Passive identification and control of arbitrary devices in smart environments

Modern smart environments are comprised of multiple interconnected appliances controlled by a central system. Pointing at devices in order to control them is an intuitive way of interaction, often unconsciously performed when switching TV stations with an infrared remote, even though it is usually not required. However, only a limited number of devices have the required facilities for this kind of interaction since it does require attaching transceivers and often results in the necessity to use multiple remote controls. We propose a system giving a user the ability to intuitively control arbitrary devices in smart environments by identifying the appliance an interaction device is pointed at and providing means to manipulate these. The system is based on identifying the position and orientation of said interaction device, registering these values to a virtual representation of the physical environment, which is used to identify the selected appliance. We have created a prototype interaction device that manipulates the environment using gesture-based interaction