FineType

• 

  Logo

Inspiration

Occasionally, we find ourselves tapping the wrong button on the relatively small software keyboard on our smartphones. Thus was born the idea of a new input for phones - a way of typing that would get rid of the typing aspect entirely by streamlining the process.

What it does

FineType allows the user to input text characters purely through the use of hand motions and without the use of an on-screen keyboard.

How we built it

We used Java and the Android Studio IDE to build FineType.

Challenges we ran into

We found that the process of switching between groups of characters and between the characters inside each group a tedious process that kept bugging out for us. Eventually, the fix was found as a time delay for switching.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of the way we graphically represented to the user when they switched between the blocks of characters and which block they were on.

What we learned

We learned how to access accelerometer readings from an Android phone, along with negating gravity in accelerometer equations. We also learned how to create a GUI interface in Android Studio, an IDE with which we had no experience at all for creating apps - in fact, we created our first ever mobile app here at OxfordHack.

What's next for FineType

FineType's next steps would be to smooth the user experience by reducing the amount of errors that come from unexpected diagonal movement, smoothing the amount of noise experienced by the app from random movement, and adding features like capitalization, spacing, and repeating characters in a row.

Built With

• android-studio
• java