Release facts (date, product names, how-it-works, supported devices, CEO quote) from the Tolt Technologies October 1, 2026 announcement via EIN Presswire; independent coverage from The Consumer News Network used as second source; compatibility and installation requirements from Tolt Technologies' own official support documentation. On 2026-10-05 direct page fetches (browser_open) were unavailable, so facts were verified by cross-reading multiple search-result excerpts; all URLs below were copied verbatim from search results.
What Tolt released on October 1
Tolt Technologies announced Ability Drive for iPad and the new Tolt Technologies A13i on October 1, 2026, and both are available to order now. Ability Drive is the company's drive-by-eye control system: instead of a joystick, the user drives with eye gaze, looking at on-screen arrows to steer the chair and looking away to stop. It is aimed at people for whom a joystick no longer works or never did, including people living with ALS, spinal muscular atrophy, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury, or cerebral palsy. The A13i pairs an iPad with an eyetuitive eye tracker, combining the display and the gaze camera in one mountable package. According to the company, people who had never used a power wheelchair or an eye-gaze device were able to drive through a doorway in under a minute. "Independence in mobility is everything," said Tracy Beavers, CEO and founder of Tolt Technologies. "Our mission has always been to give power wheelchair users a drive control that meets them where they are." The announcement positions eye tracking as a practical everyday drive control, not a niche add-on.
One device for driving, seating, and the iPad itself
The notable part of this release is consolidation. The A13i setup lets one device do three jobs: drive the chair, adjust power seating, and run the iPad as a normal tablet. That means a user can drive across the room, then tilt or recline for comfort without switching systems, which helps with pressure management goals during long sitting days. Ability Drive for iPad works with three hardware options: the Tolt Technologies A13i, the Forbes ProSlate 13 with Enable Eyes, and Apple Vision Pro, with Vision Pro support arriving in visionOS 27. Tolt also publishes an official compatibility list for its Ability Drive software covering Windows and iOS eye-gaze devices, and that list is the authority on which hardware combinations are supported. Compatibility matters more than usual here because eye-gaze driving is safety-critical: the company explicitly warns against running the software on untested consumer tablets and says use on unapproved devices is unwarranted and unsupported.
What to sort out before considering eye-gaze driving
Eye-gaze driving is not a plug-and-play accessory. Tolt states that installation of the Ability Drive interface should only be done by an assistive technology professional, who configures the wheelchair's programming, connects the interface box to the chair's input port, and secures the hardware so the gaze device can swing away for transfers. In practice this means working through a clinician or seating specialist, not ordering a gadget and bolting it on. Anyone considering it should start with three checks. First, confirm candidacy with the clinical team: eye-gaze driving suits specific motor profiles and vision conditions, and an assessment comes before hardware. Second, verify the exact device combination against Tolt's current compatibility list, since supported trackers and tablets change over time. Third, plan the mounting and the seating together, because camera position, screen angle, and the chair's tilt range all affect how reliably the system tracks the eyes. For readers comparing options, this release sits alongside other alternative drive controls such as head arrays and sip-and-puff; the right choice depends on the individual's movement, endurance, and daily environments, which is exactly what a seating assessment is for.
