> So instead, Warden’s company is releasing a new sensor that can scan a QR code. The idea behind this $6 sensor is that appliance makers can put it inside their products as a method of getting devices onto Wi-Fi easier. A user could simply show their Wi-Fi QR code (I find mine in my router app) to the sensor and get their, say, fridge or washer online. I think it could be neat as a way to transfer a recipe to an oven, or specific washing instructions to a washing machine for particular items of clothing. Unfortunately, unlike scanning a new shirt and getting the machine to change its parameters to provide the best wash, many of the use cases for TinyML are going to be kind of boring.

Sorry. What’s the ML piece here? QR codes are from the 90s and don’t use any ML I’m aware of…

> However, at the conference Warden told me that, while he’d quickly discovered that the model worked, educating people about new gestures was tough. “No one knows that these gestures are available,” he said. This makes sense. If you remember back to the launch of the first iPhone and its touchscreen, the first ads and demonstrations focused on things like taps and pinch-to-zoom. Those weren’t intuitive; they were taught.

And if that were true, that’s solvable just like with the iPhone by having tutorials when you boot your TV. I think what’s actually the case that the CEO doesn’t want to admit is that he’s having trouble convincing TV makers this is a useful model when they’re all going into voice-operated UIs. That and the BOM cost makes it unappealing.