Exploring the Scope of Wearables Beyond Fitness Trackers Forget Alexa, embrace gesture control with Hug Innovations' patented technology
By Aastha Singal •
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Technology today is moving faster than the consumer needs. While audience is yet to accept the 4k content, the digital innovators are already gearing up to develop 8k technology. Machine learning and artificial intelligence have become buzzwords, so has the craze around voice assistants. Alexa, particularly, has redefined the use of voice for control.
Is voice the only means for controlling IoT-connected devices? Well, not in the world of Marvels. Now that tech-crazed individuals are working to blur the lines between fiction and reality, controlling applications via hand movements is no more a fantasy. Leading the space is Hyderabad-based wearables and IoT startup, Hug Innovations.
Founded in 2014 by Raj Neravati, the startup has been able to develop the world's first gesture-controlled smartwatch. Unlike the technology used in X-Box or PlayStation where a camera tracks hand movements, Hug Innovations' technology tracks hand movements based on relative motion combined with artificial intelligence, machine learning and contextual intelligence.
The Patented Gesture
"Wearable tech is a very crowded space with a lot of companies flocking the same thing. People are either developing smart watches or fitness trackers, there was no innovation beyond," Neravati stated, adding that their thirst for technology led them building gesture control. The startup was recently awarded a patent on Safety Monitoring of Individual using gestures on a wearable device.
Hug Innovations can exclusively develop wearable devices that can raise safety alarm using gesture control technology. The company has built 16 unique gestures that can control over 20 applications. Understanding that people would love to have their own gestures, the startup is creating a developer platform for allowing developers to extend the applications and features of this technology.
A Developers' Platform
"We are creating another technology where people can create their own gestures; map their own actions and assign them to any device that they would like to use," Neravati stated. The startup claims to use the most common sensors available in any wearable. It has further created its own algorithms for making the experience beautiful for users.
India is the world's third largest wearable market after China and the USA. According to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, the Indian market for wearable devices grew by 30.9 per cent in the second quarter of CY2019, reaching an all-time high of 3 million shipments in a single quarter.
