AuraSense
Junhan Zhou, Yang Zhang, Gierad Laput, Chris G. Harrison · 2016
Existing smartwatches rely on touchscreens for display and input, which inevitably leads to finger occlusion and confines interactivity to a small area. In this work, we introduce AuraSense, which enables rich, around-device, smartwatch interactions using electric field sensing as an adapted device. To explore how this sensing approach could enhance smartwatch interactions, we considered different antenna configurations and how they could enable useful interaction modalities. We identified four configurations that can support six well-known modalities of particular interest and utility, including gestures above or in close proximity to watches, and touchscreen-like finger tracking on the skin. We quantify the feasibility of these input modalities, suggesting that AuraSense can be low latency and robust across users and environments.