CIE Components in Electronics
HiWave will initially target the 300m-unit per annum home appliance market with this technology to enable the faithful reproduction of the feel that a traditional mechanical button, switch or keypad produces when pressed on microwaves, fridge-freezers, hobs and ovens. The technology will also bring benefits to industrial, commercial and medical touch control panels.
The Taptic demonstration platform uses HiWave 3rd dimension haptics, and incorporates two HiWave HIHXC9C005-8 haptic actuators, which attach to the back of a flat printed touch interface panel, and a HiWave HiHS9002 haptic control integrated circuit. It can work with both capacitive and resistive touch panel technologies.
By using the company’s patented Bending Wave technology, the actuators precisely deliver waveforms across the panel to replicate the feel of a mechanical keypad and, if desired, simultaneously overlay audio cues. The key benefit of HiWave’s patented Bending Wave Haptics is that the panel can be firmly fixed, or integral in the appliance. No physical movement is necessary as bending waves create the tactile sensation locally in the touch panel. This reduces cost, increases ruggedness and product lifetime, as well as enabling the entire unit to be ‘wipe clean’. Moreover, this is achieved with a high level of mechanical efficiency by HiWave’s patented inertial exciters, resulting in crisp tactile sensation with low power consumption.
The flexibility provided by HiWave’s algorithms processed in its haptic control chip enables haptic feedback responses to be precisely selected and tuned by both the user and manufacturer to replicate a wide range of button press sensations. The frequency of operation delivers over an octave for true wideband haptics, and up to 15kHz for audio playback. A range of audio feedbacks – from simple pings and clicks to mp3 files containing spoken instructions and music – can also be delivered without additional speakers by using the touch panel as the sound emitter.
Commenting James Lewis, CEO of HiWave said: “The home appliance market is evolving rapidly to adopt new technologies that deliver user benefits, and we’re seeing significant interest from manufacturers seeking to implement our touch technologies for non-display applications. Unlike mechanical buttons, printed panels can be easily cleaned so don’t harbour dirt and bacteria and are much more robust in a busy kitchen environment. Moreover, they are inexpensive to develop and produce, allowing white goods manufacturers to easily upgrade features and update the aesthetics of their products.”
