Future Huawei Watch might let you gesture and write on back of hand

Smartwatch screens are frustrating.

While phone makers have been delivering phones with the larger displays or more screen real estate than ever before, those same phone makers have been selling smartwatches with dinky little screens that are hard to futz around with and enjoy. It's one of the biggest adoption barriers to smartwatches, in our opinion. But, according to a new patent, Huawei may have found a way to solve the problem.

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First discovered by LetsGoDigital, the patent, filed with World Intellectual Property Organisation, describes a system that uses sensors to scan the area around a smartwatch in order to recognise gestures made on the back of your hand. Imagine making the shapes of letters on your hand and have them then appear on the smartwatch screen. So, this patent envisions your hand becoming a large writing canvas.

WIPO (via LetsGoDigital)

The sensors can also recognise more complex gestures like double taps and long presses, meaning you could not only write on the back of your hand and have words appear on your watch's display but also navigate through the watch's interface - all without ever touching the device itself. Of course, you'd need to keep your wrist and hand level with the sensors for this sort of alternative input to properly work.

Still, it sounds like a neat idea, and one that we hopes makes it onto any follow-up to Huawei Watch 2, should Huawei ever launch it.