Nobody seems too excited about Apple TV 4's gesture-control remote. Same goes for the Wii, Microsoft Kinect and other once-hot in-air gesture control consumer tech. A Boston-based startup is working on a smartwatch technology it hopes will change that--but starting in a very specialized niche.
The technology is called EMG. Coupled with the motion detectors already built into phones and smartwatches, it detects not only where your hands move, but what your muscles are doing.
A smartphone's accelerometer and camera already let you wave your hands to control simple functions, like dimming the screen or skipping to the next track on an audio player. EMG (electromyography) would support fine-motor gesture detection of the kind you already use on a touch screen: subtle finger swipes and taps control a device in mid-air from afar.
"We are really focused on the software," co-founder Andreia Dias told me before a short demo. "We don't want to create for now a new wearable."
That's unlike Myo, another two-year-old gesture-control company also working on EMG sensors. Myo's device looks like this.
Like the EKG sensors that let your phone and your watch measure your pulse, EMG is already used in medicine. EMG sensors aren't built into smartwatches or phones on the market right now, but Gesto's technology could fit into an accessory wristband for an Apple Watch or Android Wear, say co-founders Dias and Eduardo Araújo. Everything else is in software they've developed. And, because that software uses data from both motion detectors and EMG, it's more precise than what Myo is offering, Araújo said.
So yes, proud Apple Watch owners, this could turn you into Iron Man, or at least let you act out scenes from Minority Report around the office. Dias and Araújo have different applications in mind. Dias said they've signed testing agreements with companies in industries including consumer electronics, automotive and healthcare, but she said they can't disclose specifics.
Several of the founders (there are five) have a biomedical background. They started Gesto in 2013 out of undergraduate study at a university in their native Portugal and came to Boston for MassChallenge this year. Dias and Araújo are the two business-development co-founders. The other three are focused on R&D and remained back in Portugal, with the company's prototype testing device (pictured above).
Their software could be used in prosthetics and in physical therapy, to support rehab at home when fine-motor exercises are part of the rehabilitation regime. With an EMG-enabled smartwatch, a physical therapist could monitor progress and compliance.
That's what Araújo, Dias and their co-founders in Portugal say they're hoping for.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly gave Araújo a biomedical background. He's an industrial designer.
