Researchers at Meta’s Reality Labs division are working on a wristband that lets people interact with a computer using simple hand gestures. The company’s new product could someday replace the mouse and keyboard and enable users with reduced or limited motor abilities to interact with computers.
What can Meta’s wristband do?
In a blog post, the tech giant announced that it has successfully tested a prototype wristband with Orion, its highly anticipated first augmented reality glasses. Meta went on to say that the wristband eliminates the need for more cumbersome forms of input and lets users do things like send messages without a keyboard, navigate a menu without a mouse, and see and engage with digital content without having to look down at a smartphone.
The wristband can also recognise a wide range of gestures like tapping, pinching and swiping even if your hand is at rest. Moreover, it also supports handwriting recognition, meaning you will be able to write messages on hard surfaces like a desk, table or leg. Since it is easy and natural, the technology can be particularly useful for doing things like sending a private message in public.
Meta says it is collaborating with Carnegie Mellon to test its new wristband on people with spinal cord injuries to see if they can use computers even if they are unable to move their arms or hands. Since people with complete hand paralysis show signs of muscle activity, which might mean that the wristband may be able to understand the actions they want to perform. You can watch it in action in the video below.
How does the Meta wristband work?
In a paper published in Nature, Meta says its new wristband technology uses a non-invasive technique called surface electromyography, or sEMG for short, which packs several sensors that help convert electrical motor nerve signals travelling through the wrist to the hand into digital commands to control devices. In case you are wondering, these are the very signals sent by the brain to tell your hand to perform certain actions.
The company says the model powering the wristband was trained on data from thousands of participating volunteers, making the device highly accurate at understanding subtle gestures across a wide range of people and eliminating the need for individual calibration. Since the new sEMG wristband does not require any operation, Meta says the technology may be able to work for people with “diverse physical abilities and characteristics.”
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Compared to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which wants to insert brain chips in individuals with paralysis, Meta’s approach is much safer since it requires no surgical insertion and does no damage to the part of the body it’s attached to. Meta’s new wristband may make its public debut alongside its highly anticipated upcoming smart glasses with a built-in display. Codenamed “Hypernova”, these smartglasses are said to cost somewhere between $1,000 and $1,400 and might be launched sometime later this year.
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