Duo Home

Duo Home turns the iPhone Duo hinge into a dial for your home: unfold to dim lights, speed up fans, raise blinds or turn up speakers. Hold still to set, open fully for more.

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What it does

Duo Home turns the iPhone Duo's hinge into a physical dial for your home. Instead of hunting for tiny sliders in an app, you control a device the way you'd open a book or a lamp shade.

  1. Pick a device. While folded, the outer display shows the device you're about to control.
  2. Open to control. As you unfold, the hinge angle sets the value live. The more you open, the brighter the lamp gets.
  3. Hold still to set. Pausing for about a second locks the value, so you can keep opening without overshooting.
  4. Open fully for more. Flat, the whole inner display becomes a control panel with brightness, colors, scenes and a disco mode.
  5. Close to finish. Fold the phone and the light stays exactly where you left it.

The hinge angle $\theta$ maps to brightness $b$ like this:

$$ b(\theta) = \operatorname{clamp}\left(\frac{\theta - 20}{130} \times 100,\ 0,\ 100\right) $$

For this demo we built the full experience for a smart lamp. A laptop in the room stands in for the lamp and glows brighter in real time as the phone opens.

What's next

  • Every appliance, one gesture. The same open-to-control motion extends to the whole home:
    • fans stepping through speeds
    • blinds rising
    • speakers getting louder
    • thermostats warming up
    • TVs, air purifiers and smart plugs responding the same way
  • Hold orientation as a modifier. How you hold the phone changes what the gesture does. Opening horizontally raises the blinds, while opening vertically tilts the slats to let light in without raising them. For a speaker, it switches from volume to bass.
  • Point to select. Aim the folded phone at a device and the camera recognizes it, with no menus needed.
  • Real homes. Replace the simulated lamp with real devices through HomeKit and Matter, so Duo Home works with the smart home people already own.

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