In pictures: How to control a mobile phone with your eyes

The eyes have it...
The eyes have it...

You know the problem - you're walking down the street, carrying shopping and someone rings. What do you do? Well, in the future: wiggle your eyes.

NTT DoCoMo - the Japanese network that's also got a thoroughly great line in working out the next generation of technology - has managed to make a pair of earphones that can sense eye movement and control your mobile phone.

Eye controlled headphones

The concept works through small electrodes that can sense when your eyes are looking in a certain direction, leading to impulses the headphones can read.

Eye controlled headphones

Eye controlled headphones

The idea is that when you look up, your eyes emit a small amount of positive electrical potential, and when you look down, a negative amount.

Eye controlled headphones

Eye controlled headphones

Eye controlled headphones

The headphones have small electrodes that can read these impulses and turn them into commands for a mobile phone.

Eye controlled headphones

This means that when you move your eyes in a certain way, you can tell your phone to call someone, pick up or even change the music playing.

Eye controlled headphones

Eye controlled headphones

Eye controlled headphones

Guess what? There's no UK release date for this crazy tech. In fact, we'd bet we'll never hear about it again - which is a sad thing, as we love the idea of looking both ways to cross the street and accidentally calling our mum.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.