Honor Magic 6 Pro’s eye-tracking AI function receives wide media attention

Video from Xinhua

A revolutionary function showed off by Shenzhen-based smartphone maker Honor at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (MWC Barcelona) has received wide attention by foreign and domestic media. 

Honor showcased a string of artificial intelligence (AI) features on its latest 5G Android smartphone, Magic 6 Pro, at the four-day MWC Barcelona, the world’s biggest mobile communications industry trade show that concluded Thursday. One of the brightest spot of Honor’s latest flagship phone is an experimental eye-tracking AI function that allows users to remotely control their car functions with their eyes.

This revolutionary feature in Magic 6 Pro uses the smartphone's selfie cameras alongside sophisticated AI algorithms to accurately track the user's eye movements, allowing for seamless control over vehicle commands such as engine start, stop, forward, and backward movements simply by directing the user’s eyes at specific icons on the phone screen.

In a video titled “AI phone lets users ‘drive’ car with only their eyes” shot by Cassandra Allwood of the Associated Press (AP) and widely circulated online, a model demonstrates through an app specifically designed to showcase how simply staring at one of the commands on the phone's screen could prompt the corresponding action in the car. 

AP said it’s just a concept to demonstrate the device’s abilities and the company does not intend for the tech to be used on the roads. 

Reuters also released a similar video titled “New AI tool lets you control a car with your eyes.” 

Reuters said in a report Feb. 26 that Honor’s AI-powered eye-tracking feature is already available in China and the company is working to integrate it commercially overseas. Honor already debuted the Magic 6 Pro in China a month and a half ago.

Lin Xufeng (C), product manager of Honor, showcases the phone's eye-tracking AI function at MWC. Xinhua

“If we can use the eye to directly interact with the devices, maybe we can try to move something. So, we are showing a new era of a new possibility,” Lin Xufeng, product manager of Honor, said in a Xinhua video. 

In his article that gives detailed introduction of this innovative technology, Arjun Kharpal, senior technology reporter at CNBC, said Honor will be hoping forward-thinking features like eye-tracking will help boost its smartphone appeal and the firm also showed off a concept chatbot that is built on Meta’s Llama2 and the Shenzhen firm wants to incorporate into its global phone offerings.

Calling Magic 6 Pro’s eye-tracking AI feature a “cutting-edge technology,” Tech Wire Asia reporter Muhammad Zulhusni said Honor is “stepping into the future of smartphone technology” and “has made a significant stride at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with the announcement of the global release of its flagship Magic 6 Pro.

Honor was once the budget brand smartphone unit of Huawei Technologies but was sold in November 2020 to a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers after U.S. sanctions, ranging from restricting American firms from doing business with the Chinese giant to barring the Shenzhen-based tech heavyweight from using licensed Google Android software on its smartphones, took a heavy toll on Huawei. 

Huawei said in a statement after the sale of Honor that“this move has been made by Honor’s industry chain to ensure its own survival.” 

Sources with knowledge of the matter said that U.S. restrictions forced Huawei, then the world’s second-biggest smartphone maker after South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, to focus on high-end handsets and corporate-oriented business.

Honor, which competes with the likes of Apple and Oppo for a share of China's smartphone market, is the fourth-biggest smartphone player in China now.