Wave Your Worries Away: Apple's New Gesture Control Patent Could Change Device Control Forever

A newly-revealed patent application shows that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) intends to allow users to mute their devices using simple hand gestures. 

What Happened: The patent application revealed that Apple wants to introduce a technology that enables users to use hand gestures. This will allow users to mute notifications and alarms, providing a more convenient way to control their devices without navigating menus or physically locating buttons, reported AppleInsider.  

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“The electronic device can efficiently provide gesture control for multiple other devices by mapping a finite set of user gestures to a specific set of gesture-control elements for each of the multiple other devices,” the company stated in the patent application. 

“In this way, a single gesture can be detected for potentially controlling various different functions of various different devices.”

The tech giant not only aims “for gesture control” but “a finite set of gestures detectable” — to trigger as per users’ preference. 

Addressing the million-dollar question of how Apple devices would detect gestures, the company explains that it will be using “an ultra-wideband (UWB) sensor [or] a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensor.”

Why It’s Important: The patent application mentioning “Multi-Device Gesture Control” could essentially allow users to wave an arm and shush all the devices like HomePod, Mac or an iPhone, without separately saying “Hey Siri” or navigating manually, the report noted.  

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