In the past few years the need for more natural and human-centered ways of interacting with machines has taken over the mind of the researchers. These virtual environments are considered as a better, efficient and more visceral way to human machine interaction. 

The virtual environments are used in a wide array of applications that includes consumer electronics, military simulations, medical training and virtual prototyping among many others. Gesture recognition is one of the methods to create virtual and augmented reality; it is the mathematical interpretation of human body motions by a computing device. The prime purpose of gesture recognition system is to detect the hands and also to segment the corresponding image regions.

Any gesture recognition system comprises of three layers, namely, detection, tracking and recognition. Each layer has a specific function; the detection layer defines and extracts the visual features, the tracking layer helps to associate the temporal data between successive images and the recognition layer groups all the spatiotemporal data obtained by the tracking layer.

Gesture recognition technology has captured a big market from 2013 as this technology is being introduced into consumer electronics that include gaming consoles, smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs, Smart televisions and in wearable electronic devices.  The most important key factor that is contributing to the growth of gesture recognition in mixed reality market is the ability to use gestures to make virtual objects interactive. The user can reach out hands and make the content respond; very similar to a gaming Kinect.

Though gesture recognition is a comparatively new technology, its user-friendly nature enables the consumers to favor it and adopt the same. Smart homes, connected homes and smart lighting technologies are also on the rise which uses gesture recognition technology to control various devices and perform functions on them. 

With the advancements in numerous modern sensor technologies, development of gesture recognition devices and software has become easy and readily available with a wide range of devices like smartphones, TVs, laptops, PCs, wearable devices etc. These advancements in these techniques have opened doors to advanced mixed reality systems. The future belongs to the smart technologies; mixed reality was a dream which turned to reality with the advancements in gesture recognition systems.