Development of Touchless Light Controls

Goal of this thesis was to conceive a touchless interaction with light in addition to a fall-back-interaction through touch. This was implemented in a prototype and evaluated with a usability test. The evaluation gives information about the distribution of interaction variations, user preferences, and prototype robustness. A lamp control was prototypically implemented using the 3D-Touchpad from Microchip Inc. it is capable of control through in-air gestures up to 10 cm distance and touch gestures. Besides turning the lamp on and off, it is possible to dim the lamp smoothly and to switch between a warm-white and a cool-white mode.
The user study revealed that in terms of reliability and intuitiveness of both interaction-forms, there was a 3-12% difference measured in favour of touch gestures. Subjectively two thirds of the Subjects preferred the touch control.