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Comment by GoMonad | Hacker News Reader

I had a Moto X which had IR touch-less gestures. I remember them being surprisingly useful and I missed them when I retired the phone.

I'm optimistic to see what these radar based sensors can add.

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Can you explain what about the touch-less gestures you found useful? Like, if I'm already holding the phone in my hand and I want to give it input signal, why would I want to avoid touching it?

If your hands are wet, greasy, or wearing gloves, touchless gestures would be great.

Have you personally been in this situation enough for it to matter? I asked GoMonad because he actually was skeptical and then had his mind changed. I'm not interested in people imagining what it might be useful for.

Definitely. I sweat a lot when I work out. I can hardly use my phone at all. That’s also why I thought it was one of the dumbest idea in the world when Garmin introduced a capacitive touch GPS watch for running. I had a Garmin with physical buttons even after there were great running apps for phones.

Just to add another: phones are very useful for cooking (recipes, videos for techniques, even just accurate timers), but touching them after touching raw meat or just messy ingredients is not recommended. Touchless operation would be great. Would save me many hand washings and fights with the touchscreen caused by moist fingers.

I'm an avid skier, and I always wear gloves when I ski.

Neither the fingerprint sensor or face recognition work in this situation unfortunately. I have to use glove liners with touchscreen-compatible fingertips to enter my password.

I remember them being useful when my phone was resting on my desk at work. This was before always on notifications were as prolific and advanced as they are today.

I could wave my hand to check the time. Or see what was causing the most recent notification chime. It sounds really simple but not having to pick up the phone meant reducing distraction.

The Moto X's gestures couldn't be much more than a hand wave due to the simplicity of the sensor. But even so, they kept me from picking up my phone quite a bit.

Thanks!

I'll second GoMonad's description. It sounds too simple to be useful, but being able to wave my hand over my phone when it was laying on my bedside table/desk/whatever to see the time and notifications was just so convenient. I haven't had that phone for 3+ years and still find myself expecting it to work.

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