After using EyeSight Technologies’ new SingleCue gesture-based smart controller, you might feel a bit like like Tom Cruise as he appeared in Minority Report.
Minority Report featured its main characters interacting with their computers via gestures. While EyeSight’s Singlecue can’t exactly project those computer images into thin air, it is at least allowing us to control our electronic devices using gestures. The company announced its second-generation SingleCue system at CES 2017 on January 3, and it seems to be getting better all the time.
The original Singlecue launched in late 2014 and offered an early glimpse of what could be possible with gesture control. About the size of an Xbox Kinect, that device worked via infrared, and allowed you to turn on a device with a wave, quiet the volume by putting your finger to your lips, or switch between devices with a variety of other gestures.
The second-generation Singlecue builds upon that work by adding new gestures such as a wave of the hand, a pinch of a finger, and a palm click to make the device even more useful to the end user.
For example, playing and pausing video can now be controlled by opening and closing your hand, while volume can be controlled by moving a pinched finger from left to right. These gestures would work at any time, meaning the user wouldn’t necessarily need to be in a specific menu to access that functionality.
“As we continue to generate more advancements to our product, it is our hope that gesture control becomes the standard for interacting in the home and is essential to each individual lifestyle,” CEO Gideon Shmuel says. The device is on sale now for $149, and EyeSight says that new functionality and support will be automatically loaded to the Singlecue as it becomes available.
In addition to the Singlecue, the company says it will also be demoing a version of the product intended for in-car systems, as well as a virtual reality system that allows VR headset wearers to interact with virtual objects without the need for any gloves, hardware, or button controls.
