France Telecom plans to add motion control technology from fellow French firm Movea to its new Orange Livebox Play TV set-top boxes from this February, enabling millions of customers to interact with their Orange TV service in new ways by using the motion-sensing remote control.

The new STBs will run Movea’s SmartMotion Server processing engine, which allows ten simple gestures to be used across a range of TV viewing activities, such as adjusting the volume through a turn of the wrist, or selecting an item with a “check” gesture. The deal with Orange is believed to be one of the first large-scale commercial deployments of this technology in a pay-TV environment.

“With the rapid evolution of SmartTVs and Smart Home systems, we see the demand for more intelligent home entertainment devices and natural user interfaces,” said Jean-Bernard Willem, head of content marketing for Orange France.

“Our partnership with Movea allows us to offer an innovative user experience for Orange subscribers that will be instrumental in defining the revolution of home theatre entertainment. Livebox Play TV with Movea’s SmartMotion begins to make the Smart Home a reality.”

Pay-TV services again delivered a much-needed prop for France Telecom/Orange in the third quarter of last year, with the company reaching 4.882mn subscribers in France alone, served by a combination of IPTV and DTH services.


Piggy backing off of Hightec today.