Skip to main content

ZTE's crowdsourced smartphone is going to be an 'eye tracking, self-adhesive phone'

ZTE's crowdsourced smartphone is going to be an 'eye tracking, self-adhesive phone'

/

This is how bad ideas get made

Share this story

After announcing its plans to crowdsource a smartphone, collecting user ideas, and letting people vote on the designs, ZTE has announced that the user-submitted "Eye Tracking, Self-Adhesive Phone" concept has won the Project CSX contest with over 36 percent of the votes.

The winning design (which is described in full on ZTE’s forum) features a pair of cameras on the top and bottom bezels of the front of the phone for eye-tracking support, a split-screen function that displays different images at different angles for enhanced security. It also includes a self-adhesive backing for the rear of the phone to stick it to things and provide extra stability for the eye-tracking system. The designers hope for the eye-tracking system to allow automatic scrolling of web pages or books while you read them or to skip through a video while you watch.

ZTE is beginning product development of the winning design, and hopes to launch the final device sometime in 2017. The crowdsourced nature of the device won’t end here, however, with ZTE planning on continuing to turn to the community for deciding things like the name, color, and materials of the Project CSX device.