After providing accessibility features focused on voice control or screen reading, Google has now introduced a new feature “Camera Switches” in the “Android Accessibility Suite” allowing users to use certain facial expressions to control their smartphones.
For a long time, Android has provided an accessibility API that allows developers to make apps for disabled people and it places such apps in a few categories like screen readers, switch-based input systems, and voice-based systems. And expanding that category Google has revealed the “Camera Switches,” which uses facial expressions to control the device. This feature is a part of the fourth Android Beta 12 release and was rolled out to the pixel model a few days back.
According to XDA Developers, the Camera Switches provide you with a list of gestures to control the device. Here’s the list of some Face Gestures:
- Smile
- Open mouth
- Look left
- Look right
- Raise eyebrows
- Lookup
All of these facial expressions will correspond to several smartphone commands, such as:
- Pause Camera Switch
- Select
- Toggle auto-scan
- Reverse auto-scan
- Next
- Previous
- Touch & hold
- Home
- Back
- Scroll forward
- Scroll backward
- Notifications
- Quick
- Overview
The “Camera Switches” feature is not yet available to Android 12 non-beta devices so, you can either sideload the APK or wait for the update to roll out on the device (it is compatible with Android 11 also).
