Last month, Sony introduced the DualSense Edge, a high-end controller for PlayStation 5. With interchangeable joysticks and customizable controls, it’s exactly the kind of joystick top of the range that fans expected from the Japanese firm.
It is a competing device Xbox Elite Microsoft, which is already in its second generation of development. And it’s that Sony itself has come to feel a little aggrieved by people’s clamor to update the PS5’s default DualSense controller.
After all, it is no slouch, and even as an entry-level device it is able to offer something not buffer Xbox offerings: adaptive triggers and advanced haptics.
This goes far beyond the basic vibrations introduced to the game by the N64’s Rumble Pak add-on in 1997, allowing players to feel the tension of a taut bowstring when firing at the target.
Shooters like Deathloop use it to create a different trigger feel for each gun, or even to simulate the feel of a gun jamming when the trigger is locked.
Of course, haptics go far beyond gaming. You’ll likely find them more on your phone, where ringtones and text alerts have been phased out in favor of the gentle hum of vibrate mode.
This year they took it a step further when iOS 16 introduced the option to add haptic feedback to the keyboard as you type, a setting Android owners are more familiar with, having disabled it a decade ago to be boring.
Manage touchpad
Perhaps Apple finally decided to add haptic feedback to the iPhone keyboard after the positive reception the device has had. touchpad haptics built into some MacBooks since 2015.
Dubbed “Force Touch”, these touch pads they don’t actually move, because instead of basing their operation on the static sheets of glass, they use sensors to detect your input and ring the keyboard so you feel the ‘click’.
Apple’s implementation doesn’t change the way we use our laptops. This is where business comes in Real with its motto of bringing surfaces to life.
The Amsterdam-based haptic technology company already provides touch pads haptics to major Windows laptop manufacturers, and their ambitions go further: to change the touch pads laptops as we know them today.
For manufacturers, an immediate benefit from a touchpad haptics is that it is smaller than a touchpad traditional, which allows them to keep the design of the thinnest laptops, or to have more space for their batteries.
Aito’s version of the technology is just 2.4mm thick, thinner than a mechanical pad and less than half the depth of Apple’s technology.
Aito also claims that its haptics are more advanced than Apple’s, thanks to the use of twelve different points for sensing and feedback. Using them together can detect the precise position of your finger.
By driving different feedback intensities at different points, you can deliver incredibly realistic sensations at specific points, rather than just moving the entire trackpad into one.
Even for a basic click, its haptics are able to trick the brain into thinking the trackpad is moving, an association nearly impossible to miss. It’s only when the laptop is turned off that you notice nothing moving.
More than just a click
However, haptics can go far beyond a mechanical click. More advanced options include different feel for one-, two-, and three-finger clicks.
Simulate the feel of a mouse scroll wheel when scrolling a page; or create the same spring-like tension of the DualSense to indicate how hard you press against the surface.
There are practical results here. A demo CEO, Nedko Ivanov, showed me that it created a subtle sweeping tension when I tapped and dragged the cursor to select text, disappearing once I released it.
Another possibility is for high-end manufacturers who wish to integrate touch pads haptics invisibly within the body of a laptop, as Dell did in this year’s XPS 13 Plus (Aito would neither confirm nor deny if its technology is responsible).
With the naked eye, it is impossible to know where touchpad and the chassis kicks in, but an invisible haptic edge is all the finger needs.
The latest generation of Huawei MateBook X Pro has its own touchpad haptics, which uses it as feedback for new shortcuts, like swiping down or up from both sides to control volume and screen brightness.
It has also been implemented in the upper part of the touchpad area, where the scroll bar with a soft click sound allows us to move forward or backward when managing video playback, including on the YouTube platform.
Until now, this technology was limited to devices prime expensive, although Ivanov is confident it has mainstream appeal that could see it find its way to other entry-level devices.
“I would say that over the next two years it will trickle down to the so-called middle segment,” Ivanov told me, predicting the big paradigm shift will happen in 2024.
the keys to the future
However, Aito’s ambitions go beyond the touchscreen and he wants to replace almost all of the modern laptop’s moving parts. After all, if you can fake a touchpadwhy not a keyboard?
We’re already seeing manufacturers developing dual-screen devices like the Asus ZenBook Duo line, or laptop-sized foldables like Lenovo’s recently updated ThinkPad X1 Fold, which uses a detachable magnetic keyboard.
But if the bottom half of our laptops truly becomes full-screen, then the keyboard will have to stick around indefinitely, like it did on our phones not too long ago.
write on a smartphone is one thing, doing it on a laptop is another. And as Ivanov says, if you want to persuade consumers to ditch the keyboard, then “they should have a much better typing experience on a screen than on an iPad.”
However, Aito’s technology is surprisingly close to the real thing, thanks in part to the inclusion of enough motors to provide individualized feedback exactly where you type, rather than making the whole device sound like the does your phone.
Aito’s implementation feels natural and feels fast, and even allows new options like pressing harder to type an uppercase letter, the kind of customizable settings that could hypothetically help you type faster.
Will he conquer the sector of the players and lovers of mechanical keyboards who argue over what types of switches and distances they should have? No, but you don’t have to: most laptop keyboards already offer a compromised typing experience.
Still, consumers are unlikely to jump at the chance to ditch their “real” keyboard in favor of a haptic alternative. But manufacturers have plenty of incentives to encourage buyers.
Integrating a keyboard into a screen not only allows for thinner laptops, but also saves huge amounts of manufacturing costs in the long run, freeing companies from the need to create models with different keyboards for each market or language.
Ivanov told me Aito was already working with an OEM to implement his on-screen keyboard, so we might see it coming soon. A haptic mouse is also in preparation.
We’re still a few years away from seeing these kinds of implementations applied to real life, but the promise of simplifying supply chains while adding new features ensures that haptics are here to stay and, according to this I’ve seen, only they will improve