Google Glass mod gives you control over home appliances with one touch pairing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/10/google-glass-mod-gives-you-control-over-home-appliances/

The beauty of Glass is that we're just barely scratching the surface of what Google's smart eyewear can, and eventually will, do. Leave it then to the brainiac undergrads at UC Berkeley's CITRIS lab to show us one possible direction that sees the wearables modded for at-home convenience. By adding an IR emitter to the side of Glass, the Berkeley team was able to demonstrate remote control of home appliances by pairing them with an Xbee 802.15.4 WiFi radio and microcontroller.

The controls for the setup are simple. A user need only look at the intended appliance to bridge a connection -- made possible by an IR-transmitted device ID -- and view toggles for control. We know what you're thinking: how does Glass select one appliance from a cluster of nearby devices? To accommodate for this hassle, the team's made it so that the heads-up display will show the user a numerical range of selectable devices and a blinking, blue LED on the intended target when pairing is successful. Users can also swap between appliances by swiping down on Glass' touchpad or allowing for a connection timeout. Yes, it's still early days for cumbersome Glass prototypes like this one, but we'd bet the farm you'll be turning on the AC with the blink of an eye before long. You can check out the demo video after the break for proof of this Glass concept.

Filed under: Wearables, Science, Google

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Source: UC Berkeley