Haptics

Published in

Media-Nxt: The Future of Media

3 min readOct 6, 2020

Research: Neema Amadala

Haptic technology, also known as haptics, transfers and enhances digital information through touch. Haptics are what makes the solid-state home button on the iPhone 7 feel responsive to a user’s finger, and why fingers are able to distinguish individual keys on smartphone keyboards. A subset of robotics, haptics was identified by psychophysicists, who study the connection between physical stimuli and the responses and sensations these stimuli produce. With the development and convergence of emerging technologies in the late 1990s, haptics took on a new interactive dimension.

Today, haptics are systems or devices that allow humans to feel and/or physically manipulate virtual or remote environments as though they were interacting directly with them. This new way to provide and display information uses the human body to control a haptic interface and incorporates the physics of touch, such as air brushing over skin, or a vibration produced by a wearable. One of the benefits of haptics is that it is bi-directional, meaning that information and energy flows to, as well as from, the user. As computing becomes more complex, haptics can make machines and computers easier to use. Haptics lowers the barrier between human and machine, by integrating the technology with the user. The field is expanding rapidly — the market could be worth nearly $3 billion by 2027 — and there are currently many applications of the technology in computing, robotics, mobile, and health.

Entertainment

Haptics may solve a market-limiting problem in gaming and entertainment. Some consumers who try VR headsets report nausea, lightheadedness and dizziness. Improved haptic feedback, such as a steadying sensation, could limit those negative effects.

Haptics could make such entertainment transportive. With haptics, users playing a game or watching a movie could feel the impact of bullets or changing elevation and terrain beneath their feet. Quality haptics could make audiences feel the moisture of waves as they ride a surfboard or experience the rumble of an earthquake.

As technology improves, haptics could be integrated into devices in a less obtrusive way than headsets or other clunky wearables. As with other tech innovations, the pornography industry may lead the way to better haptics, as there is considerable demand for technology that would enable the audience to act as participants in adult films.

Positioning

For retail, haptics can provide consumers with information about a produt they didn’t have before. In the future, haptics could give consumers the ability to manipulate objects in 3D from their own home and on their own time. For example, while shopping from home, consumers, via haptics, could rotate an item to see it from multiple angles. Haptics could also give consumers the sensation of trying on a piece of clothing or sitting on a new piece of furniture. Retailers that provide more in-depth options would be more appealing to consumers.