The five moves
Everything in the practice area runs on five moves:
- Eyebrow raise = click: lift both brows. The app fires a click when your brow height crosses your personal threshold.
- Mouth open = scroll: open your mouth wide. Hold it open to scroll the practice pane; the hold length sets the scroll speed.
- Head turn left = move left, head turn right = move right: measured from your face's actual rotation, so a small turn is enough. Come back to centre to reset.
- Double blink = pause: blink twice, deliberately, close together. All controls freeze until you blink twice again or press the big Pause button.
The app also offers a dwell option: hold a face shape for a set time to confirm, for people whose brows or jaw prefer a gentler route. And every control in the app is also clickable with a mouse or keyboard, so a helper can run the calibration, change settings, or assist at any point.
How the camera checks
Face Switch runs a small face model (about 4 MB) entirely in your browser. It reads brow height, mouth openness, and head rotation from each frame and compares them to your calibrated thresholds. The detection needs a clear view of your face in decent light: glasses, beards, and most headwear are fine, but the app cannot see through a hand over your face, and it tracks one face at a time.
It does not recognise who you are. There is no face recognition, no identity, no stored face images. Landmark positions are computed from each frame, used for that frame, and discarded. The camera turns fully off whenever you leave an activity.
The named hints
Wrong attempts always show the named hint, never just a score:
- Raise your eyebrows higher: your brows lifted, but not past your threshold. Push them up like you are surprised.
- Open your mouth wider: the jaw opened halfway. Open wide, like a yawn.
- Turn your head further: the turn was small. Rotate until you feel it, then come back to centre.
- Hold it a beat longer: the shape was right but too quick. Hold the move until the ring completes.
- That was a single blink: the pause needs two deliberate blinks, close together.
- Face the camera: the camera lost your face. Sit back so your whole face is in the frame.
The hint tells you exactly what to fix on the next attempt. That is the point of the app: specific feedback, not a score.
Calibration
Calibration takes about a minute. The wizard asks for each move in turn: rest your face, then do the move the way you naturally would. It measures your personal thresholds, including which way your left and right are (selfie views are mirrored, so the app learns your actual directions rather than assuming). If a move cannot be told apart from your resting face, the wizard says so honestly and keeps the safe default. You can recalibrate any single move at any time, and resetting restores the defaults.
Levels, quizzes and practice
Practice mode is free play: the moves work, the hints appear, and nothing is graded. Quiz mode asks for ten moves in a row and scores clean hits, with wrong versions rejected by their named hints. Points: +10 per clean hit in quiz mode, +20 for a passed quiz. Levels run First Click, Getting the Hang, Face Driver, and Hands-Free Pro. Badges cover the first clean click, the first full quiz, a perfect round, a ten-move streak, a passed scroll challenge, and practising on seven days in a row. Confetti and chimes celebrate wins, and both can be turned off in Settings.
Your video never leaves your device
Video frames are analysed on your device and discarded. The page security policy blocks connections to every outside server. There is no account, no analytics, no recording, no identity, and no stored face images. The built-in Offline proof panel shows a live log of every network request the page makes, lets you simulate a fully offline session, shows exactly what is stored on your device, and deletes it all with one button. The app works offline after your first visit.
Training something else? Push-up and Plank Coach counts clean push-ups and times planks, Fingerspell teaches the ASL alphabet, and Mandarin Tone Trainer coaches tones, all the same private, on-device way. For hands-free control beyond practice, the Hands-Free Anki Clicker reviews flashcards with face gestures, and the Air Keyboard types with pinch gestures from the same webcam. For sound-based alerts, Sound Alerts trains you to recognize important everyday sounds, the same private, on-device way.
This is a home practice tool, not a teacher, therapist or safety device. Everything runs on your device: no video, audio or images are sent anywhere. Feedback is automatic and can be wrong. For real instruction, learn from the switch-access communities linked on the Resources page. Face Switch is not a medical device and is not a substitute for certified assistive technology. Never rely on it for anything safety-critical.