January 8, 2025
A smart ring with a tiny camera lets users point and click to control home devices
While smart devices in homes have grown to include speakers, security systems, lights and thermostats, the ways to control them have remained relatively stable. Users can interact with a phone, or talk to the tech, but these are frequently less convenient than the simple switches they replace: 鈥淭urn on the lamp鈥�. Not that one鈥�. Turn up the speaker volume鈥�. Not that loud!鈥�
糖心原创 researchers have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to control smart devices by aiming the ring鈥檚 small camera at the device and clicking a built-in button. The prototype Bluetooth ring sends an image of the selected device to the user鈥檚 phone, which controls the device. The user can adjust the device with the button and 鈥� for devices with gradient controls, such as a speaker鈥檚 volume 鈥� by rotating their hand. IRIS, or Interactive Ring for Interfacing with Smart home devices, operates off a charge for 16-24 hours.
The team Oct. 16 at the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Pittsburgh. IRIS is not currently available to the public.
鈥淰oice commands can often be really cumbersome,鈥� said co-lead author , a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. 鈥淲e wanted to create something that鈥檚 as simple and intuitive as clicking on an icon on your computer desktop.鈥�
UW researchers have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to point and click to control smart devices. Here, the ring (left) is shown beside its circuit board and battery and a quarter.Kim et al./UIST 鈥�24
The team decided to put the system in a ring because they believed users would realistically wear that throughout the day. The challenge, then, was integrating a camera into a wireless smart ring with its size and power constraints. The system also had to toggle devices in under a second; otherwise, users tend to think it is not working.
To achieve this, researchers had the ring compress the images before sending them to a phone. Rather than streaming images all the time, the ring gets activated when the user clicks the button, then turns off after 3 seconds of inactivity.
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In a study with 23 participants, twice as many users preferred IRIS over a voice command system alone (in this case, Apple鈥檚 Siri). On average, IRIS controlled home devices more than two seconds faster than voice commands.
鈥淚n the future, integrating the IRIS camera system into a health-tracking smart ring would be a transformative step for smart rings,鈥� Kim said. 鈥淚t鈥檇 let smart rings actually augment or improve human capability, rather than just telling you your step count or heart rate.鈥�
, 鈥斅燽oth UW doctoral students in the Allen School 鈥� were co-lead authors on the study, and , a UW professor in the Allen School, was the senior author. Additional co-authors include , a UW research assistant in the Allen School; , a UW undergraduate in the Allen School; , a UW master鈥檚 student in the Allen School; and , a UW professor in the Allen School. This research was funded by a Moore Inventor Fellow award and the National Science Foundation.
For more information, contact iris@cs.washington.edu.
