The Gesture Watch: A Wireless Contact-Free Gesture Based Wrist Interface

Abstract

We introduce the Gesture Watch, a mobile wireless device worn on a user’s wrist that allows hand gesture control of other devices. The Gesture Watch utilizes an array of infrared proximity sensors to sense hand gestures made over the device and interprets the gestures using hidden Markov models. The Gesture Watch maps intuitive gross hand gestures to control signals such as the play and pause commands commonly found on mobile media players. We present our evaluation of the Gesture Watch designed to determine its the accuracy and usability. In our study, 10 participants used the GestureWatch in both mobile and stationary conditions as well as indoors and outdoors. Overall, we attained a recognition accuracy of 95.5% and found that the Gesture Watch worked well in both indoor and outdoor environments and while mobile.