STMicroelectronics has announced the launch of a new human presence detection (HPD) sensor, built around its FlightSense time-of-flight (ToF) distance sensing technology — and it claims it can slash the overall power usage of devices like laptops, PCs, and monitors by one-fifth.
“Building on the integration of ST FlightSense technology in more than 260 laptops and PC models launched in recent years, we are looking forward to see our new HPD solution contributing to make devices more energy-efficient, secure, and user-friendly,” says STMicro’s Alexandre Balmefrezol of the new sensor. “As AI [Artificial Intelligence] and sensor technology continue to advance, with greater integration of both hardware and software, we can expect to see even more sophisticated and intuitive ways of interacting with our devices, and ST is best positioned to continue to lead this market trend.”
STMicro says it can slash devices’ energy usage with its new human presence sensor, by dimming displays when attention is elsewhere. (📷: STMicroelectronics)
The VL53L8CP, as STMicro’s new sensor is known, combines an eight-by-eight multi-zone FlightSense time-of-flight distance sensor with “proprietary AI-based algorithms” to provide not only basic human presence detection but multi-person detection, head orientation tracking, gesture recognition, and hand posture recognition. The company also claims it can help with “wellness monitoring” through human posture analysis.
The headline-grabbing claims of helping to drop overall power draw of devices by 20 percent, meanwhile, comes from the sensor’s ability to enable adaptive screen dimming — reducing the brightness and therefore power draw of a laptop’s display or an external monitor when the user looks away, then returning it to full brightness again when they look back. The same concept applies to wake-on-attention, which combines with walk-away lock to improve security — and STMicro even claims the multi-person detection algorithm can be used to warn a user when someone’s peering over their shoulder.
More information on the sensor at the heart of the solution is available on the STMicro website; the company has not yet announced when the VL53L8CP will begin appearing in consumer products.