editor's blog
Subscribe Now

Gesture Oops

Someone I know got a new phone recently. It had gesture recognition capabilities. (No, I’m not going to name names. Partly because I don’t know.)

Fortunately, he was able to turn that feature off. And you’re not going to believe why he decided to do that.

Apparently, a “wave” gesture was used to end a phone call. And I’m sure that gesture was tested over and over, but only in the obvious use case: when you’re done with a call, you wave and the call ends.

Only one problem, and apparently this must not have been tested, since it’s so egregious. When a call comes in and you try to answer the call? By bringing your hand up to the screen? Yup: it sees that as a wave and ends the call before you even answered it.

This happened enough times that he gave up and turned off the feature.

Years ago, I got a PC with fingerprint security. I tried over and over to get it to read my fingerprint consistently, and it couldn’t. So I disabled that feature, fearing that I might end up locked out of my own computer. More importantly, I mentally wrote that feature off, and I’ve never tried it since. Even though it probably works a lot better now.

Short-sighted? Maybe. But heck, I’m human. And lots of people do that with new features.

So we may now have a cluster of people that are deciding that gesture recognition doesn’t work based on this goofy oops. It boggles my mind that a phone could have made it out into the wild working like that; maybe it’s something else going wrong, but it doesn’t matter. The user’s experience was that attempting to answer a call would hang the call up. Shutting off gesture recognition solved the problem.

Time to go back and review the testing scenarios…

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Jul 11, 2025
Can you help me track down the source of the poem titled 'The African Tigger is Fading Away'?...

Libby's Lab

Libby's Lab - Scopes out Littelfuse C&K Aerospace AeroSplice Connectors

Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Littelfuse

Join Libby and Demo in this episode of “Libby’s Lab” as they explore the Littelfuse C&K Aerospace Aerosplice Connectors, available at Mouser.com! These connectors are ideal for high-reliability easy-to-use wire-to-wire connections in aerospace applications. Keep your circuits charged and your ideas sparking!

Click here for more information

featured paper

AI-based Defect Detection System that is Both High Performance and Highly Accurate Implemented in Low-cost, Low-power FPGAs

Sponsored by Altera

Learn how MAX® 10 FPGAs enable real-time, high-accuracy AI-based defect detection at the industrial edge without a GPU. This white paper explores a production-proven solution that delivers 24× higher accuracy, 488× lower latency, and 20× lower power than traditional approaches, with a compact footprint ideal for embedded vision systems.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

Power Modules and Why You Should Use Them in Your Next Power Design
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Christine Chacko from Texas Instruments explore a variety of power module package technologies, examine the many ways that power modules can help save on total design solution cost, and the unique benefits that Texas Instruments power modules can bring to your next design.
Aug 22, 2024
43,297 views