Existing gesture-recognition systems consume significant power and computational resources that limit how they may be used in low-end devices. We introduce AllSee, the first gesture-recognition system that can operate on a range of computing devices including those with no batteries. AllSee consumes three to four orders of magnitude lower power than state-of-the-art systems and can enable always-on gesture recognition for smartphones and tablets. It extracts gesture information from existing wireless signals (e.g., TV transmissions), but does not incur the power and computational overheads of prior wireless approaches. We build AllSee prototypes that can recognize gestures on RFID tags and power-harvesting sensors. We also integrate our hardware with an off-the-shelf Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone. This enables gesture control such as volume changes while the phone is in a pocket.
http://allsee.cs.washington.edu/