Startup Erghis just announced a crowdfunding campaign, with the aim of creating a new way to interact with computers and phones. Touchless is something multiple startups in the region are working on, such as Crunchfish and The Eye Tribe. But Erghis solution is not a new technology for reading touchless signals, but rather the user-interface and how we interact with the technology.

The Sphere

Their approach, simulating a ‘sphere’ that is typed on or controlled by the users hands, makes it possible to have a highly configurable interface that can be adjusted for different devices, apps or programs.

“Use it to write, navigate, move the mouse, rotate 3d-models, do work or just play around. Make the Sphere your own or use it as is.” the team says

The Sphere makes a complex system of gestures into a simple object that puts almost unlimited control in the users hands. You manipulate the sphere in configurable ways to control different devices. Use it to write, navigate, move the mouse or rotate 3d-models. The Sphere is highly costumizable and will support multiple interfaces, keyboards and shortcuts.

“For the computer this is a set of gestures, for you it is a magical object that gives you unique personalised control.”

The teams says the on-screen interface will make learning easy and show the sphere in a reflection of the users hands, making it easy to adjust ones actions.

Built on experience

The Erghis Sphere is not just a vision, even if might sound almost like science-fiction. It is built on experience. Shortly after the launch of the Leap Motion Controller, the “Erghis First” was released. It was the teams way of testing how people react to the concept of holding a sphere and using it for writing. Even though the experience was limited, the results were promising.

The touchless hardware sector is young, but the sphere is already usable for basic writing. From there it is a small step to make it useable for other forms of interaction. The feedback from the Leap Motion Erghis First experiment was very good:

“This is the most feature rich keyboard app that I’ve tried for the Leap yet. They’ve done a great job of understanding what the Leap tracks well and implemented a system to work with that tracking. As the tracking improves, I expect this to get better and better over time.” was one of the opinions.

“This program has a learning curve to it, but feels like a great step towards touchless computing.” was another review.

Creating the future

The Sphere as seen in the campaign video is the one that the team wants to create. The goal with this campaign is to put in place the technological foundation that allows the Sphere to mature greatly with each leap in sensor technology. Current plans are that the Erghis Sphere will support the Leap Motion sensors initially.

Check out the crowdfunding campaign at IndieGoGo and support the team! The crowdfunding rewards are also used in a nice way – such as a voting mechanic wether MacOS or Linux should be supported first, depending on which rewards is more popular!