Sphero has been selling the Force Band wearable for awhile now, designed to let you control the adorable little BB-8 droid with "force gestures" — like a Jedi. But now the $80 (or slightly less) gadget is potentially a lot more useful. As Gizmodo notes, the company is setting it up to work with If This Then That, which means that you can use it to control much more than a cute robot toy. IFTTT, if you’re not familiar, lets you create little applets that use one thing to trigger another thing automatically. One good example I like: you can set your Instagram posts to auto-Tweet with the embedded image so they actually show up on Twitter. IFTTT can do stuff with smart gadgets, your Android phone, Facebook, and so much more.
And now, they can be triggered by the Force Band. Sphero is obviously leading with the most fun stuff: controlling your smart home gadgets. Making a real world gesture cause real world things to happen is obviously going to impress your family more than using it to fire off a tweet. The recipe page for the Force Band has some pre-made, Star Wars-themed suggestions, including "Play the Imperial March" and "post your Jedi wisdom to Twitter."
There are three gestures that work with the Force Band: push, pull, and stop — but an absolutely massive set of services you can connect those three simple gestures to. Will mapping broad arm gestures to turning on your smart lights actually be useful? Doubtful. Will it be cool? Yes.
Sadly, I don’t think there’s a way to remote start your car with IFTTT, otherwise you’d be able to turn the classic Volkswagen ad into a reality. Maybe next year.