Gesture control may be the wave of the future, but is it cut out for the present? Eyesight Technologies announced on Monday, December 31, that it will discontinue Singlecue, the company’s gesture-based controller designed to work with most entertainment setups including televisions and set-top boxes. The company will stop selling the products immediately and will stop supporting the device entirely a year from now.
According to an email Eyesight sent to its customers and obtained by Digital Trends, the company reached a crossroad in its plans for the future and has opted to leave Singlecue behind while it invests in the development of other products. The effort required to make Singlecue a viable commercial product was just too big of an undertaking, according to the startup.
“It is with a heavy heart we decided to discontinue Singlecue,” the company wrote. It stated that it will be ceasing all sales of Singlecue — both from its own store and from other direct representatives — starting December 31. Orders already placed for the device will still ship as planned, so recent buyers will still be able to set up the gesture controls in their home.
In addition to ending sales of the devices, Eyesight Technologies will also stop supporting Singlecue altogether a year from now. On December 31, 2019, the company will discontinue all support for the device and the mobile apps will disappear from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Warranties and warranty extensions will be honored going forward, but for all intents and purposes, the Singlecue is on its last leg with an expiration date ahead of it.
Eyesight Technologies first launched the Singlecue back in 2014 with the idea of it being a sort of Xbox Kinect-style device for your entire entertainment system. The company dropped a second-generation version of the product in 2017 with new controls and features that were supposed to give users even more control using just their hands. The device was met with pretty mediocre reviews, offering a unique way to interact with a lot of home entertainment devices but ultimately failed to be a reliable replacement for the standard remote.
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