Touchscreens are naturally intuitive. Hand an iPad to a toddler and they’re quickly swiping at virtual pets or building Minecraft cities. Touchscreens also have tons of promise in business settings, with the potential to make presentations and meetings much smoother.
But traditional touchscreen tech can be very expensive for larger displays, with products like Microsoft’s Surface Hub starting out at $7,000.
For the last three years, Seattle-based Ubi Interactive has been working to change that by adding touchscreen capabilities to any surface, initially using the Microsoft Kinect. The company’s technology can project onto any surface and then detect gestures across that surface, effectively turning any wall, tabletop or other flat surface into a touchscreen display.
Now, aiming to improve the overall experience and reach a wider audience, the company is offering its own hardware, the Ubi Sensor. The setup includes a specialized camera and a “waterfall” touch detector mounted above the screen, all starting at $350.
The company is also testing the use of a PC-on-a-stick, dubbed the UbiHub, aiming to make connecting any computer easier.
“A typical scenario today is that people walk into the conference room, they bring their own computer … they try to plug in their computer but have to look for the right adapter, and then maybe the TV or the projector doesn’t like it,” said Ubi co-founder and CEO Anup Chathoth. “With the UbiHub, you don’t have to do a bunch of cabling or installation.”
With Ubi’s touchscreen tech, users can control their computer and annotate anything using the screen. Using the built-in annotation tools, users can draw on anything from a photo of a construction site to a complicated 3D diagram. All annotations are saved as photos for easily reviewing the meeting notes. And if the program allows for annotations (like in PowerPoint), they can just use those annotation tools but without having to touch a mouse.
Initial setup for the Ubi Sensor system requires the user to place a color and infrared-sensing camera about 30 inches from the display and place the infrared-emitting waterfall sensor so that it runs parallel to the display. The system works with both projectors and standard TVs, so users can use whatever existing display they have. The camera senses where your fingers create shadows in the waterfall of infrared light. A quick calibration session ensures everything is in order, and then the system is ready for a touch input.
The companion UbiHub PC-on-a-stick streamlines the process of enabling touch capabilities from the computer. Just like an Apple TV or Chromecast can mirror the display of a computer, the Ubi Hub uses wireless technology to display content, but in this case, the UbiHub works in conjunction with the Ubi Sensor to enable gesture-based controls on any surface.
The UbiHub is powered by an Intel Compute Stick right now, but Chathoth said the company is still figuring out the exact computer-on-a-stick device they want to use. However, they want to make the UbiHub as easy as possible for schools and enterprise users to add to their existing setup. By using a miniature computer, end users can just plug the device into their projector or TV and quickly start streaming content.
Ubi’s software works with both Windows and Mac right now. While getting touchscreen features working on a PC is pretty easy since Windows has touch support built in, the team had to work at getting Macs to accept touch input. However, Ubi had seen interest from Mac-only companies, especially design firms, who want to add the touchscreen features to their presentation.
“We started with two of the most popular [software platforms], but it could be on Android or something else later,” Chathoth said. “iOS not so much, because the platform is so closed.”
The company, which started in Germany, originally came to Seattle for the Kinect Accelerator program organized in 2012 by Microsoft and TechStars. They built their business selling software that runs in conjunction with the Kinect, and now they’re expanding their business with their own hardware.
Ubi currently has customers around the world, in areas including the education, corporate and retail sectors. While the base model comes in at $349, it only can track one touchpoint at a time. For many situations, like schools or some meeting spaces, that’s enough. However, more expensive models can track up to 20 touchpoints, enabling multitouch and more advanced gestures. The most expensive model is $1,699, which is still less than a quarter the cost of Microsoft’s Surface Hub.
