As anyone who owns a smartwatch can tell you, one-handed operation isn’t exactly their forte. Beyond the “flick-to-wake” gesture found in a number of smartwatches-and Android Wear’s wrist-based notification scrolling, there’s not much you can do without a second hand and set of fingers. But a team of researchers may have developed solution:-a strap called Tomo that translates subtle muscle movements into software-actions. The prototype, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction group,-uses tiny impulses to sense wrist muscle movements. Operating on a principle of Electrical Impedance Tomography, similar to PET and CT machines, eight metal-contacts send a continuous series of tiny electrical impulses through the wearer’s wrist. Sensors measure the-strength of the impulses on the other side and, over time, collect enough data to generate and analyze a digital image of the finger and hand gestures being performed. Related: No touching! Aria lets you control your smartwatch without touching the screen The wristband may not be the first capable of recognizing hand and wrist gestures, but it could-be the most practical. Camera-based modules-are typically much bulkier, the researchers note,-and accelerometer and gyroscope-based systems can’t support static gestures. Moreover, the internal nature of Tomo’s analysis means it should work through gloves-and clothing.-And it’s-cheap ($40 in its current form), small, and has a power draw minimal enough to make “integration directly into a smartwatch” feasible. Tomo’s not perfect, though. Differences in-wrist size and thickness between wearers mean the strap’s recognition software must-“learn” gestures-before it can accurately-recognize them. (Think training voice dictation software to recognize diction.) And thanks to the granularity of the muscle measurements, the strap’s accuracy is largely-dependent on its tightness and the consistency of its positioning. Shortcomings aside, the Tomo’s the best attempt yet at a single-handed way of controlling a smartwatch. For the sake of-those who never have a hand to spare,-here’s hoping it catches on. Also watch: Huawei Talkband B2 - Hands On Please enable Javascript to watch this video



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