AirTouch vs Google Soli: Radar Gestures, Compared

Here is the short answer. Google Soli is a miniature radar chip that senses motion: presence, reach, and coarse swipes. It shipped in the Pixel 4, later in Nest devices, and it is genuinely clever technology. It is also not something you can buy, license, or deploy. AirTouch is patented gesture control software you can install today on any standard camera, with full hand tracking and cursor-level control rather than swipe-level sensing. One is a fascinating capability inside Google's own products. The other is a shipping product for yours.

What is Google Soli?

Soli is a 60GHz millimeter-wave radar chip a few millimeters across. It reads motion signatures rather than images, which lets it detect that a hand is approaching, that a swipe happened, or that someone entered the room, all in total darkness and without capturing camera imagery. It debuted as Motion Sense in the Pixel 4 in 2019, was dropped from the Pixel 5, and lives on today as a presence and sleep-sensing feature in Google's Nest devices. There is no developer kit and no public SDK; outside Google, Soli is effectively unavailable. The closest open path is Ripple, an industry radar API specification, which is a standard rather than purchasable hardware.

What is AirTouch?

AirTouch is patented gesture control and hand tracking software from Neural Lab. It reads hands through any standard RGB camera and maps gestures to mouse, keyboard, and touch input at the operating system level, so every existing app becomes a gesture interface without integration. It tracks individual fingers, so a pinch is a click and a point is a cursor, not just "motion happened". Through our partnership with Orbbec, AirTouch also takes advantage of 3D depth sensing and IR cameras when an environment calls for them. Windows, Linux, and Android today, macOS on the way, with patented intent detection built for rooms full of people.

How do AirTouch and Soli differ?

• Availability. Soli ships only inside Google's own devices. AirTouch installs on hardware you already own, today.

• Fidelity. Radar senses coarse motion: reach, swipe, presence. Camera-based hand tracking resolves individual fingers, which is what makes precise touchless control possible.

• Sensor range. Soli's gesture zone is tens of centimeters around the device. AirTouch's range is limited by the camera, not the software: a webcam covers a room, and deployments run at 20 feet and beyond.

• Sensor choice. Soli is one fixed radar chip in devices Google designs. AirTouch spans standard webcams and, through the Orbbec partnership, 3D depth and IR cameras, so the sensor matches the deployment.

• Sterile and soiled environments. Radar's no-camera approach is appealing where imagery is sensitive, but you cannot deploy it. AirTouch processes video on the device, nothing leaves the machine by default, tracks gloved hands, and works through protective glass with nothing new to disinfect.

• App compatibility. Soli gestures control the device features Google built them for. AirTouch drives any app that accepts mouse, keyboard, or touch.

Where does Soli win?

Inside its niche, radar is elegant. It works in complete darkness, uses almost no power, never captures an image, and hides invisibly behind plastic. For always-on ambient sensing in a consumer device, sleep tracking, presence detection, a swipe to snooze an alarm, it is a great fit. AirTouch answers the darkness point with IR-capable Orbbec cameras, but radar's no-image privacy story remains its own. If Google ever opened Soli to developers, it would be an interesting building block.

Where does AirTouch win?

Everywhere you need actual control rather than ambient sensing, on hardware you can actually buy. Full hand tracking, cursor precision, app-level reach across your existing software, room-scale range, a camera lineup that now includes Orbbec 3D depth and IR options, and a deployment story measured in minutes. Soli asks you to wait for Google. AirTouch asks you for five minutes and a webcam.

Which should you choose?

For medical and OEM evaluations we will test against your exact environment: book a demo. Otherwise, AirTouch installs in about five minutes on the camera in front of you. Start a free trial.

Related: gesture control and hand tracking software, what is a touchless interface, and OEM gesture recognition.