Pixart Announces Smartphone Design Win for Its Gesture Sensor

PR Newswire: PixArt announces a design engagement with Pantech to offer a gesture motion capability for their IM-A880S (VEGA LTE-A) smart phone. The phone will feature PixArt Gesture Sensor PAC7620. The IR image-based PAC7620 Gesture Sensor creates a three-dimensional gesture space extending 6 inches above the phone to allow the user to interact with their phone by the nine user gestures (up, down, left, right, wave, forward, backward, clockwise, and counterclockwise).

"Our company vision is to develop innovative human/machine interface solutions with our advanced imaging technologies. Providing the capability for users to easily operate their phones with simple hand movements creates a smooth, intuitive interaction for users to heighten their enjoyment of advanced technologies," said Dennis Lo, President, PixArt Imaging USA. "We believe this gesture sensor will help to spur new innovative trends in user gestures for application not only in smart phones but also in other devices as well."

Currently, the Pantech IM-A880S (VEGA LTE-A) user gestures include:

• Basic navigation (Up, Down, Left, Right) for browsing or scrolling Web pages
• Zoom In/Out function for pictures or 3-D space movement
• Scroll gestures for forward and reverse movement and volume control through video or music
• Motion detection for phone wake-up or silence applications

The PixArt Gesture Engine integrates into existing smart phones designs with its small form factor and standard I2C interface. The PAC7620 is said to provide a better gestures recognition in comparison to simple photodiode approaches. The PAC7620 also has lower power consumption and latency when compared to conventional cameras solutions paired with software gesture recognition.

A Youtube video shows Pixart prototype in action (has already been shown in the Nov. 2013 post):