I ‘drove’ a car with my EYES and it felt like an episode of Black Mirror

AI can handle some mind-blowing tasks these days, but I never thought it would allow people to drive cars using just their eyes.

Well, that’s exactly what I did this week.

Chinese company Honor unveiled a brand new Magic 6 Pro smartphone with a mind-boggling eye-tracking feature at an event in Barcelona.

Sensors and AI in the device know where your eyes are looking on the screen, so you can tap buttons without lifting a finger.

The experience was eerily similar to something I could imagine in an episode of Black Mirror

It’s a feature that could ultimately be a real life changer for people with disabilities and movement disorders.

And to demonstrate the technology’s wildest potential, Honor has come up with a concept that allows users to drive cars.

The Sun was one of the select media invited to test out the crazy tool – watch our full experience in the video above and read on below for the verdict.

Give it a try

As a concept, it’s important to point out that I wasn’t able to drive the car on a real road.

Instead, it’s in a secure warehouse environment and the vehicle has very strict limits so it doesn’t accidentally deviate if I look at the wrong button.

I also drove the car outside from a safe distance, I did not sit inside while he was driving.

To start, you need to calibrate your eyes with the smartphone so that it can recognize them.

Once that’s done, there’s a dedicated app with four simple buttons: engine start, engine off, forward and reverse.

All you have to do is stare at the relevant button and the car will automatically do its job.

My experience was a bit mixed: the ignition started fine.

But when I tried to move it forward, it took a moment for the eye tracking to pick up on my gaze.

It turned over without any problem and then it took a while for the engine shut off button to come out.

Others who tried it in my group had no problems, so maybe I needed to calibrate it better or hold the phone higher.

We’re clearly still a long way from actually driving cars on roads with our eyes (if that’s ever the case), but the experience was eerily similar to something I could imagine in an episode of Black Mirror.

As I explained before, I can definitely see how this feature could be useful for people with disabilities – once it’s refined.

You can also imagine how it could work nicely if you’re actually behind the wheel and want to, say, answer a call without physically picking up your phone (although you can already do this with your voice).

It’s taken years to make self-driving cars a reality and we’re just getting started. So you can imagine how long it would take for eye-tracking controlled cars to become a norm – but it was fun to try.

The ability to operate everyday apps with your eyes will appear in an update on the Honor Magic 6 Pro in the coming months.

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Honor Magic6 Pro Offers

Honor has also announced other AI features for the Magic 6 Pro, including a so-called Magic Portal that can detect details in texts and determine the right app for it. For example, addresses go directly to Google Maps.

In addition to all the AI, the new Android smartphone has some camera upgrades.

A 180-megapixel telephoto camera lens with 2.5x optical zoom and up to 100x digital zoom has been introduced, along with a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and a 50-megapixel main camera.

Honor has also worked on the battery, allowing the Magic 6 Pro to be charged to 100 percent in 40 minutes.

The company is offering a £250 discount for those who sign up for its free HiHonor service.

This makes the final total £849.99.

Sign up with HiHonor here and use the code AM6PP250 at checkout.

All prices in this article were correct at the time of writing, but may have changed since then.

Always do your own research before making a purchase.