Computer scientists have developed Wi-Fi gesture recognition which can be used to turn the lights on and off in another room, or adjust the air conditioning.
Scientists from the University of Washington scientists have developed a system whereby you no longer need cameras or sensors for gesture recognition; you can use your Wi-Fi.
The Wisee technology can accurately recognise 94 per cent of gestures from a sample of 900, even when the user is in a different room to the transmitter, theregister.co.uk reports.
The system can support the gestures of up to five people without confusing the technology; it just requires a receiver with multiple antennas which each tune into a specific user’s movements.
The system works on the basis that when a person moves, there is a slight change in the Wi-Fi frequency known as the Doppler frequency effect. The frequency changes are very small but Wi-Fi routers can be adapted to detect these changes using the wireless transmission emitted by devices throughout the home such as smartphones, laptops and tablets.
Qifan Pu, a collaborator and visiting student at the University of Washington, spoke to washington.edu about the latest developments: “This is the first whole-home gesture recognition system that works without either requiring instrumentation of the user with sensors or deploying cameras in every room.”
