The Apple Watch is known for receiving notifications, sending text messages, making phone calls, and so on, but the Apple Watch’s future may be even brighter than what we experience now. Taiwanese company PVD+ has conducted an experiment using the Apple Watch as a drone controller. PVD+ Co-founder Mark Ven is using the Apple Watch currently to fly his Parrot AR drone outdoors. “Previously, we’ve needed complicated controls to fly drones, but now we can use a wearable device, and through human behavior and gestures, directly interact with them using a hand to control and fly drones directly,” Ven said in a Reuters interview.
Ven and PVD+ have taken the Apple Watch and written an algorithm for it that lets it do more than just control your iPhone or iPad, but also control drones.
In addition to using the Apple Watch to fly drones in a field, Ven has also been able to use the smartwatch to impact home automation. Ven clapped once to turn on a light, then twice to turn it off; he then drew an “R” in the air and the light turned “red”; a “Y” and the light turned yellow.
While Ven and PVD+ don’t have the financial muscle of high-tech companies such as Samsung, Apple, and Google, among others, the Apple Watch algorithm shows how potent of a device the smartwatch can become for home automation and the Internet of Things (or IoT). Samsung is planning to integrate IoT into its 2016 Smart TVs that’ll feature a GAIA triple-level security, but the Korean giant intends to use its Smart TVs to control home automation (lights, air conditioner, heat, etc.), not its Tizen-powered Gear S2 smartwatch. Samsung has filed patents to encourage interaction between its Gear smartwatches and its Smart TVs, so hopefully, it won’t be too long before we see this kind of technology. Apple’s own HomeKit may support this technology in the immediate future.
