Alternative Command Inputs & The Future of HID
This is the third out of a series of four articles that describe the history and a glimpse of the future of HID for smart home use.
By Daniel Chun and Dasam Singh
In the last article we reiterated the importance of Human Input Devices (HID) and the extension of the various use cases in consumer electronics, gaming and even in training and education. See the last article (here). We also discussed the different senses of our biological body as input source for commands and controls.
On this note, it is important that we recognise that even our vision could be an important part of the sensing and control input for HID. The following video shows our partner company, MindVoice (from China) that uses eye control to solve a problem in the health market for paralysed patients in hospitals and at home. Similar technology has been deployed by software companies like Tobii. The use case of tracking our eye movements could become very interesting in the gaming and eSports market and of course the hugely publicised segment in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and lately Metaverse. Companies like Tobii and Meta (formerly Facebook) are seriously looking at these extended HID interfaces.
Perhaps this is not just a trend but a realistic opportunity for the consumer electronics industry to apply these technologies. Meta has a division called Facebook Reality Labs (link here) and this was formed as part of the continuous product and business roadmap of the company diving into the hardware space of VR/AR and Metaverse.
Facebook Reality Labs however had been developing a virtual keyboard with (hand gesture) to solve a problem of text input while using an VR/AR Head Mounted Display (HMD).
Remember T9 style predictive typing commonly used in feature phones like Nokia and Ericsson in the old days, this is similar except that you give the sensors mounted on the HMD to read clear strokes of your fingers. It works by assigning each finger a group of letters from the QWERTY keyboard and you pinch that finger against your thumb and this combination will be offered as a way to input text.
Oculus and CTRL-Labs are some of the acquisitions that Meta has acquired in the past to drive adoption of hardware and HID interfaces. Facebook Reality Labs also handles other consumer electronics hardware products including the Portal line of OTT hardware which uses both voice input like “Hey Portal, What’s the weather outside ?” and even a traditional remote controller with their Portal TV line.
With the play out of the use of keyboards, controllers in VR/AR and in metaverse, we believe the HID+ strategy and input source will be extending to very far beyond current imagination.
In another Medium article, some experiments had been conducted by researchers / coders to use cameras built-in laptops with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect facial and eye movements. Perhaps a wink in the left eye can help you scroll this article back to the top in future. This is an interesting notion. See this article here.
In the future, the consumption of our screen time will be diverted to some of these new hardware under the general VR/AR or Metaverse category, some of them may be still using TVs and monitors in lieu of the head mount display as TV manufacturers and OTT content players continue to innovate themselves.
In the remote controller industry, which is all related to HID, we have been adapting to the advancement in consumer electronics and also honing some of the much-needed common command sets for operating in a connected home. As consumer electronics become more connected to the Internet, we believe the additional user inputs (in various forms) would be crucial for adding to the existing large installed base of TVs, OTT boxes, climate controls, lighting, and smart home devices.
Besides Remotec’s core in supporting HID interfaces for remote control industry, our company actually holds two unique US patents under a sister company name in developing Universal Soft Remote (USPTO#7132973, see google patent link here) and Virtual Key Pad System and methods (USPTO #US8065624, see google patent link here) and we welcome collaborative partnership with us to explore the use of these software driven HID use cases.
In the next article, we will look deeper into yet another topic of metaverse and how traditional HID inputs are still very relevant in this 3D online and virtual parallel world.
References
Prior news on Facebook’s AR/VR developing HID
https://uploadvr.com/frl-pinchtype-ar-vr-keyboard/
https://uploadvr.com/facebook-acquires-ctrl-labs/
https://uploadvr.com/facebooks-prototype-vr-face-tracking-got-even-better/
Community development in similar eye-tracking using camera
https://medium.com/swlh/browser-based-eye-tracking-7cf6401533ec
Official video of Meta Quest 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfrCPBZ6iwI
About Remotec Technology Limited
Remotec Technology Limited is a 30 year old technology company that has been providing unique HID+ solutions for brands and international customers including remote controllers, IP, database library and chipsets solution.
About the Authors
Daniel Chun is the Board Director and former CEO at Remotec Technology Ltd, now chairing special innovations committee at Fufa Ventures. Daniel holds multiple patents and is a Chartered Engineer and supports the implementation of ubiquitous HID user experience. Dasam Singh is the product marketing specialist at Remotec Technology Ltd and handles the product development of the HID+.