Hands off!
This month it’s all about unleashing your Jedi skills with cool gesture control, courtesy of Bixi
Wave at your gadgets with Bixi’s gesture-control system
Enjoy touch-free control of your connected home and favourite apps
An Innovation Awards honoree in the Smart Home category at this year’s CES, the Bixi smart home controller is already turning heads. Small and unobtrusive, this portable device acts as a touch-free controller enabling you to command compatible connected home devices and activate apps using gesture controls.
Created by French startup Bluemint Labs, Bixi is a learning device (the more you use it, the more it improves) you can use to control up to two apps or devices simultaneously. Let’s say you’re cooking and want to scroll through a recipe on your tablet or ereader… Instead of getting your saucy hands all over your tech, let Bixi do it. Lounging around listening to Peter Frampton on your wireless cans? Swipe your hand over Bixi to change song. The device is compatible with a range of apps including Kindle, iBooks, Chrome, Adobe PDF, YouTube and Spotify. It also works with Bose SoundTouch, LIFX, Philips Hue, GoPro, Drivemode and others.
Sync the Bixi with its companion app and choose, from the menu, what app or device you’d like to program it to control. From there, you can customise which gesture you use to control which app or device – up/ down hand swipe, right to left swipe and so on.
IFTTT functionality is on its way for more elaborate control, with five gestures set aside for you to program. The Bixi is available for pre-order now (priced $79/£63), with shipping scheduled to begin in June.