Immersion
5G Haptic Cuff
Experience touch at a distance.
Sense those you love from afar.
Immersion engaged Punchcut to research the future of haptics, envision future use case scenarios, define a haptics design system and prototype a new product called the Haptic Cuff, the most advanced distance, human-touch experience.
Seamless Experience
IoT Conversation Starter
We created a system that makes integrating and conversing with smart devices a seamless experience. The system knows all the devices, spaces, and inhabitants that interact together, and creates an environment that allows for effortless communication.
The Haptic Cuff is a 5G-enabled device packed full of advanced haptic technology with high-fidelity vibration actuators, thermal elements, and a squeeze actuator.
The vibration elements are distributed throughout the cuff. By triggering them in sequence, the wearer can feel linear movement on the skin in several directions: front to back, clockwise and counterclockwise around the wrist.
Most haptic devices utilize a single modality at a time. The Haptic Cuff combines simultaneous vibration, force, and temperature effects to create “hybrid haptics.” Thus allowing more complex and nuanced emotional messages to be expressed and experienced.
When people wearing the Haptic Cuff experience a haptic effect that combines warmth with a gentle squeeze, they perceive a feeling of affection or love. Many other emotions can be displayed such as sadness, fear, anxiety, and joy. This added level of sensory communication will transform consumer experiences. Let's imagine the possibilities...
Consumer Usage Scenario
Turn By Turn
Imagine distant partners able to naturally communicate a range of emotions to each other such as love, sadness, or frustration.
Consumer Use Scenario
Hot and Cold
Imagine a couple separated in crowd and the one partner's voice assistant uses the vibrations of the haptic cuff to guide them to their other half.
Consumer Use Scenario
Blind Sight
Imagine visually impaired wearers “seeing” their environment by “feeling” the world around them in ways never before possible.
Consumer Use Scenario
Augmented Voice
Imagine AI agents and virtual human avatars having a physical presence and ability to engage people’s emotions in a way that today’s voice control interfaces cannot achieve.
Consumer Use Scenario
Non Verbal
Imagine distant partners able to naturally communicate a range of emotions to each other such as love, sadness, or frustration.
The Haptic Cuff has the potential to change everything we think we know about physically interacting with the digital world, and, ultimately, with each other. People of varying physical and cognitive abilities will now be able to see, hear and feel their interfaces.
Most haptic devices utilize a single modality at a time. In our design, we combine simultaneous vibration, force, and temperature effects to create “hybrid haptics.”
How it Works - Haptic Sequences
The Haptic Cuff was pioneered as a 5G-enabled device worn on the wrist and packed full of advanced haptic technology with high-fidelity vibration actuators, thermal elements, and a squeeze actuator. The vibration elements are distributed throughout the cuff. By triggering them in sequence, the wearer can feel linear movement on the skin in several directions: front to back, clockwise and counterclockwise around the wrist. The thermal elements allow wearers to feel warm or cool sensations on the underside of the wrist. The squeeze actuator allows the wearer to feel gentle constriction around the wrist.
As an interaction modality, haptics is under-utilized compared to visual and aural modes. Yet, research shows that touch has the power to communicate in deep visceral ways that other modes cannot. Brands have yet to fully utilize the most personal form of communication—touch—to its full potential in their products.
