Categories
Connected Objects

Bixi relies on gestures, lets you nix standard remote control

editors-choice-300x96The main problem with controlling music and GPS navigation in one’s car through traditional remote control devices is that it can be a dangerous distraction.

Bixi is a smart home and mobile device that allows users to control connected objects via simple hand gestures. The small smart controller can be placed on top of any surface in the home or car, or mounted just about anywhere as well. Bixi connects via Bluetooth Low Energy to smartphones, tablets and computers. The device is based around next-generation time-of-flight optical sensors, and works well in complete darkness.

Categories
Music Video Games

Mogees Play makes the world your musical instrument

editors-choiceOne reason why music programs around the country are cutting back is the cost associated with purchasing equipment. Instruments are expensive
and until now, were the only real way to truly engage a student’s musical faculties.

In creating the Mogees Play, UK-based music and technology company Mogees is aiming to bring musical instruction to everyday classrooms and life without needing instruments, controllers, joysticks, or keyboards. How? A small sensor serves as the connection between tablets or smartphones and any object at all — a wall, a book, a table, even another person. Depending on how a user interacts with that object — a bump, a tap, a scratch — Mogees Play reads those vibrations and transforms them into different musical effects.

Categories
Smart Home

Get a grip on your connected life with the Moband gesture wand

Alternative forms of device control are all the rage now, and for good reason. Smartphones and other touch-based devices are great for communication but usually end up adding complexity when it comes to smart home control.

The team at iWave designed the Moband to give smart home enthusiasts or anyone looking to more easily control their connected home objects another way to do so. The gesture-based universal remote control comes with 10 preset gestures (e.g. swing up, down, left, right, rotate, etc.) or the ability to create custom gestures, all of which can be linked to the functionality of one or more remote controls already in the house.

Categories
Input

Aerion mouse lets your fingers stick together through air travel

Gesture control continues to find its way into a wide variety of consumer electronics devices including TVs and videogame consoles.

Aerion Mouse is a gesture-driven computer mouse that’s somewhat smaller than traditional mice. It gets placed between the top of any two of the user’s fingers. The user then points the mouse at the display to operate it and, instead of clicking on any buttons, just leans to the left to achieve what a typical left click on a mouse would and leans to the right for a right click.

One main benefits to Aerion is that it allows one to keep fingers close to a typing position without having to grab a separate device when moving between the keyboard and pointing device. It also works even when there’s no convenient focus on which to set a mouse.

Categories
Input Smartwatches/Bands

Aria lets you gesture toward your smartphone, offers hands-free control

As advanced as the smartwatches on the market now are, their small screens and tiny buttons don’t necessarily make for the most engaging user experiences. Half the time, they end up adding layers of complexity rather than the opposite, creating opportunities for companies like Deus Ex Technology Ltd to cook up new ways to leverage the benefits these devices give us in a more useful way.

Their solution is their Bluetooth-enabled Aria wearable, a gesture control interface that lets both Android Wear and Pebble Time owners use their devices with only finger gestures. Whether it be a flick of the index finger or a tap of the ring finger, these gestures are fully customizable so that actions, like opening emails or taking calls, are simple to execute. Aria does all this by using sensors to remember which tendons flex with each respective finger movement, assigning commands to each when performed.