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Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

#11

Post by huangc10 »

The demo on the front page looks super cool. Signing up and looking forward to more progress and updates in the future. I wonder how accurate the finger recognition is? Is it accurate enough to pick up numbers so your fingers can be used to change the channel for example?

I did my final year engineering project with the Kinect (years ago!) and controlled a robotic arm to pick up an egg. Didn't know how else to apply this, but it seems like you guys really thought outside the box.

Only thing is the name...not sure about naming after the green alien from DBZ.

Re: Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

#12

Post by warent »

Super cool idea, although the privacy implications are a little bit discomforting.

Anyway, I'd be interested to know how you're dealing with the depth problem. For example, if there's a light behind you and a light above you, pointing up looks like you could be pointing at either light.

Re: Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

#16

Post by marlonmisra »

huangc10 wrote: post #11

The demo on the front page looks super cool. Signing up and looking forward to more progress and updates in the future. I wonder how accurate the finger recognition is? Is it accurate enough to pick up numbers so your fingers can be used to change the channel for example? I did my final year engineering project with the Kinect (years ago!) and controlled a robotic arm to pick up an egg. Didn't know how else to apply…

It's accurate enough to pick up number of fingers from a fairly long distance (~5m), and it works well in most lighting conditions, including complete darkness.

Re: Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

#18

Post by astone »

hashkb wrote: post #10

> but the more complicated models are run in the cloud This is a massive problem with home automation tools today. I need to rely on Comcast to stay alive to be able to turn lights on and off in my house? To me, it's an absolute dealbreaker. I've spent more time than I feel like I should have had to in order to control devices I own without any data leaving my LAN. Am I the only one who feels like it's a totally absu…

I was looking for this. Cloud dependencies are a dealbreaker for me when it comes to home automation. I guess the alternative is to have hardware capable of doing the cloud work on your internal network.

Re: Launch HN: Piccolo (YC W18) – Camera for controlling your home with gestures

#20

Post by huangc10 »

marlonmisra wrote: post #16
huangc10 wrote: post #11

The demo on the front page looks super cool. Signing up and looking forward to more progress and updates in the future. I wonder how accurate the finger recognition is? Is it accurate enough to pick up numbers so your fingers can be used to change the channel for example? I did my final year engineering project with the Kinect (years ago!) and controlled a robotic arm to pick up an egg. Didn't know how else to apply…

It's accurate enough to pick up number of fingers from a fairly long distance (~5m), and it works well in most lighting conditions, including complete darkness.

Actually the lighting was the other question I had in mind. Impressive. When I worked on the Kinect code, lighting was never really an issue we had or wanted to tackle.

I think something that people don't realize until they start using motion sensing technology is that how intuitive it can really be. It might look awkward at first, but once it's seamlessly integrated (ie. stepping into the sensor's view), it's really just like magic. A good enough sensor can pick up and understand very specific motions.

Anyway, good luck guys.

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