Making the Home Accessible - Experiments with an Infrared Handheld Gesture-Based Remote Control

A universal remote control for many different technical devices in the living environment - which should be very easy, almost intuitively to use - would be most desirable, especially for elderly and mobility-impaired persons. For this purpose, a flashlight-like handheld infrared gesture-controlled remote we call SmartPointer is being developed and evaluated. Carrying out a mid-air gesture with the SmartPointer moves the irradiated beam of structured IR light across a receiver box near the device, which detects the light pattern’s trajectory and converts the identified gesture into device-specific commands. In our laboratory study, the user experience of the SmartPointer system and its gesture recognition capabilities were examined with a group of 29 elderly volunteers who were asked to repeatedly carry out quasi-intuitive gestures with the SmartPointer to operate four typical home appliances: light switch (on/off), heating device (warmer/colder), blinds (up/down) and door (lock/unlock). Applying adaptive rule-based signal processing and pattern recognition, an overall recognition rate of 94.3% could be achieved so far.