Hayo launches crowdfunding for home control system that uses hand gestures

Hayo wants to put your home controls in your hands. The company is launching an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign today to raise money for its gesture control system that lets you wave your hand to command objects around your house.

The system will control Internet of Things devices, or everyday objects that are smart and connected. The idea is to turn ordinary objects, surfaces, and spaces into virtual remote controls for the connected home.

Hayo scans the objects and spaces around you to create a set of magical “buttons” around your home that connect to your devices for easy and screenless control. With Hayo’s augmented reality-based application, you set the toggles and motions that serve as the controls, allowing you to run everything from your lights and speakers to your security cameras and temperature, all with your own body.

Above: Hayo will work with a number of Internet of Things platforms.

Image Credit: Hayo

New York-based Hayo envisions a day when you and party guests can control everything around your home with a simple flick of the wrist or wave of your hand. With Hayo you could raise your arm in the kitchen to turn on your speakers. You could tap the corner of your coffee table to adjust the volume on your TV. You could point at your lights to turn them on or off.

With Hayo, you augment your physical surroundings to control everything virtually. Hayo responds to how you come into contact with your surroundings, in any way you can imagine.

“At Hayo we are all about bringing the unconventional to life,” says CEO Gisèle Belliot, in a statement. “We are committed to improving lives through spatial analysis technology, giving users the ability to create useful remote controls. Four core values that we want our community to experience are empowerment, adaptability, magic and collaboration, and Hayo is just the beginning.”

After founding the company as Space Connect in July 2015, the husband and wife team of José Alonso Ybanez Zepeda and Belliot created Hayo.

Hayo is bringing augmented reality to consumers with its patented spatial analysis technology. Ybanez Zepeda brings over 20 years of experience in software development and 12 years in image and signal processing to developing Hayo’s core software. After Belliot graduated from Sorbonne, she led projects across creative industries at companies including L’Oreal and YSL, before created Hayo with Alonso.

Hayo is backed by a group of investors including Uber cofounder Oscar Salazar, Two Rivers’ Joshua Kazam and David Tanen, Falcon Edge’s Rick Gerson, Creative Valley’s Yann Gozlan, Auriga Partners’ Arnault Guilhem Le Ribault, and Thierry Frey of VR/AR shop Eon Reality.