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Wi-Fi Signals Allow Gesture Recognition All Through the Home

Posted by Soulskill on from the physical-input-devices-are-passe dept.

vinces99 writes "Forget to turn off the lights before leaving the apartment? No problem. Just raise your hand, finger-swipe the air and your lights will power down. Want to change the song playing on your music system in the other room? Move your hand to the right and flip through the songs. University of Washington computer scientists have developed gesture-recognition technology that brings this a step closer to reality. They have shown it's possible to use Wi-Fi signals around us to detect specific movements without needing sensors on the human body or cameras. By using an adapted Wi-Fi router and a few wireless devices in the living room, users could control their electronics and household appliances from any room in the home with a simple gesture."

2 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Re:In other news: DOJ demands back doors by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wouldn't the DOJ just LOVE this if they could force manufacturers to give them remote access. With a warrant, of course (wink wink!) Is there nothing in a modern house that can't be re-purposed to spy on us anymore?

    Why would they have to force them? If history is anything to go by, your ISP will bake the function voluntarily into their dreadful CPE shit so that they can sell the data for advertising purposes, at which point the feds can just ask them for it...

  2. Why not an app? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Few people have an app or web page to control their home appliances, but we're supposed to believe that we want gesture control?

    Home automation is nothing new and there are certainly people that *can* control their home lighting and appliances remotely, but few even bother because it's not that useful in practice.

    If I forget to turn off the lights when I leave the house, I'm probably not going to remember that the lights are on when I'm at the office and turn them off from there. I'd be better off with a smarter house that turns on the appropriate level of lighting when I walk in a room and turn off all the lights and appliances for me when I leave.

    Gesture based music control would probably be more handy than remote lighting control.