You might have heard about technology that uses Arduino chips in order to connect various devices. There are a lot of campuses that use Arduino to show directions to a particular department just when you point a destination department name on the display screen. In a similar way, it's now possible to Play/Pause, Change Song with gesture movements using your Laptop's camera. You can even level up or level down your volume without touching your Laptop.

#1 ControlAir

ControlAir is an app for Mac available on Mac App Store for download. A very lightweight app that weighs just 3 MB.

Change Song with Gesture Controls on Mac and Windows

ControlAir can work with several applications.

  1. iTunes
  2. VLC Media Player
  3. QuickTime Player
  4. Gear for Google Play and YouTube
  5. Spotify
  6. Rdio
  7. VOX

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKfCT0EzfZI[/embedyt]

How?

Get ControlAir from Mac App Store (Download link given below).

Download and install ControlAir on your Mac for free. Setting up ControlAir is simple and easy. Place your head in front of the FaceTime Camera so that the app can recognize you.

While you are listening to music or watching a movie, you really don't have to reach your Mac and change the song. Surprisingly, you do not need any hardware like sensors to control music without touching your Mac.

Three checklists you need to make this happen on your Mac:

  1. Is the ControlAir app detecting your head?
  2. Is the light in your room bright enough?
  3. Is your index finger not away from the camera's vicinity?

If you pass these three checklists every time, then you can control your music on Mac without touching it.

Does it work on my Mac?

Of course, it should. ControlAir works on any Macs running Mavericks and above. I have tested on Yosemite and runs smoothly.

About ControlAir

ControlAir is a project from eyeSight Mobile Technologies Ltd. that works on gesture recognition. As far now, ControlAir is available only for OS X but we can expect a Windows version for the same.

With ControlAir, you can:

  • Change music
  • Level your music volume up or down
  • Play or Pause your song or movie

#2 Flutter

Flutter is an alternative to ControlAir. It supports more apps than ControlAir and is available for Windows too. I have tested on Windows 8.1 Pro and it works like charm than ControlAir.

The only feature that Flutter doesn't have is, you won't be able to control the volume of your music.

Changing music, Playing/Pausing music works like great with Flutter.

As a bonus, you can use gestures to change slides on your PowerPoint Slide Show. While you are presenting, just face your laptop's camera and do an appropriate gesture and Flutter intelligently identifies whether you advance a slide or trying to show a previous slide.

Is Flutter available for Mac OS X?

Yes. Flutter works on both Windows and Mac OS X.

What kind of apps that Flutter supports on Windows?

There are various apps that Flutter can work with, on Windows.

  1. Grooveshark
  2. NetFlix
  3. Pandora
  4. Powerpoint
  5. Spotify
  6. Windows Media Player
  7. Winamp
  8. VLC Media Player
  9. YouTube
  10. iTunes

As a Google Chrome extension

In order to work better on YouTube, Spotify, and other websites, Flutter works with Google Chrome extension to Play or Pause videos or music.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4bQmLjXn4w[/embedyt]

Download Links

  • ControlAir from Mac App Store [Link]
  • Flutter [Link for Mac OS X] [Link for Windows]
  • Flutter Google Chrome Extension [Link]