Edge hand and finger presence and motion sensor

Abstract

Systems and methodologies for controlling an electronic device are provided herein. As described herein, sensors (e.g. capacitive, resistive, touch-sensitive, etc.) are applied to respective outer edges of a device to detect presence and/or motion of a user's fingers and/or hands, thereby leveraging the outer edges of the device as an input mechanism. For example, points along an edge sensor can be mapped to soft keys to enable inferred hand and finger locations to be utilized for device input. Further, characteristics of a user's hands and/or fingers can be discovered over time and/or learned based on an initial calibration procedure, and these characteristics can subsequently be utilized to adjust sensor operation for optimal accuracy and user comfort. In addition, selected device features can be secured by utilizing an identifying set of sensor contacts from a user as a passcode that requires duplication before the selected device features can be accessed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.