Motion and gesture interfaces to gain traction in the coming years

According to a new study from Juniper Research the use of the technology in smartphone-based VR (Virtual Reality) will be particularly important in driving up usage. The research company forecasts 128 million devices by the end of 2016, rising to 492 million by 2020 – a growth of over 280%.

Great progress has been made in the development of gesture and motion interfaces, from companies such as Leap Motion and Thalmic Labs, the company continues. Nearly 50% of all wearables and almost all VR are expected to use the technology by 2021. However, for more established platforms like PCs and smartphones, usage might remain low, with less than 5% of such devices using gesture control by that time.

The arrival of motion control for smartphone VR in 2017 will start a shift towards multimodal computing, using both peripherals and motion and gesture control. Still, at the moment this will simply extend current functionalities, holding back adoption across devices as a whole, unless the UI (user interface) paradigm changes.