What it is
Face Switch is a home practice tool for hands-free control. It watches your face through your device's camera, checks five gestures against your calibrated thresholds, and gives live, specific feedback. Eyebrow raise clicks, mouth open scrolls, head turns move between options, double blink pauses. Everything runs on your device: no video, audio, or images are sent anywhere.
Honest limits
- This is a home practice tool, not a teacher, therapist, or safety device, and not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, or assess any condition.
- Feedback is automatic and can be wrong. Gesture detection misfires in bad light, at odd angles, or when you are tired. Never rely on it where a missed or wrong input could cause harm.
- It does not recognize you or anyone else: it measures eyebrow, mouth, and head movement only, and stores no photos or video.
- It is a practice aid, not an assessment. Real switch-access setups are fitted by people who know what they are doing: see the resources below.
Resources
- AbleGamers: US charity providing free adaptive gaming setups and personalized assessments that help people with disabilities play via custom controllers, switches, and other adaptive equipment.
- SpecialEffect: UK charity providing free one-to-one assessments and custom setups (modified controllers, switches, eye-gaze systems) so people with physical disabilities can control games and devices to the best of their abilities.
- MND Association: environmental controls information sheet (PDF): explains how people with motor neurone disease can use adapted switches, scan-and-switch systems, and eye-movement systems to control computers and home devices.
How the gestures are checked
- Eyebrow raise: the mean of the three brow-up blendshapes must clear your threshold. An inner-brow-only grimace does not count.
- Mouth open: jawOpen must clear your threshold. A big smile with a nearly closed mouth does not count.
- Head turns: head yaw must clear your turn threshold and return toward center to re-arm. A nod or a head tilt does not count.
- Double blink: two deliberate blinks inside 0.7 seconds. A single blink or a wink does not count.
- Optional dwell timing requires each gesture to be held (0.5, 0.8, or 1.2 seconds) before it fires.