3Gear Systems is developing a tiny, camera-controlled device and PC software that tracks hand and finger movements to enable touchless control of computers. The device mounts on the front of a laptop or desktop and plugs into a USB port. A specialized camera recognizes the shape and spacing of fingers to determine gestures, while the software runs on the PC as an overlay on the operating system. The company emphasizes multi-finger and multi-hand gestures to support a wider range of controls than a traditional mouse. 3Gear aims for a consumer-friendly form factor and has suggested a likely price below $99. CEO and co-founder Robert Wang has demonstrated the product and says the company is focused on building gesture recognition that actually works. 3Gear Systems offers a software platform and SDK that turns raw 3D visual data from Kinects or other 3D cameras into usable APIs for hand, finger and wrist tracking. The platform supports stereoscopic setups (the company demos two Kinects) and the typical hardware setup costs about $330 in parts. APIs are available in C++ and Java, with C# and Python support planned. Target applications include CAD interaction, 3D animation manipulation and medical use cases such as exploring a human heart model. The company is launching an SDK that is in beta through the end of next month and intends to keep it free for hobbyists and researchers while negotiating licensing fees with larger companies (those making more than $100,000/year). 3Gear was developed by Robert Wang (recent PhD from MIT) and is backed by a set of investors.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Apr 2014