What are haptics?
Definition
According to the Oxford Dictionary & Lexico, haptics “relate to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception.” They further define haptics as “the use of technology that stimulates the sense of touch and motion, especially to reproduce in remote operation or computer simulation the sensations that would be felt by a user interacting directly with physical objects.”
The word itself originates from the Greek word haptesthai, meaning to touch.
What does this all mean?
This means that haptics, in simple terms, is the science of transmitting and understanding information through the sense of touch. The mechanism that stimulates the sense of touch and that is behind the transmission of information is referred to as haptic technology, while the information conveyed is called haptic feedback.
How the Sense of Touch Works & What This Means for Haptics
The skin is a complex organ that contains a massive number of nerve endings and touch receptors that come together to be known as the somatosensory system
It is the somatosensory system that informs the brain of all the sensations we feel. When something is too hot or too cold, when something is painful, or when something tickles, it is this system that relays the message to your brain.
It does this through your touch receptors. Your touch receptors convey a message to the nearest neuron, which then conveys the message to the next nearest neuron, and so on, until the message reaches the brain. The brain then tells the body how to react to the sensation—and all of this is done in a fraction of a second. This is why we pull our hands back immediately after accidentally touching a hot stove, for example.
Just as how graphics & audio target a person’s sense of sight and sound to convey information, haptics target a person’s somatosensory system to give context and to communicate specific information.
A common example of the somatosensory system communicating with most of the current adult population through haptics would be when you hold down an app on your iPhone and your finger feels a pull. This pull is the iPhone’s haptic motors (the haptic technology) communicating to your brain through touch
(haptic feedback) that you may now move the app around in your home screen, delete it, or add it to a category of apps.
Purpose of Haptic Technology
While the main goal of haptic technology is to communicate something to the user, there are many different reasons why one would want to communicate in the first place. Haptic technology can be used to teach something, to train someone, to build something or simply to entertain the user.
Despite the many different ways and reasons that haptic technology can be used to communicate, there is one thing they all have in common: they allow inanimate objects to re-create the feeling of using real objects, and then in turn allow these inanimate objects to touch you back.
How exactly haptic technology is used depends on what you are trying to communicate but at its core, the purpose of haptics is to act as a form of touch communication between an inanimate object and a human.
How Haptic Technology Started
Though its origins are hard to trace, one of the earliest applications of haptic technology was in aviation. The controls of a plane would vibrate in tandem with turbulence so pilots could better understand what was going on outside of the plane! The haptic feedback would also alert the pilots if the aircraft was approaching a stall, increasing flight safety.
After this initial use of haptics, a patent for a tactile telephone was granted in 1973 as the use of haptics continued to expand. Today, haptic technology can be found in smartphones, laptops, vests, chairs, robots, simulators and more.
How Does Haptic Technology Work?
Now that you understand the basics of haptics and haptic technology, you might be wondering, “just how exactly does it work?”
In short, haptic technology creates haptic feedback through the application of force, vibration and motion. These sensations are what target the user’s sense of touch when interacting with something that contains haptic technology.
There are a few different ways to mechanically create these forces, vibrations and movement.
The first (and most common) is by using an eccentric rotating mass (also known as an ERM) actuator. As the ERM rapidly spins, the force from the weight becomes unstable, causing the motor to move. The moved motor is what creates the haptic feedback!
ERM’s were followed by linear resonant actuators (LRA’S), which consist of a magnet attached to a spring, surrounded by coil and protected by an outer layer. The electromagnetic coil is energized so that the magnetic mass moves back and forth within it, creating the sensation of the feedback. The Nintendo Switch uses a LRA actuator, for example, to give gamers a more immersive experience.
Most types of haptic technology use either ERM’s or LRA’s to provide haptic feedback, but new types of technology are still emerging and evolving to be more accessible and more realistic. The key to remember, however, is that in general haptic feedback is caused by a device that applies a force, pressure or resistance by using actuators to create the desired sensations.
Haptics vs Vibrations
The next thing you might be wondering is “what exactly is the difference between haptic feedback and vibrations?”
While both haptic feedback and vibration are very similar, the difference lies in the complexity of the vibration pattern and the intention.
The fact that the main goal of haptic feedback is to communicate separates it from vibration, which usually comes on one waveform and in a similar, continuous intensity throughout its duration. Haptics, on the other hand, use a variety of advanced waveforms to convey information to the user.
