AirScroll AI — Hands-Free Smart Scrolling for PC

Scroll YouTube, PDFs, docs, social feeds — any Windows app — with hand gestures via your webcam. All AI runs locally; nothing leaves your PC.

Setup

Requires Python 3.9–3.12 (MediaPipe does not yet support the very newest Python versions — 3.11 is the safest choice).

pip install -r requirements.txt
python airscroll.py

On Windows, run the terminal as Administrator if the global hotkey doesn't respond (the keyboard library sometimes needs it).

Usage

1. Launch the app — a tray icon appears (grey = off).
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + A (or tray menu → Activate).
3. A permission dialog asks for camera consent — camera never opens before you allow it.
4. Raise your hand in front of the webcam:
   • Open palm, move up/down → smooth momentum scrolling
   • Fist → instantly pause / brake
   • Two fingers (index+middle) → fast scroll
   • Move slowly → precision scroll
5. Press Ctrl + Shift + A again → tracking stops and the webcam is fully released (light turns off).
6. Tray menu → Quit to exit.

Privacy guarantees (by design, verifiable in code)

• Camera opens only after activation and explicit user consent (ask_camera_permission).
• On deactivate, cap.release() is always called in a finally block — the camera cannot stay open.
• Frames are processed in memory and discarded; nothing is written to disk or network.
• MediaPipe hand tracking runs fully on-device.

Tuning

Edit the constants at the top of airscroll.py:

Setting	Effect
SENSITIVITY	scroll amount per hand movement
MOMENTUM_FRICTION	how long scrolling glides (0.85–0.95)
DEADZONE	ignore hand jitter
HOTKEY	toggle shortcut
SHOW_PREVIEW	set True to see a debug camera window with hand landmarks

Notes & limitations

• Works system-wide (it sends real scroll-wheel events), so no browser extension is needed.
• Good lighting improves tracking a lot.
• macOS/Linux: works, but replace the keyboard hotkey with pynput and grant Accessibility + Camera permissions (macOS).