Raspberry Pi Smart Glasses Recognize Hand Gestures with AI

Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Teemu Laurila, Teukkaniikka)

Controlling devices with speech is cool and all but why bother with all of those syllables when you could just wave your hand? That’s where maker Teemu Laurila of the YouTube channel Teukkaniikka comes in with his custom Raspberry Pi-powered smart glasses.

This is an ongoing project which receives occasional updates with new features. The most recent addition includes support for hand tracking. Users can program a myriad of gestures to trigger pretty much anything you can think of using Python.

The new upgrade also comes with a custom, 3D-printed frame to hold the new camera module. Images are captured by the Raspberry Pi Zero W and transferred to a separate PC for AI processing. The PC then lets the Pi know what gesture was registered.

There are two demos provided by Laurila for anyone interested in recreating it themselves. The first demo allows users to increase and decrease the brightness of a light by pinching their fingers. The second demo will capture a live video from the camera, transfer it to the PC to process it for hand gestures and then send it back to the smart glasses to be viewed in real-time with an overlay of the AI evaluation.

Raspberry Pi

(Image credit: Teemu Laurila, Teukkaniikka)

The best Raspberry Pi projects are ones you can make at home and Laurila provides plenty of content for curious parties. Want to recreate these Pi-powered specs? Follow Teemu Laurila at the official Teukkaniikka YouTube channel for a closer look at these DIY smart glasses and how to create your own.

Ash Hill
Freelance News and Features Writer

Ash Hill is a Freelance News and Features Writer with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.