A Haptic Future: Sensing the Virtual

The Metaverse, VR and AR offer visual immersion into virtual spaces. How can other senses be recreated in the virtual environments business are building?

What if you could touch and feel the Metaverse? Could smell also be replicated in virtual spaces? Haptics are the technologies we use to connect our bodies to our digital devices. The vibration mode on mobile phones is an example of haptic technology. Or the 4D experiences cinemas offer. Some advanced gaming peripherals allow participants to feel bullet hits on their bodies. And the adult entertainment industry has been experimenting with haptics for decades.

Various technologies have been developed to create haptic feedback for VR users. Gloves, through to full bodysuits, have been created with varying degrees of success. The technologies are designed to replicate touch and feel in a Metaverse space. Also, telepresence is a factor where remote action (such as surgery) can occur at a distance.

Alex Book, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ARCADE explained: “The principle of ‘embodiment’ is well understood in VR to mean the genuine sense of being physical present within the virtual environment. Haptics play a fundamental role in this, providing additional sensory input that helps build a picture for the mind and body, convincing us that we really are interacting with the digital space around us.”

Book concluded: “When we switch to mixed reality (MR) or augmented reality (AR), we need less persuasion that we are present – we can see clearly that we are – but multi-sensory input is still critical when engaging with spatial content, making it entirely believable that we really are picking up that block, or painting with that brush, or pressing that button. With believability comes comfort and familiarity, both essential for the mass adoption of spatial experience.”
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The addition of tactile feedback in a virtual space clearly has applications in healthcare, for example. Gaming will continue to develop this technology to improve the realism that gamers experience. This industry will likely create the first affordable haptic technologies that all businesses could deploy. As with all technologies, having a clearly defined business case for these devices is vital. The Metaverse won’t be just a visual experience for long.

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