Motion-Sensing - The Next Big Thing for Mice?

Although motion-sensing mice sound weird, they make a lot of sense when it is needed to use them without any table. There are a lot of such situations, in fact: during presentations to show functionality of software that requires mouse control, in the living room to control a media center PC, in case of multi-display installations where it can be tough to efficiently control something, and so on.

Considering the fact that gyroscopes and accelerometers are pretty inexpensive these days, mice aimed at aforementioned usage models may pretty easily obtain them. In fact, the most important thing about such devices is development of proper motion-sensing software and processing technologies, including drivers for major operating systems as well as hardware-based methods to improve accuracy, cancel tremors, recognize gestures and so on. Gyroscopes, microcontrollers, optical sensors and other components are available on open market and can be programmed appropriately, there is no need to develop actual hardware.

As people get used to motion sensing controllers of all three major game consoles, gyroscopes inside smartphones, tablets and other devices, they may start to demand similar functionality from other peripherals, including mice, remote controls for TVs and players as well as other gadgets.

If the end users show solid demand towards mice with motion sensing, then gyroscopes inside pointing devices will quickly cease to be a luxury, but simply one of the features; programmable buttons and scrolling wheels were additional options at first that cost additional money, but eventually became default features even on the least expensive mice. Perhaps, gyroscopes are not ideal for an average user these days, but children, who are used to Wiimote, the first mass motion-sensing controller released, should find motion-sensing mice pretty comfortable.