Computing command input mechanisms have gone from the DOS prompt to the mouse to gaming peripherals to…well, what’s next?

Some say voice, but products like Siri, Cortana, and Google Now are still often comically lost in translation. Nod Labs(Opens in a new window) says the future belongs to motion tracking and gesture control.

“There are too many issues with voice input and speech recognition,” founder and CEO Anush Elangovan told PCMag during a recent visit to the company’s Mountain View headquarters. “You’re often in a shared space and don’t necessarily want to be overheard. Much of the time there’s too much ambient noise for the computer to be able to isolate the exact audio stream. 

“But gesture—quite literally on the other hand,” he said, wryly, “is subtle, possible, and most interesting to work with.” And a nod is “the simplest human gesture, and we communicate human intent, so [the name Nod Labs] felt fitting,” said Elangovan, which is admirable clarity in a place where start-ups usually choose complex acronyms.

Today at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Nod Labs is announcing its latest product, the VR-focused Project Goa.

Goa features two of the company’s Backspin controllers(Opens in a new window), a mobile headset that works with all major smartphones, and a charging station that doubles as a discreet camera for precision head and hand tracking. The company claims it provides a feeling of “presence” that’s similar to high-end, head-mounted systems like the Oculus Rift, but at a more affordable price point. It’s not intended to be a direct to consumer product at this time, so manufacturers that decide to incorporate and support Nod Labs’s tech will determine its price.

“We challenged ourselves to track human intent with sub-millimeter accuracy, while also trying to dissolve some of the intimidating setup that’s typically required to do it,” said Elangovan, a Google and Cisco alum. “Project Goa is a complete mobile tracking solution that is easy to use, affordable, and will stimulate innovative content developers to build great mobile VR worlds.”

It was time to put it to the test. In the center of the Nod Labs offices, marketing chief Rebecca Barkin helped me put on a Galaxy Gear VR ($39.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window)  and gave me a Backspin controller. Director of Product Management Jason Grimm, who joined Nod from Lab126, where he worked on Amazon Echo , made sure I was in the sight line of the camera/charging station.

I found myself in the center of a skyscape with several images in front of me. I walked towards them and saw they were similar icons as used on a computer desktop to denote file folders and applications. I looked around for clues of what to do next and figured out the icons must be it.

Grimm explained how to manipulate the controls using my fingers to point, and press to “capture” and select an icon to drag it towards me. It was wild. I was affecting the environment inside a VR world just using simple but natural-feeling gestures. Once you have a comparatively affordable solution for mobile VR, the only limits are the developers’ creativity.

So how did Nod Labs get started?

“I’d been working on ChromeOS and Chromebooks at Google for three years, making affordable computers that addressed usability and interaction challenges. The idea to evolve input and interaction started there, and led me to create Nod. I knew it was then time to do my own thing,” Elangovan said. “I belonged to a running group of friends who worked at various companies, including Lab126, Apple, Samsung, and Zee (manned flying vehicles) and six of us decided to leave our jobs and form a company. We started May 1, 2013 and within two weeks we had a prototype of our first product.”

The first iteration was built on a small commercially available Pandaboard(Opens in a new window) circuit board (which they nicknamed a “paw”). They dismissed the glove concept because it desensitizes the tactile experience. Their first prototype had motion trackers, haptics, and other sensors, which captured movement from each individual finger of one hand. However, it was decided this was too complex and bulky.

By 2014, in order to simplify the product, they built several new setups, ultimately deciding on a ring as the best form factor. The guts comprised a circuit board, built from scratch, on a copper and gold base, with 70 individual components. This was then carefully wrapped inside a ring, created in collaboration with product design firm Whipsaw.  With the ring on, users could point at sensors which were pre-programmed to respond and command specific actions. One of the earliest test cases was in the Internet of Things (IoT) space. You’d point at a light switch with the ring on your finger and it would turn on, as if by magic.

“We proved our theories with the Nod ring,” said Elangovan, “We wanted to decouple compute, display, and input—and it worked, beautifully.”

In 2014, PCMag got some hands-on time with the ring, which you can see in the video above. Nod Labs incorporated the ring technology into its next product, the Backspin Innovation Edition wireless controllers(Opens in a new window) for use by the gaming developer community.

They have three degrees of freedom, with the potential for six when used with a Samsung Galaxy S6, and are a way to create innovative navigation inside immersive VR and AR environments, on a mobile platform, as opposed to high-end, head-mounted displays. It also has 100+ programmable haptics (feedback responses) and an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer.

You can see one of the Nod Labs team operating a DJI Phantom 3 ($799.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window)  drone using a Backspin Controller below.

Drones aside, some very cool companies have adopted software and hardware from Nod Labs.

“Until now, we’ve been mostly working with OEMs to modify our technology on a case-by-case basis, developing to their specific requirements,” Barkin said. “For example, one of our current clients is Heddoko(Opens in a new window), in Montreal, and they have incorporated our Nod sensor technology into their full body-tracking system for high-performance athletes.”

So what’s next for Nod Labs? Barkin hinted that one of the companies interested in using Project Goa said the feeling of presence would be enhanced if you could sense the weight of an object as you pick it up.

“By the time I got to the lab the next day,” she said, “the team were already experimenting with a gimbal adjunct to the backspin controller.”

It’s clear the lines are blurring between the real and the virtual worlds.