Papers for

smart home appliance developers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Small electronic tags enable gaze-based object detection without cameras

Camera-Free Object Discovery and Interaction with GazeTags

Abstract: We present GazeTags, a camera- and computer-vision-free approach for worn head-gaze object awareness. Our small electronic tags cost roughly \$2 each and can operate for more than a year on a coin cell battery. They work in concert with a user-worn device (smartglasses, hearables, etc.) that periodically emits a focused infrared signal aligned with the user's head direction. Only GazeTags within that narrow head-oriented beam wake and respond, providing their identity and optional payloads such as object state or live sensor readings. By avoiding cameras and computer vision pipelines, our approach is very energy efficient, able to operate continuously even in battery-constrained wearables, and sidesteps non-trivial privacy issues. We describe our hardware design, characterize our system performance and operating tradeoffs, and demonstrate how GazeTags can enable practical gaze-aware environments.

Mon 2 NovHuman-Computer InteractionComputer Vision and Pattern RecognitionGraphics

The gist

People often use cameras to recognize objects they look at, but cameras can use a lot of battery power and raise privacy concerns. The authors created a tiny tag that you can stick on objects, which wakes up only when a special infrared light points at it from a device worn on the head. This lets the device know exactly which object you are looking at without needing a camera. The tags are cheap, use very little power, and can last more than a year on a small battery.

Open → 2611.02599v1