'Camera Switches’ is a new Android accessibility feature
that can help people with speech and motor impairments
to navigate their phone using eye movements and facial gestures.
It turns the phone’s front-facing camera into a switch,
so you can choose one movement to scan,
and another to select.
The initial setup requires touching the screen,
and you’ll need to make sure your phone is securely mounted,
with a clear view of your face.
Images from the camera are processed on your device.
Turn on 'Camera Switches’ by opening ‘Settings’.
Next, scroll down and tap ‘Accessibility’.
Scroll down again and, under ‘Interaction Controls’,
tap ‘Switch Access’.
Turn it on
and grant permissions.
If you’re using 'Switch Access' already,
the set-up guide will be found back in 'Settings'.
Once there, tap ‘Camera Switches’,
then choose 'One switch' for a single gesture,
or 'Two switches':
one to navigate and one to select.
You can then choose your scanning mode.
We’ll start with 'Linear scanning' to move through items one at a time.
Here, you’ll need to choose one gesture to scan, and another to select.
You can also choose a gesture to pause 'Camera Switches’.
To adjust anything, just come back to this setup whenever you like.
The icon at the top of your screen will tell you whether 'Camera Switches’ is active,
paused, or if it can’t see your face.
Let’s look at how to use it to check the weather.
To get started, just perform your chosen gesture to scan,
then the other gesture to open the weather app.
These two simple movements will work the same anywhere on your phone,
meaning you can look through photos
choose a video,
or plan your day.
Want to quickly jump to the home screen, see your notifications or go back?
You can do this with a 'Global Action'.
Just open your 'Settings',
go back to 'Accessibility',
then 'Switch Access'.
Once there, tap 'Settings', then 'Assign switches' to 'Global actions'.
You can customize the size, length and speed of your gestures in the 'Camera Switch settings'
by scrolling down and selecting the gesture you’d like to customize.
From a bigger smile,
to less hold time before it’s recognized,
use the space at the top of your screen to play around until it fits your range of movement.
At the bottom of the screen, you can edit the actions assigned to each gesture,
or remove them all together.
You can also add multiple gestures to the same action.
'Additional Settings' can help you customize the experience even further.
‘Enhanced visual feedback’, and ‘audio feedback' let you know when a gesture is recognized,
‘Keep screen on’ avoids your screen locking during use
and ‘Ignore repeated gestures’ helps prevent accidental interactions.
'Camera Switches’ also works with any physical switches you might have.
Use a facial gesture to navigate
and your physical switch to select.
To combine the two, head to the ‘Assign Switches‘ in 'Switch Access settings'.
For more information visit g.co/cameraswitches