What They Say
An article in ‘Digital Trends’ highlighted how Sensel is working to create haptic solutions for notebook touchpads. Although notebook makers are interested in having such a feature, it can be expensive and difficult to integrate.
To successfully put haptics into this application, you need three things
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touch-sensing;
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force-sensing;
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haptic actuator.
Sensel supplied the actuators to Microsof for the Surface Laptop Studio after Microsoft had worked with other vendors but had been unable to get the result it wanted.
The blog tested the
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga‘s haptic touchpad which uses Sensel’s touch-sensing and force-sensing components, but not the company’s haptic actuator. In its review, it noted that it ‘felt OK but not great’. Dell’s upcoming
XPS 13 Plususes components from two vendors (neither being Sensel), and the site found it a bit clunky in its preproduction state but that could change by the time of release.
Sensel is looking for ways to cost reduce the technology to get it into a wider range of systems. The article looks at the positive reasons for wanting haptics in the touch pad.
What We Think
I like haptics. Many touch applications can lag in response, we’ve all hit enter several times when nothing seems to happen, and then had lots of pop-ups to close. Haptics gives the feedback that the system knows what you want, even if it can’t deliver at that moment. However, most haptics need mechanical devices which mean space, weight, power consumption and potentially reliability issues. As we reported recently, Tanvas has a different way of doing it using electrostatics (and I’m still sure that I saw something from Fujitsu’s R&D some years ago at MWC, but I can’t find anything in my databases). Tomorrow, we are running a release from ultrahaptics which provides haptics at a distance using ultrasound.
Strictly, this is not a display story, although some devices do have touch displays as touch pads. More on that tomorrow. (BR)
