I Built and Launched the First Airpods-Controlled Game

A few weeks ago, while listening to music and developing an app with my AirPods, I noticed their spatial audio feature. I thought about what else could be done with reverse engineering, including the possibility of using AirPods as a motion controller. I built the world's first AirPods-controlled game, which uses a motor driven by head movements. In fact, it's not just AirPods, it's a game that uses a headset as a motion controller. And today, it was approved on the App Store. Who knows, maybe AirPods Arcade has even started? :)

Can one also use AirPods for e.g. Google Maps navigation?

First off, kudos and congrats on the launch, seems like a fun idea! I am curious, as you mentioned reverse engineering. How difficult was it to retrieve the raw gyroscope data from the AirPods - AFAIK there is no API to access this information, right?

Reminds me of when the first iPhones came out and developers were very creative for the time with the available features: flashlight app, bubble level app, asphalt 4

Fantastic! It makes me a bit carsick. TBF, I am ~getting~ old.

This reminds me of that ripe beautiful period after the iPhone was released when the all the apps were these weird idiosyncratic almost, "game like" offerings that weren't tied to platforms that either just brought amusement to a user or solved a simple problem. They were often free or cost .99 cents to 1.99$ and there were no subscriptions.

At any rate you earned your upvotes today tanis. Keep at her!

Okay so there is something called TrackIR and it has an open source implementation called OpenTrack. It’s used for simulators like flight or driving sims.

I’ve seen iPhone apps that use a neural net to determine the direction your head is facing using the camera. I think it networks with OpenTrack somehow, but I’m not sure about the details.

I wonder if you could use the AirPods to track your head and also direct audio from the PC through them with some networking!

I don’t know how to do Apple development but this world be a very cool application.

This is so dumb - I love it. So much of modern computing is monetised and sanitised.

It’s so cool to see an interesting toy-like tech demo that does something new and different.

Amazing that it has taken this long for someone to do this.

so it can read left and right motion, can it do other directions as well?

This is the kind of creative out of the box thinking, official technology is lacking right now. Many times we don’t need new technologies, what we need are new ways to use what we have right now.

Thanks for your effort.

This is amazing! I'm about to waste my entire afternoon playing this. Feature request: nod to restart

Really cool! Small complaint, the “near miss” text obstructs the view at least when playing in landscape. But great idea and execution!

I love this! It’s so reminiscent of the way we all would swerve our bodies when playing these types of games as a kid.

(Flying would be amazing.)

Love it - quite a unique idea!

Can I ask about the tech stack - what did you use to build it. Just plain Swift and SceneKit? I did notice the app download is over 100MB, which seems a bit excessive for the game play.

Since I don't have AirPods I found this funny video using the game: <https://youtu.be/sr-dsSWsMfE?si=9UlqjNw8_HJhtZ04>

I don’t have the latest AirPods so I haven’t downloaded it, but I’ll put in a feature request to enable the iPhone to be used as a tilt controller. It doesn’t have to change the marketing that AirPods are the intended controller.

But even though I can’t play it, great job on doing something new and creative.

I see that global leaderboard… over 6000 This is great! Gives me old school arcade vibes and obviously need for speed.

Neat concept, tho tbh after about 2 minutes of playing I could tell it would lead to neck pain, so it was an instant delete for me.

Something that required slower reaction time might be more appropriate than a racing game.

Great gameplay, well done. It is correctly telling me I should not ride a motorcycle ;-)

On my iPhone 16 Pro + Airpods Pro, when I start the game (tapping on the screen when it says "Tap to start") I get a message saying "Airpods Disconnected", even though the Control Center on the phone reports them as connected).

Tried restarting the app, and disconnecting and reconnecting the Airpods with no luck.

Love the concept, though!

What a cool project! I wish I was the one too have thought of this. :)