Android Accessibility Kit welcomes Camera Switches: Control your phone with facial expressions

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There are many accessibility features and APIs in the Android system, some of which are used, misused, or even abused. These accessibility features are mainly focused on voice control and screen reading, and the new Camera Switches feature that will be introduced in the Android Accessibility Suite can help those who cannot speak or need external devices to control their phones through facial expressions.

Google has used front-facing sensors to control the phone in the Pixel 4, but this was limited to gesture detection provided by the Project Soli sonar system. It didn't gain the market acceptance that Google had hoped for, and it wasn't good for accessibility. However, the beta version of the Android Accessibility Suite takes a slightly different route, and it may prove to be more interesting and useful for those with some physical disabilities.

Camera Switches is designed for people who can't speak or use their hands to control their phones. The feature uses a fixed set of facial expressions to map different actions. Camera Switches doesn't require any special sensors, just the front-facing camera, which means any phone can support this feature.

Camera Switches currently support limited facial expressions, including open mouth, smile, raise eyebrow, look left, look right, and look up. However, these expressions can be used to initiate quite a few actions, such as going back or home, scrolling forward or backward, and even mapped to touch and hold gestures.

XDA says this accessibility feature may be available first in Android 12, but it seems to be compatible with at least Android 11. In both cases, using Camera Switches will cause a notification to appear in the status bar indicating that the camera is in use.