The humble remote control can trace its ancestry back to 1898, when one of the earliest examples of the technology was developed and described in a US Patent by Nikola Tesla. It has also come a long way since June of 1956, when the first practical television remote appeared in an American home.

These days, a remote can be used to control everything from the lights in a home theatre to ‘flameless candles’. It has been so successful in its role of control that the original product has been redefined and developed so many times that touch panels and smartphones now fit into the same category.

Like many other products, it has reached the point where the longstanding remote control may have to evolve dramatically as it faces some tough competition for attention in the world of home automation.

Soon, all you may need to control technology is your voice, a wave of the hand, or even a simple thought.

VOICE CONTROL

Voice control technology is already well and truly here and it’s proving to be one of the most popular forms of non-traditional control in the Australian market. Think of the latest Apple iPhone’s Siri feature, where voice commands let you send messages, schedule meetings or make phone calls. Some televisions already have inbuilt voice control functionality and even the XBox Kinect is cashing in on the trend.

For clients with an extensive library of music, a wireless media system called Voco is making it easier to find and play a particular artist or track. The product’s user interface leverages the best in technology, including WiFi broadband connectivity, smartphones, tablets and cloud-based content management.

Voco, distributed in Australia by QualiFi, streams unlimited media from just about any source and it can all be controlled through a normal text input on a smartphone or tablet, or via a voice request.

“Everyone is starting to integrate voice control into their devices and the potential is fantastic,” QualiFi business manager for visual and control products Joe Salamanca explains.

“There are times when you just want to scroll through your music, but most of the time people know what artist or playlist they want to listen to. So you can ask Voco to search for an artist or track, and at the same time that it searches your library, the system is looking through internet radio stations for the same song or artist.”

While Voco currently focuses on audiorelated content, in the future it will look to include a HDMI video connector with the ability to stream YouTube content. In the meantime, as Joe explains, the main issue that voice control technology must overcome is the ability to work with different voices, accents and pronunciations.

“Of course it’s still early days, but Voco technology should grow in leaps and bounds. So far it’s at the point where it’s quite functional and of course it will just get better from there,” he says. “The main thing with voice control is that you can ask for anything and get a quick response back from any large database. It takes a lot longer to type something in or scroll through a list – it’s quicker to just ask for what you want.”

GESTURE CONTROL

But if you don’t want to talk, just wave. Many different versions of gesture control technologies have been introduced over the last few years, including SoftKinetic, a provider of end-to-end 3D gesture control solutions for the consumer electronics and professional markets, and Microsoft’s XBox Kinect. The SoftKinetic hardware sensor is based on Time of Flight (ToF) technology which is integrated into the DepthSense series of cameras, including the current generation DepthSense 311, together with RGB sensors and microphones.

“ToF works by pulsing infrared LED lights at the target area and measuring the time it takes for them to bounce back and be picked up by the sensor. This type of technology makes for a more detailed, more scalable and more responsive gesture control experience,” SoftKinetic vice president of marketing and communications Virgile DelPorte says.

Currently SoftKinetic is targeted at the PC world as an accessory gesture control 3D web camera that clips onto the frame of a laptop and connects via a USB cable. For the home, the SoftKinetic sensor and software is provided as an accessory for equipment such as set-top boxes and media centres, or embedded into smart TVs.

“We keep thinking that gesture recognition technology is going to be absolutely disruptive, to the same level of the mouse arriving on PCs or tactile smart phones,” Virgile says.

“This technology will be pervasive and be used beyond the screens, for home automation and so on. We expect to be a key player in this fast growing industry. The technology is still quite new but the sky truly is the limit.”

SIXTHSENSE TECHNOLOGY

Building on gesture control technology is a prototype that could hold the potential to become the preferred option for multi-touch devices worldwide.

SixthSense is the brainchild of a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), lead by associate professor Pattie Maes and Ph.D. student Pranav Mistry. The idea behind the technology is simple: to provide access to scores of information on-the-go, by turning any flat surface into a touch screen display.

As the face of SixthSense, Pranav says it’s all about integrating the virtual world with reality.

“The most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses. This is namely the data, information and knowledge that … is increasingly all available online,” Pranav writes on his website.

This concept has led to the creation of SixthSense, a wearable gestural interface that responds to natural hand gestures in order to interact with and manipulate information.

The prototype is comprised of a web camera, a 3M Pico projector and a mirror, which are coupled in a pendant that hangs around the user’s neck. Both the projector and the camera are connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth smartphone that sits in the user’s pocket.

The camera can instantly recognise and track the user’s hand gestures or postures and the surrounding physical objects using computer vision-based techniques. In order to help differentiate the different cues, both thumbs and index fingers are wrapped in green, blue, red and yellow tape. The projector can then cast visual information onto any fl at surface in front of the user, thus enabling walls, objects and the user’s hands to transform into multi-touch interfaces.

The true power of SixthSense lies in its potential to connect the real world with the internet and project this information in front of the user – which spells out great opportunity for the custom installation industry and residential applications in particular. The current prototype system costs approximately $350 to build.

THOUGHT CONTROL

If making hand gestures is a little too difficult, well, that’s where mind control comes in.

Let’s be honest, it sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. But the good news is that fantasy is now a reality – albeit in the development stage, but still – all you have to do is think and it’s done.

Based on recent developments in neuro-technology, US-based company Emotiv Systems have created an interface for human/computer interaction through a wireless connection. The Emotiv EPOC is a headset consisting of 14 saline sensors that tune into electric signals produced by the brain, allowing users to control PC-based applications including gaming and media with their thoughts, expressions and emotions.

The best thing about this technology is that it is already available to customers worldwide. The Emotiv neuroheadset was recently reviewed by novelist and former game designer Rick Dakan for Joystiq website, where he writes:

“The EPOC has three ways of sensing your intent. It can monitor facial expressions (although not with the camera, but with the brain function sensors), allowing you to map winks and smiles to specifi c keyboard commands.

“It also has a gyroscope in the headpiece so you can move the mouse cursor by moving your head. But the star of the show is the brain sensing, which you train with the help of a 3D orange box floating in virtual space on your monitor.”

Needless to say, the above technologies are still being refined for the market and some still need to travel a long road to commercialisation. But as technology advances and improves, there is no doubt that custom installers would do well to think outside the square and jazz up a project with some of these nontraditional forms of control.