Although smart devices in the home have evolved to include speakers, security systems, lights and thermostats, the way they are controlled remains relatively stable. Users can interact with their phones or talk to technicians, but these are often not as convenient as the simple switches they replace: “Turn on the lights… not that… turn up the speaker volume… not so loud!”
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to control the smart device by pointing the ring’s small camera at the device and clicking a built-in button. The prototype Bluetooth ring transmits an image of the selected device to the user’s mobile phone that controls the device.
Users can use buttons to adjust the device. For devices with gradient control, such as the volume of speakers, it can be adjusted by rotating their hands. IRIS (interactive ring used to connect to smart home devices) can work for 16 to 24 hours after charging.
The team presented its research results at the 37th Annual ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium in Pittsburgh. IRIS is not yet open to the public.
“Voice commands are often very troublesome,” said co-lead author Maruchi Kim, a doctoral student at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. “We wanted to create something as simple and intuitive as clicking icons on a computer desktop.”
The team decided to put the system in the ring because they believed users would actually wear it all day long. The challenge, then, is to integrate the camera into the wireless smart ring, but its size and power are limited. The system must also switch devices within one second; otherwise, users will often think it doesn’t work.
To achieve this goal, the researchers had the ring compress the image before sending it to the phone. Instead of streaming images all the time, the ring activates when the user clicks a button and then closes after 3 seconds of inactivity.
In a study of 23 participants, twice as many users preferred IRIS compared to a voice command system alone (in this case, Apple’s Siri). On average, IRIS can control home devices more than two seconds faster than voice commands.
Original text:https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-smart-tiny-camera-users-click.html
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