A company called Doublepoint announced a new app during CES this week called WowMouse that turns Android smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch into a gesture-based mouse for your computer. That means shaking your arm to move the mouse and squeezing your fingers to click (similar to the Double Tap feature on the Apple Watch Series 9). The application is now available on the Google Play Store.
WowMouse works by streaming the clock like a Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) mouse, allowing it to work with a variety of operating systems by simply pairing it as you would any other Bluetooth mouse. According to the Doublepoint site, which includes Windows, Linux, macOS, and iPadOS. It's confirmed to work on certain Wear OS watches, like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, 5, and 6, but the company says touch detection is inconsistent on the Pixel Watch. Apple Watches do not support Bluetooth HID, so Doublepoint writes that it cannot create an app for watchOS.
You can easily see that this works well: video game controllers have done a great job with motion controls like this for years. And it certainly seems to do so in a short time. Snazzy Labs Video since Thursday.
However, the company has bigger ambitions: The announcement invites manufacturers and developers to license its software to do things like dim a smart light by twisting your wrist, as in this CNET video:
It's a super fun, futuristic trick and I'm all for it! But it's hard to imagine anyone investing resources into supporting an app that only works in a small part of the smartwatch market.
