USING FINGER PRESENCE TO ACTIVATE A MOTION CONTROL FEATURE FOR A HANDHELD CONTROLLER

A handheld controller may include a movable control that is usable for activating and deactivating a motion control feature of the handheld controller based on a detection of, or a failure to detect, a finger contacting a surface of the movable control. For example, a touch sensor associated with the movable control may provide touch sensor data indicative of a proximity of a finger relative to the movable control, and based on this touch sensor data, the motion control feature of the handheld controller can be toggled on and off, depending on whether the finger is contacting the movable control or not. When the motion control feature is activated, motion sensor data from a motion sensor(s) is sent to an application (e.g., a video game) as application input. When the motion control feature is deactivated, the motion sensor data is not used as application input.