Can you explain what about the touch-less gestures you found useful? Like, if I'm already holding the phone in my hand and I want to give it input signal, why would I want to avoid touching it?
Have you personally been in this situation enough for it to matter? I asked GoMonad because he actually was skeptical and then had his mind changed. I'm not interested in people imagining what it might be useful for.
Definitely. I sweat a lot when I work out. I can hardly use my phone at all. That’s also why I thought it was one of the dumbest idea in the world when Garmin introduced a capacitive touch GPS watch for running. I had a Garmin with physical buttons even after there were great running apps for phones.
Just to add another: phones are very useful for cooking (recipes, videos for techniques, even just accurate timers), but touching them after touching raw meat or just messy ingredients is not recommended. Touchless operation would be great. Would save me many hand washings and fights with the touchscreen caused by moist fingers.
I'm an avid skier, and I always wear gloves when I ski.
Neither the fingerprint sensor or face recognition work in this situation unfortunately. I have to use glove liners with touchscreen-compatible fingertips to enter my password.
I remember them being useful when my phone was resting on my desk at work. This was before always on notifications were as prolific and advanced as they are today.
I could wave my hand to check the time. Or see what was causing the most recent notification chime. It sounds really simple but not having to pick up the phone meant reducing distraction.
The Moto X's gestures couldn't be much more than a hand wave due to the simplicity of the sensor. But even so, they kept me from picking up my phone quite a bit.
I'll second GoMonad's description. It sounds too simple to be useful, but being able to wave my hand over my phone when it was laying on my bedside table/desk/whatever to see the time and notifications was just so convenient. I haven't had that phone for 3+ years and still find myself expecting it to work.
My first thought when I heard that Apple were ditching fingerprints for face recognition was that the lag would be infuriating after getting used to picking up my phone and unlocking it as I did so. With the sensor on the back, it became a natural thing to do and meant my phone was ready and unlocked before I was looking at the screen.
They are describing face unlock working equivalently well, which would mitigate my concerns a lot.
The presumed lack of a headphone port is annoying though. I know it's an oft-stated thing, but still. I just wish anyone was offering a phone with a second USB-C port on top as an alternative. It'd be useful in other ways too.
My main issue with wireless headphones is that I swap between 3+ devices regularly and I have never found any good wireless headphones that handle that as well as just swapping a cable, as counter-intuitive as that is.
There was a time I said I'd never buy a phone without a physical keyboard (mostly solved by bigger screens and swiping virtual keyboards), and later a removable SD card (solved by storage size outpacing my storage needs—on a phone at least), so I assume this, too, shall pass.
If I have to use my hands to pull my phone out of my pocket/bag/whatever, and the easiest way to make the screen point at my face is by holding it in my hand, what do the radar gestures add? It's either a gimmick or they have some very clever new UI features that might be a big change from what we're used to. I'm really hoping it's the latter.
Is it a common problem that hitting snooze on the alarm is /too hard/?
I find myself paying for apps that make hitting the snooze button complicated. Captchas. Math. You name it.
Is there any combination of sensors that gives the smartphone an idea if I'm properly awake? Not talking about light sleep vs dreaming here. More the "will he get out of bed" kind.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] threadContactless gestures could indeed be an interesting feature. At least fresh and different one.
I'm optimistic to see what these radar based sensors can add.
Neither the fingerprint sensor or face recognition work in this situation unfortunately. I have to use glove liners with touchscreen-compatible fingertips to enter my password.
I could wave my hand to check the time. Or see what was causing the most recent notification chime. It sounds really simple but not having to pick up the phone meant reducing distraction.
The Moto X's gestures couldn't be much more than a hand wave due to the simplicity of the sensor. But even so, they kept me from picking up my phone quite a bit.
They are describing face unlock working equivalently well, which would mitigate my concerns a lot.
The presumed lack of a headphone port is annoying though. I know it's an oft-stated thing, but still. I just wish anyone was offering a phone with a second USB-C port on top as an alternative. It'd be useful in other ways too.
My main issue with wireless headphones is that I swap between 3+ devices regularly and I have never found any good wireless headphones that handle that as well as just swapping a cable, as counter-intuitive as that is.
There was a time I said I'd never buy a phone without a physical keyboard (mostly solved by bigger screens and swiping virtual keyboards), and later a removable SD card (solved by storage size outpacing my storage needs—on a phone at least), so I assume this, too, shall pass.
https://atap.google.com/soli/
I find myself paying for apps that make hitting the snooze button complicated. Captchas. Math. You name it.
Is there any combination of sensors that gives the smartphone an idea if I'm properly awake? Not talking about light sleep vs dreaming here. More the "will he get out of bed" kind.