Microsoft project tracks hand from wrist, could alter how we control devices
Motion tracking and gesture controls have become common with the rollout of Microsoft Kinect and other sensor-based devices. But what if the sensors were on your wrist, not across the room?
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft’s gesture-control work began with Project Natal’s game-control ambitions and expanded as Kinect and related efforts shaped Microsoft’s interface strategy. The wrist project tests whether that sensing model can move from a room-scale camera to a device worn by the user.
It also follows PocketTouch’s fabric-based input research, indicating that Microsoft Research is exploring interaction surfaces beyond conventional screens and controllers.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gains a wrist-worn alternative to Kinect’s across-the-room sensing approach, focused on tracking hand movement close to the user.
- Kinect becomes one reference point in a broader Microsoft input-research portfolio rather than the sole expression of its gesture-control work.
Second-order effects
- Device-interface designers evaluating Kinect-style controls must account for two distinct deployment models: shared room sensors and personal, body-worn sensors.
- A wrist sensor shifts the practical design question from where to place a camera in a room to whether users will wear the sensing hardware needed for hand input.
Third-order effects
- If Microsoft can carry its gesture research across room, fabric, and wrist-based sensors, control interfaces may become an ambient computing layer distributed across the user and surrounding environment rather than centered on a single screen.
The trend: Microsoft’s input research is moving gesture sensing from fixed room cameras toward interfaces embedded in the user’s clothing and wearable hardware.