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FingerOrbits: Interaction with Wearables Using Synchronized Thumb Movements 

Published on 2017 international symposium on wearable computers/ISWC’17.

Cheng Zhang, Xiaoxuan Wang, Anandghan Waghmare, Sumeet Jain, Thomas Ploetz, Omer T.Inan, Thad E. Starner, Gregory D. Abowd

We present FingOrbits, a wearable interaction technique using synchronized thumb movements. A thumb-mounted ring with an inertial measurement unit and a contact microphone are used to capture thumb movements when rubbing against the other fingers. Spectral information of the movements are extracted and fed into a classification backend that facilitates gesture discrimination. FingOrbits enables up to 12 different gestures through detecting three rates of movement against each of the four fingers. Through a user study with 10 participants (7 novices, 3 experts), we demonstrate that FingOrbits can distinguish up to 12 thumb gestures with an accuracy of 89% to 99% rendering the approach applicable for practical applications.

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