Breath is your command on future smartwatches
WITHIN a couple of years, we’ll be controlling smartwatches by breathing on them or tapping the back of our hands.
Scientists in the US have invented ways to use the devices that get round the tricky combination of small screens and fat fingers.
The Georgia University of Technology techniques include:
Scrolling through apps by running your fingers along the watchstrap;
Launching apps by tapping key points on the watchcase;
Rejecting phone calls by blowing on the screen or tapping the side of the watch;
Transferring on-screen information from the watch to a phone with breaths; and
Selecting numbers by tapping the back of your hand.
“Other techniques that improve control of smartwatches have included 3-D gestures above the screen, bigger screens or adding an extra armband,” said PhD student Cheng Zhang. “We wanted to show it could be done with existing technology already common on today’s devices.”
One app allows wearers to scroll up, down, left and right by swiping on the watchband, which Zhang said made it easier to interact with GPS maps or menus.
“Smartwatches aren’t very convenient when you’re carrying something,” Zhang said. “That’s why we wanted to create a technique that allows the user to tap the watch to accept or deny phone calls. Hitting the right side answers the call; the left side ignores it.”
Another PhD student, Gabriel Reyes, created Whoosh, which allows a person to control the watch by blowing, exhaling, shushing, sipping or puffing on the screen. The watch uses its microphone and machine learning to identify breath patterns and assigns an action to each. For example, a wearer can shush the watch to ignore a call or blow on it twice to accept. In another scenario, the watch can be locked or unlocked using a combination of short or long breaths. And content can be sipped from the watch and puffed into a phone.
Another project allows users to tap on the back of their hand to input numbers zero to nine or commands. The technique uses the watch’s microphone and inertial sensors to detect 11 tapping locations on the skin around the watch.