Smart watches, for many, have become an essential accessory for everyday life, whether to track their health when exercising, to have faster access to notifications or even to send messages on WhatsApp or an email in Gmail without having to take your phone out of your pocket.
But developers continue to find and design creative and interesting uses, as is the case with a new app I've been testing for control the mouse on my computer without touching it, just making hand gestures in the best style of Doctor Strange, or rather, as if he were a kind of Jedi of technology. It is a tool that has been more useful than I imagined, especially when making a presentation.
How to control the mouse in the Obi-Wan Kenobi style
Imagine this situation: you connect your laptop to a big screen TV or projector to give a presentation to a group of people, but you don't have a remote control at hand and you aren't close enough to change every image or sheet of information. There are mobile apps that can help you, but in my case I controlled the presentation with my Wear OS watch and a new app which came to light during CES 2024 in Las Vegas.
The application is called WowMouse, and it is very simple to use: use smartwatch sensors to move the mouse cursor when you move your arm, and just by making a pinch gesture (touching the tip of your index finger with your thumb) you can “click” with the left mouse button, among other things.
Once the application is downloaded to your smartwatch, configuring it is very simple. The app is compatible with smart watches with operating system Wear OS 2 or higher, and works with computers, tablets and even mobile phones. I have personally used it with a Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and it works perfectly. However, its creators say that it does not work with the Pixel Watch or the Pixel Watch 2, at least as of this writing.
After installing it on the watch, follow the following steps:
- Open the application on the smartwatch
- Grant the permissions requested by the app (permission to find nearby devices)
- Open the panel Bluetooth settings on the device you are going to use the app with (for example, on your computer) and search for new devices
- On the watch, allow the Bluetooth connection to be visible (you can do it from the same app)
- Finally, Select which arm you use the watch on: right or left
And that's all, from now on you will see that when you move the arm you have the watch on, the cursor will move on the screen of your computer or any device. AND When you make the pinch gesture, you will be able to “click”.
The watch screen will show the image of a mouse, and every time you make the pinch gesture the entire screen will light up green. If you press the mouse on the watch, cursor control is disabled, which is ideal to avoid making accidental clicks at inopportune moments.
In my case, I have tested the application to control the mouse on a MacBook Pro, a Samsung mobile and an iPad sixth generation (I know, it's a little old now, but I only use it to watch series and movies). In all cases it has worked perfectly.
It is also possible to configure other actions for the pinch gesture: In addition to clicking with the left button, you can choose that when doing the gesture the action is to press the space bar or press “Enter”. It is even possible to change the gesture from pinching to touching a surface.
WowMouse
WowMouse is an app that allows you to use a WearOS smartwatch as a mouse on a wide variety of devices.
The creators of the app, the development studio Doublepoint, they mentioned during the CES that their intention is to license this app to smart watch manufacturers so that the app is included in their devices. But there is no need to wait for that to happen, if it happens, fortunately it can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and use completely free.
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