Close-up of a woman's neck with a haptic patch

Hacking Haptics: The 19-Sensor Patch Bringing Touch To Life

November 18, 2024 by Heidi Ulrich 14 Comments

On November 6th, Northwestern University introduced a groundbreaking leap in haptic technology, and it’s worth every bit of attention now, even two weeks later. Full details are in their original article. This innovation brings tactile feedback into the future with a hexagonal matrix of 19 mini actuators embedded in a flexible silicone mesh. It’s the stuff of dreams for hackers and tinkerers looking for the next big thing in wearables.

What makes this patch truly cutting-edge? First, it offers multi-dimensional feedback: pressure, vibration, and twisting sensations—imagine a wearable that can nudge or twist your skin instead of just buzzing. Unlike the simple, one-note “buzzers” of old devices, this setup adds depth and realism to interactions. For those in the VR community or anyone keen on building sensory experiences, this is a game changer.

But the real kicker is its energy management. The patch incorporates a ‘bistable’ mechanism, meaning it stays in two stable positions without continuous power, saving energy by recycling elastic energy stored in the skin. Think of it like a rubber band that snaps back and releases stored energy during operation. The result? Longer battery life and efficient power usage—perfect for tinkering with extended use cases.

And it’s not all fun and games (though VR fans should rejoice). This patch turns sensory substitution into practical tech for the visually impaired, using LiDAR data and Bluetooth to transmit surroundings into tactile feedback. It’s like a white cane but integrated with data-rich, spatial awareness feedback—a boost for accessibility.

Fancy more stories like this? Earlier this year, we wrote about these lightweight haptic gloves—for those who notice, featuring a similar hexagonal array of 19 sensors—a pattern for success? You can read the original article on TechXplore here.

A Commmand Center For Children With Sensory Needs

January 25, 2020 by Sharon Lin 4 Comments

Toys for children are meant to be fun and interactive, but they’re even better if they’re educational as well. For [carrola1], a parent of a 4-year-old suffering from from medical disabilities, sensory needs, and autism, a more personalized approach seemed best. The electrical engineer built a wall-mounted command center with plenty of switches, buttons, and knobs to trigger to keep any child happy.

Apart from basic inputs, the device also has a color sensor – the command center can ask the child for an object of a particular color and congratulate them with a song when they’ve successfully acquired one.

The software for the audio and light controls was written in C for a STM32L0 series MCU, with CMSIS as the hardware abstraction layer and STM32CubeIDE as the IDE. The design uses SPI and I2C for serial communication and I2S for communicating between the digital audio devices. Physical inputs include toggle switches, rotary switches, and key switches to provide variety, with all physical hardware connected to the MCU on a custom PCB.

The audio output, sourced from a library of wav files, seems like the most challenging part of the build: the amps needed to be changed from left channel mono configuration to stereo, the output had to be LC filtered, and the code for had to be optimized for size to allow the audio files to play.

You can check out a video of the command center in action on the Reddit post.

Get Your Tweets Without Looking

December 22, 2018 by Brian McEvoy 5 Comments

Head-mounted displays range from cumbersome to glass-hole-ish. Smart watches have their niche, but they still take your eyes away from whatever you are doing, like driving. Voice assistants can read to you, but they require a speaker that everyone else in the car has to listen to, or a headset that blocks out important sound. Ignoring incoming messages is out of the question so the answer may be to use a different sense than vision. A joint project between Facebook Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a solution which uses the somatosensory reception of your forearm.

A similar idea came across our desk years ago and seemed promising, but it is hard to sell something that is more difficult than the current technique, even if it is advantageous in the long run. In 2013, a wearer had his or her back covered in vibrator motors, and it acted like the haptic version of a spectrum analyzer. Now, the vibrators have been reduced in number to fit under a sleeve by utilizing patterns. It is being developed for people with hearing or vision impairment but what drivers aren’t impaired while looking at their phones?

Patterns are what really set this version apart. Rather than relaying a discrete note on a finger, or a range of values across the back, the 39 English phenomes are given a unique sequence of vibrations which is enough to encode any word. A ~~phenome~~ phoneme is the smallest distinct unit of speech. The video below shows how those phonemes are translated to haptic feedback. Hopefully, we can send tweets without using our hands or mouths to upgrade to complete telepathy.

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I Hear You Offer WiFi

September 22, 2018 by Brian McEvoy 13 Comments

We are swimming in radio transmissions from all around, and if you live above the ground floor, they are coming at you from below as well. Humans do not have a sensory organ for recognizing radio signals, but we have lots of hardware which can make sense of it. The chances are good that you are looking at one such device right now. [Frank Swain] has leaped from merely accepting the omnipresent signals from WiFi routers and portable devices to listening in on them. The audio signals are mere soundwaves, so he is not listening to every tweet and email password, merely a representation of the data’s presence. There is a sample below the break, and it sounds like a Geiger counter playing PIN•BOT.

We experience only the most minuscule sliver of information coming at us at any given moment. Machines to hack that gap are not had to find on these pages so [Frank] is in good company. Magnetosensory is a popular choice for people with a poor sense of direction. Echolocation is perfect for fans of Daredevil. Delivering new sensations could be easier than ever with high-resolution tactile displays. Detect some rather intimate data with ‘SHE BON.’

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Magnet Implants, Your Cyborg Primer

September 8, 2017 by Brian McEvoy 79 Comments

What would you do to gain a sixth sense? Some of us would submit to a minor surgical procedure where a magnet is implanted under the skin. While this isn’t the first time magnet implants have been mentioned here on Hackaday, [The Thought Emporium] did a phenomenal job of gathering the scattered data from blogs, forum posts, and personal experimentation into a short video which can be seen after the break.

As [The Thought Emporium] explains in more eloquent detail, a magnet under the skin allows the implantee to gain a permanent sense of strong magnetic fields. Implantation in a fingertip is most common because nerve density is high and probing is possible. Ear implants are the next most useful because oscillating magnetic fields can be translated to sound.

For some, this is merely a parlor trick. Lifting paper clips and messing with a compass are great fun. Can magnet implants be more than whimsical baubles?

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EM Brace For Sensing Magnetic Fields

June 19, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 7 Comments

We’ve discussed the notion of using machines to add or improve sensory input to the body before, and we’ve found another project with the same idea. [Nick Hasty] has developed an object he calls the EM Brace, which allows the user to sense electromagnetic fields with a wave of the hand.

The device works by connecting two antennas to an enclosure that contains a speaker. The enclosure is intended to be worn on the back with a harness securing it in place and wrapping the arms around the wearer’s body. The antennas are incorporated into a pair of gloves. When the antennas pick up electromagnetic radiation, the speaker emits a low frequency sound waves. They vibrate the enclosure and the arms, which in turn vibrate the body, signaling to the wearer that he or she is in an electromagnetic field, also referred to as hertzian space. A good deal of detail about the project can be found on his blog, or if you prefer, download his thesis paper in(PDF).

[via Make]

Bionic Senses

June 5, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 14 Comments

Various cybernetic limb and organ replacements were recently featured in IEEE’s flash demo called The Bionic Body Shop, but we were most interested by the bionic eye and the cochlear implant (we already discussed the featured powered exoskeleton). These are notable for the fact that they are not merely high-tech prosthetic replacements strapped to or worn on the body, but implants that are housed within the body and work with flesh-and-blood sense organs on a much closer level than any preceding technology.