Meta’s Secretive Wristband Project Teases New Way to Control Your Digital World

Meta has unveiled a wristband that can change the way we interact with computers, turning subtle hand movements into digital commands. This sleek device captures electrical signals from your nerves and lets you navigate a cursor, select items or write in the air with ease.

The tech behind this wristband is surface electromyography (sEMG), which captures the electrical impulses your brain sends through your nerves to move your hand. These signals pass through your wrist where the wristband’s sensors detect and translate them into on-screen actions. A pinch of your fingers can click, a thumb swipe can scroll or mimicking handwriting can type at around 20 words per minute – slower than a phone keyboard’s 36 words per minute but impressive for gestures in mid-air. Meta’s Reality Labs, led by Thomas Reardon, has been working on this since 2019, evolving from a 2021 prototype that only did basic clicks. The latest sEMG-RD model is great at navigating interfaces and selecting items with precision.

Adapting a device to interpret these signals across different users is a big challenge. Most gesture-based systems require per-user calibration like tuning a radio. Meta’s innovation eliminates this need. By training a neural network with data from thousands of users, the team was able to develop a system that interprets signals instantly so the wristband works right out of the box, just like picking up a mouse for the first time.

For those with limited hand strength, traditional mice and keyboards can be exhausting or unusable. The wristband requires minimal effort, detecting even faint nerve signals to execute commands, making it a lifeline. Beyond accessibility, it’s a new way for anyone to interact with devices – swiping through virtual reality menus, zooming a camera with a subtle gesture or exploring new interactions yet to be imagined. Meta sees this as a step towards making augmented reality feel intuitive with your hands as the interface.

Unlike other gesture technologies like the 2023 air pressure sensor device or the Mudra Band’s nerve conductance for Apple Watch control, Meta’s sEMG-RD stands out for its precision and versatility. It can do a wide range of actions – from cursor navigation to air-writing – without additional hardware or frequent recalibration. While air-writing lags behind typing and real-world performance in chaotic conditions is untested, the plug-and-play functionality is a big step forward.

A device that reads nerve signals could track every gesture, that’s like a supercharged keylogger. Meta hasn’t said what its data protection is so we don’t know what’s being collected. But the wristband is impressive and could lower physical barriers to tech, make virtual interactions better and open up new ways to control devices we can’t even imagine yet.
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