Essentially, if a sensation doesn’t convey specific information, it’s simply a vibration. The distinction is made when the vibration alerts you to something—if you’re playing a videogame and a vibration on the left side of your controller alerts you to a bomb going off to your left, then the vibration is communicating—making it a form of haptic feedback.
Haptics vs Tactile
Similarly to vibrations, haptics and tactile go hand-in-hand. Tactile is simply anything that’s related to the sense of touch, so it is impossible to have haptic feedback without some form of tactile feedback first occurring!
In essence, haptic feedback occurs when tactile feedback (for example, the texture of a dumbbell against your fingertips) combines with kinesthetic feedback (sensations from our own muscular effort, for example the feeling of your muscles contracting while lifting the dumbbell) to create communicative haptic feedback. While it is still possible to have haptic feedback without both elements, haptics are at their most efficient when both are present.
Tactile feedback can be considered a light form of haptics, but on its own, it does not provide much force since it’s limited to being skin level only.
How D-BOX Uses Haptic Feedback
Movie Theaters
D-BOX is renowned for the premium haptic theatrical experience that they offer moviegoers around the world.
This experience is brought to cinephiles through actuators that allow them to experience vibrations, motion and textures through their cinema seat. However, it is not an automation—D-BOX employs haptic designers whose sole job it is to watch the movies, encode the content with haptic tracks that will make the movement perfectly in sync with the action on the big screen, and then fine-tune the experience to truly augment the level of immersion that moviegoers feel in a D-BOX seat.
These haptic designers are constantly encoding new major motion pictures, so that moviegoers can continuously be immersed by the D-BOX experience-- ensuring that it goes beyond just a "one-time experience" and that the experience is available to movie lovers of all ages, types and genres.
Sim Racing
Being the exclusive official supplier of haptic systems of the FIA, D-BOX stands out from the rest of their competitors thanks to their actuators providing the most realistic racing experience for everyone from amateurs of the sport to professional drivers who are looking to fine-tune their training regimens.
This extremely precise haptic feedback allows professional drivers to prepare for certain tracks before race day. With the motion system being able to communicate even the finest of details including resistance and texture changes underneath the tires, D-BOX haptics can help drivers shave seconds off their time through physics.
Attractions & Virtual Reality
D-BOX helps their partners build interactive rides, exhibits and special events that make the overall experience of the attraction more memorable for all through their patented haptic technology.
If a client is building a virtual roller coaster, D-BOX integrates their actuators into the attraction’s platform in order to accurately re-create the tactile and kinesthetic sensations that make the user feel as though they were at an actual amusement park, riding their favourite coaster.
D-BOX’s haptic feedback technology can also be customized and integrated into virtual reality applications to make users truly forget that they’re not in the world being shown to them, with the motion being perfectly synchronized to the happenings of the virtual world.
Professional Training and Simulation
As the study by the Interuniversity Research Centre shows, haptic technology is an efficient tool for training transfer.
D-BOX works with their partners to analyze their training goals and then to integrate their haptics into simulators in ways that will help companies reach their training goals and make training safer for all involved.
The haptic feedback communicated through D-BOX’s actuators stimulates muscle memory and is scientifically proven to prevent motion sickness, leading to an optimized training curriculum and overall safer practices.
The Metaverse
With the term ‘Metaverse’ growing steadily in popularity, D-BOX is preparing for its eventual arrival and for the way it will revolutionize the way we live our lives. We believe that the Metaverse is truly the future of haptics!
This virtual environment will seek to replicate reality as accurately and as realistically as possible, and would potentially allow a Canadian to visit the Great Pyramids of Egypt without leaving their home, allow an American to work in a warehouse physically located in Europe, and so on.
For the Metaverse to be successful, it must be highly immersive and must making users forget that they’re in the virtual world, which is why we’re confident that D-BOX will be ready to completely immerse users into the Metaverse with our world-renowned haptic movement codes!
We’re well positioned for the launch of the Metaverse because D-BOX is the only haptics company who encodes their own content. This means that not only do we add haptic feedback to games, movies and more based on user actions and sound, but we also encode haptic tracks for specific events and experiences—making them as realistic as can be.
The Future of Haptics
Though most people are currently unaware of what haptic technology is, it has permeated everyday life for the majority of society and is only going to continue to rapidly expand with the creation of the Metaverse. With applications in medicine, aviation, entertainment and more, there is no limiting what haptic technology will allow us to do going forward!
If you want to learn more about haptic technology and think it can enhance your entertainment experiences, feel free to communicate with us.
