Snaptics: Low-Cost Open-Source Hardware for Wearable Multi-Sensory Haptics

Abstract

There has been growing interest in using haptic devices to enhance virtual experiences or to increase the amount of information transferred to a user by wearable devices. As such, the haptics community has proposed a wide range of wearable haptic devices, often featuring multi-sensory cues that convey vibration, squeeze, twist, or skin stretch. Despite these exciting advances in wearable haptic technology, these devices are difficult to reproduce outside of the research setting due to their relatively high cost, their complexity of construction, and/or their inclusion of custom components. To this end, we present Snaptics, a low-cost, open-source, haptics platform designed for rapid prototyping of fully wearable multi-sensory haptic devices. Snaptics exists to increase community engagement with and accessibility of wearable haptic devices by lowering the technical barrier to entry and cost of creating a wearable haptic device.