Goodbye Touch: Will LG unveil latest flagship at MWC 2019 with gesture control?

LG Gesture Control Smartphone

While companies like Samsung, Motorola, Huawei and Xiaomi have announced prototypes of their foldable smartphones, LG seems to be doing something more. LG is biding time to ease into the foldable smartphone segment. The Korean giant has dropped a major hint of things to come at this year’s Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.

The company recently sent out press invitations for the event with no information on what they will unveil, except for a 13-second teaser video that says 'Goodbye Touch'. The teaser doesn't reveal much details but perhaps hints at a new LG smartphone with gesture control. With rumours of a new LG G8 ThinQ set to debut at this year’s Mobile World Conference, could we get a glimpse of an innovative gesture-enabled smartphone?

The teaser hints to a device which would allow you to scroll through web pages or documents by just waving your hands, implying that the device would be capable of identifying hand movements with the aid of a 3D sensor. A machine learning algorithm on the front camera could also be used to determine hand movements.

LG isn’t the first company to explore gesture control in smartphones. Samsung did something similar with the Galaxy S4 in 2013, calling it Air Gesture. Air Gesture used the proximity sensor on the S4 to detect swipes, letting you move icons and scroll browsers with hand movements, rather than touch. However, this feature had no shortage of bugs and only worked in certain apps, failing to make it to subsequent versions of Galaxy phones.

Perhaps LG’s slogan “Goodbye Touch” is overstating it, and gesture control might just be an optional feature present on the new device. Whatever it means, one thing is for certain, “technology evolves with time”, and the idea of bringing gesture control to a smartphone may be a fresh change in the current scenario. Whether this touch-less feature turns out to be a gimmick or the next big innovation in smartphone-tech is still uncertain. One thing that is certain is the anticipation of seeing a fully-functional version of this technology.