Add Gesture Control to Your Computer with Skywriter and Arduino

After coming into possession of a Skywriter 3D gesture sensing pad, hacker Ben James decided put it to use as an interface device for his computer.

The Pimoroni unit is tasked with detecting finger swipes, circles, and taps, while an Arduino Leonardo acts as a virtual keyboard, sending the required keystrokes to his computer depending on the signal received from the device.

The results — as seen in the video below — are quite interesting. Swipes manipulate window position, taps activate different applications, and circling the board with a finger controls a program called Redshift that modifies the amount of blue light on your screen.

You can find the project’s write-up here, or check out James’ GitHub page for code.