A smartwatch is more often than not seen as a kind of productivity tool that will enhance your smartphone or tablet device, allowing you to be notified of an incoming email or text message without having to pull out your smartphone from the pocket. Well, this particular smartwatch prototype is different, as it will also double up as a joystick. Yep, you read that right – a joystick.
Smartwatches are quickly becoming some of the most covetable gadgets on the market. But they come with one big problem, namely that their touchscreens are too small to navigate easily. So, with that in mind, a team from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania have developed a watch that can be controlled by movements and gestures alone. The scientists behind the prototype are Robert Xiao, Gierad Laput and Chris Harrison from CMU’s Future Interface Group at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Using pan, twist, tilt and click motions their concept enables users to navigate the screen on their watch more easily.
