19. An apparatus for gesture recognition comprising: a control device; a processor operable to execute a program of a method for gesture recognition, wherein the method comprising: receiving sample motion data from one or more sensors associated with the control device wherein the motion data is related to movement of the control device; computing an energy value from the motion data and a baseline value for the motion data; updating the baseline value based on the energy value if the energy value is less than a calm energy threshold; adjusting the sample motion data based on the updated baseline value; calculating a local variance if the sample motion data over a predetermined number of local variance samples; beginning recording one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture if the local variance scalar value is greater than a start threshold; calculating an average local variance scalar value using the one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture; and stopping the recording of the one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture if the local variance scalar value is less than a stop threshold.
19. An apparatus for gesture recognition comprising: a control device; a processor operable to execute a program of a method for gesture recognition, wherein the method comprising: receiving sample motion data from one or more sensors associated with the control device wherein the motion data is related to movement of the control device; computing an energy value from the motion data and a baseline value for the motion data; updating the baseline value based on the energy value if the energy value is less than a calm energy threshold; adjusting the sample motion data based on the updated baseline value; calculating a local variance if the sample motion data over a predetermined number of local variance samples; beginning recording one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture if the local variance scalar value is greater than a start threshold; calculating an average local variance scalar value using the one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture; and stopping the recording of the one or more values of the sample motion data for a gesture if the local variance scalar value is less than a stop threshold. 20. The apparatus of claim 19 , wherein the method for gesture recognition further comprises: computing a total variance for sample values in the gesture; calculating a figure of merit using the sample values in the gesture and sample values in one or more catalog gesture, wherein the figure of merit is a measure of how well the gesture matched the catalog gesture; determining whether an input gesture matches one of the one or more catalog gesture based on the figure of merit; and taking action if the input gesture matches the one of the one or more catalog gesture.