices by 10 % . `` My mission is that we forge technology with neurological science to find ways to help millions of people with disabilities , such as loss of limbs or muscular disorders , use technology in a cheap way , '' said Faisal . `` We want to make sure people can buy the device for no more than £80 ( $ 125 ) . '' Quiz : Accidental inventions . If no commercial partner comes forward within the next year or two , Faisal says they will publish all the information about their device and software online and make it freely available for anyone to replicate . For many disability campaigners , such a device can not come soon enough . `` Those with extreme muscle-wastage in their arms often rely on carers to work on a computer , can not position themselves comfortably at a keyboard and quickly suffer fatigue from typing , '' says Dr Marita Pohlschmidt , director of research at the UK-based Muscular Dystrophy Campaign , who calls it a `` potentially life-changing innovation . '' `` It also offers us an exciting glimpse of future possibilities -- optical control of hoists , beds , blinds , kitchen and entertainment equipment . The impact of recovering the independence to do such things for disabled people , their carers -- and for family life -- would be vast , ' she adds . Faisal says it would already be possible to control a wheelchair with their device . The main obstacle is how to differentiate between where someone is looking at where they actually want to move to in the wheelchair . He says this has been overcome by his researchers through the use of a wink as a command trigger . `` We use a wink rather than a blink because you never wink by accident , '' explained Faisal . However , while he can see its popularity for disabled or elderly people , Faisal remains uncertain about whether cheap eye-tracking devices are ready to take over from the mouse and touch-screen computers . `` Perhaps it will bring in a new era of hands-free computers . But there is a problem in that the computer industry is moving towards touch systems with the iPad , so I 'm not sure the mass-market is going to embrace eye-movement just yet . Also , I am not sure it is ready for use with complicated applications like , for example , Photoshop . ''
UK scientist developed cost - effective technology that enables a person 's hand to control a device . Neuroscientist , Dr Aldo Faisal has used components which can be bought in a shopping mall . Faisal hopes to use technology in combination with neurological science to help sufferers of disabilities .