Android collects a good part of its accessibility functions under the Android Accessibility Suite, the evolution of the old Talkback. The latest innovation in this accessibility suite adds the possibility of use facial gestures to manipulate the mobile.
This novelty comes in the version 12.0.0.381995842 beta of the accessibility suite under the name of Camera switch, within the accessibility with switches. Until now, Android natively allowed the use of switches by external devices connected by Bluetooth or USB.
Manage your mobile with gestures
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The Android accessibility suite has just added an important accessibility improvement: support to use the mobile’s own camera to recognize facial gestures and use them as switches to perform various actions.
The accessibility switches were already part of the Android Accessibility Suite, although they required the use of an external device connected to the mobile via Bluetooth or USB. With this novelty, it does not require anything more than the front camera of the mobile, thanks to the Camera switch, a new setting available in the Android Accessibility options after installing the latest version of the accessibility suite on a compatible mobile.
This option allows you to perform tasks on your mobile such as using the scroll, home key, go back, open notifications, next, select or display the Android quick settings using facial gestures. To prevent these functions from being activated during normal use of the mobile, it is recommended to also assign a switch to activate and deactivate gesture recognition.
As for the gestures available lie mouth open, smile, raise eyebrows, look to the left, look to the right and look up. Obviously, the mobile needs to keep the front camera of the mobile on to recognize the different gestures and start the action when there is a positive recognition.
To avoid accidental activations, from the accessibility options it is possible to test the recognition and modify the sensitivity and duration of the gesture, to assign a value that is more convenient.
While this accessibility feature appears in the accessibility suite version that comes pre-installed in Android 12, it is not exclusive to this version. In fact, we have been able to test it without problems in a mobile with Android 10, so hopefully it will spread to older versions as well.
Via | XDA
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The news
Manage your Android mobile with facial gestures: the latest innovation in accessibility from Google
was originally published in
Engadget Android
by
Ivan Ramirez
.
