Researchers at Dartmouth and the University of Manitoba have put out a detailed paper on wrist gestures for smart watch interaction. While this concept is not new the research here extends on the previous iterations of wrist control. In particular this paper focuses on how accurate wrist navigation can be. The video shows users playing Tetris and Fruit Ninja using only wrist gestures. You also have to give these researchers credit for rolling their own smart watch loaded up with 12 infrared proximity sensors and a piezo sensor all connected to an Arduino Due.
There seems to be very few smart watch apps that take advantage of wrist movements despite most devices having a built-in gyroscope and accelerometer. I would love to see an increase in wrist control options beyond the “screen on – when arm is raised”.
Oct. 14, 2016 — Checking email, tracking fitness, and listening to music, are just a few things that a smartwatch can do but what if your hands aren’t free (i.e. carrying groceries or holding a bus handle)? A Dartmouth-led team has come up with a solution by developing WristWhirl— a smartwatch prototype that uses the wrist wearing the watch as an always-available joystick to perform common touch screen gestures with one-handed continuous input.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
