Remember when Furbies were cool? 1990s kids remember. But this is 2017, and toys have evolved to heights that were unimaginable 20-odd years ago. A particular case in point is the smartphone-operated BB-8 Droid.
But whereas the BB-8 is pretty cool for the Star Wars fan base, it lacks a defining characteristic for us car folks: wheels. Also, controlling a toy via your Android or iOS device is yesterday’s news. Heck, BMW lets you do exactly that with touch-sensitive Display Key of the G30 5-Series and G11/G12 7er.
And speaking of BMW, gesture control appears to be the biggest thing in this day and age as far as in-car tech is concerned. The question is, what if the same principle were to be applied for toys? For a company called Ultigesture, that simple question turned into a flat-out objective.
Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, the gesture-controlled toy car is not wishful thinking, but a reality. Thanks to a team led by a professor working at the William and Mary College, Ultigesture has managed to develop a Bluetooth-enabled wristband whose sole purpose is control.
The company promises a “precise and realistic racing experience” for the said contraption, which are pretty bold words for a project that has yet to hit its Kickstarter goal of $30,000. The way the band works, however, is pretty straightforward: move your forearm up to accelerate, down to slow down or to reverse, turn your forearm to the left to make the car go left, and right for the car to go right. Yup, that easy.
In prototype form, the Ultigesture Smart Wristband boasts a range of control of 22 yards (20 meters), whereas the toy car can go as fast as 13 mph (20 km/h). The chunky wheels and 0.6-plus inches (1.5 cm) ride height, meanwhile, are good enough for a wee bit of off-roading action.
To deliver the most realistic racing experience, we consulted lots of RC car racers and defined our gestures accordingly. pic.twitter.com/JYWBD4OBfb
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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