Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Samsung seems to be engaged on a “Pointer Mode” characteristic for Put on OS.
- The characteristic would permit you to management your TV by means of your smartwatch with particular air gestures.
- You’ll be capable of activate Pointer Mode by shaking your watch hand.
Are you at all times shedding the TV distant or bored with having to rise up as a result of it’s simply out of attain? You could not have to fret about these issues within the close to future. Samsung seems to be engaged on letting you management your TV along with your Galaxy smartwatch.
An APK teardown helps predict options which will arrive on a service sooner or later primarily based on work-in-progress code. Nevertheless, it’s attainable that such predicted options could not make it to a public launch.
Within the SmartThings app on Put on OS (model 1.3.12.9), we seen some strings of code referencing a characteristic known as “Pointer Mode.” That is most certainly a characteristic that shall be unique to Galaxy smartwatches.
Code
<string identify="pointer_mode">Pointer Mode</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_app_support_toast">Pointer mode will not be supported in all apps</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_gesture_control">To make use of Pointer mode, disable all gesture controls.</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_screen_text">You should use gesture whereas on this display</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_setings_Low">Low</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_settings_High">Excessive</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_settings_Mid">Mid</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_suggestion">You'll be able to activate the Pointer mode by shaking your watch hand</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_universal_gesture">To make use of Pointer mode, disable Common Gesture.</string>
<string identify="pointer_mode_view_tutorial">View Tutorial</string>
<string identify="no_pointer_mode_supported_tv">You have no gadgets that help Pointer mode.</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_1">Activate Pointer mode with shake gesture</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_2">Pinch to pick</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_3">Make a fist to return</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_4">Make a fist twice to go Residence</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_5">Transfer your wrists forwards and backwards to play/pause</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_6">Rotate bezel to scroll up or down in your TV</string>
<string identify="user_instruction_7">Use your wrist to regulate the cursor's motion</string>Based mostly on the strings above, it seems Pointer Mode will use gesture controls like wrist and finger actions. It sounds considerably paying homage to the gesture controls used for the Imaginative and prescient Professional and Apple Watch. For instance, you’d shake your hand to activate pointer mode. Pinching could be how you choose a channel, making a fist would ship you again to the earlier channel you had been on, and making a fist twice would take you to Residence.
Take a look at the video under to see an indication of how Pointer Mode would work primarily based on this data.
Pointer Mode could be a bit of completely different than the Wiimote-like characteristic coming to the SmartThings cellphone app later this 12 months. That characteristic supplies a touchpad within the cellphone app, permitting you to regulate a cursor on the TV. It would additionally permit you to level your smartphone on the TV for cursor management. There could be no touchpad interface for Pointer Mode.
