Fether Labs is developing proprietary sensor technology originally created at Imperial College London. Unlike current solutions, the wristband does not pick up muscle electrical signals or capture a hand image — it senses the mechanical motion of tendons beneath the skin. This is intended to make the technology more stable, more accurate, and less dependent on large training datasets or individual user calibration. For physical AI, this tendon information also helps robotics companies gain new insights into hand movement.
“The way we interact with technology has changed less over the past twenty years than it might seem. Touchscreens and voice control have moved the user interface forward, but for the world of augmented reality, robotics or work in demanding environments there is still no truly natural and reliable way of controlling devices. We believe that the next major interface will not be a screen or a camera, but the movement of the human body itself. Our ambition is to create a technology that allows people to intuitively control both digital and physical systems without having to hold any controller.”
Fether Labs holds an exclusive global license to the first patent from Imperial College London, where the three co-founders of the company met. A second patent has been filled. Under laboratory conditions the technology was able to recognize the movements of all five fingers with accuracy of up to 99%. The startup is rolling out a developer kit that will open the technology up to its first developers and partners.
“We came across Fether Labs at a startup event in London and were immediately impressed by the team and by the scale of what tendon-sensing could unlock across healthcare and the future of work, both core to our thesis. We got conviction early, and brought Purple Ventures in alongside us. Seeing it all come together like this is genuinely satisfying.”
Today’s gesture-control systems run into a number of limitations. Fether Labs approaches the problem in a fundamentally different way from existing technologies. Its biomechanical sensor tracks the movement of tendons and internal tissue changes beneath the surface of the skin. These movement patterns act as a stable biomechanical signal that makes it possible to recognize even very subtle gestures. The wristband works directly on the skin, through clothing and, in the future, also as a component built into other devices and objects.
“Fether Labs caught our attention with a combination of a top-tier team, a strong technological foundation and an exceptionally ambitious vision. We believe it could become a new standard in how people interact with computers and control augmented reality, machines, industrial systems or even healthcare technology. What makes opportunities like this interesting to us is precisely the fact that at first they look like an unassuming technical improvement, but in reality they may define an entirely new category.”
In practice, the Fether Labs wristband could enable, for example, screenless interaction with devices, the control of VR headsets and AR glasses without having to wave your hands in front of a camera, the precise control of robotic systems in industry, the control of devices in environments where touch or voice are not appropriate, or improved motion capture for rehabilitation and the control of prosthetics.
“In the world of virtual and augmented reality, there is still no truly natural way of controlling devices. Headsets and smart glasses are advancing quickly, but input remains one of the biggest barriers. Our ambition is to become what the mouse was for personal computers or what the touchscreen was for smartphones,” adds Jacques Blagburn.
From developer kit to licensing for device manufacturers
Fether Labs first plans to supply hardware and a developer kit to enterprise partners in the fields of augmented reality, industry, robotics and healthcare. The short-term goal is the launch of the developer kit and securing the first pilot projects with development studios, hardware manufacturers and industrial partners.
In the longer term, the startup is aiming to license its sensor architecture to device manufacturers that could integrate it into smart watches, AR glasses, industrial controllers or robotic systems. The startup is also already in talks about its first strategic partnerships.
