Haptic Feedback & Alerting
Overview
The largest use of vibration mechanisms is in the haptic feedback & alerting market. Haptic (i.e. touch) feedback and its benefits is well known to nearly all of us via it's ubiquitous use in mobile phones.
Vibra-call, originated in pagers (hence the common moniker 'pager motors') as a way to quietly alert the user of an incoming message, making the transition into mobile phones an obvious next step as their usage grew.
Handheld
More and more handheld devices are being sold with haptic alert functions; GPS units, 2-way radios, toys are common in the consumer market, and of course today, 98% of the billion or so mobile phones sold each year, contain a vibration motor to alert the user of incoming calls and text messages. As more phones rely on a touch screen as the primary interface following the iPhone's success, the haptic feedback element is becoming as important as the alerting function that forged the vibrator motors' introduction.
Meanwhile, the strongest growth area for alerting functions is in the industrial handheld market, where traditionally illumination (LED / Lamps), and sirens have been the mainstay of operator feedback. Many companies making gas monitors, tyre gauges, torque spanners, and multi-meters to name but a few instruments, are adding vibration alerts to their products. This is particularly useful in areas where protective clothing must be worn, and there is a noisy environment which would impede the operators ability to hear an audible alert.
The type of products best suited to these applications will depend somewhat on the how the handheld device is intended to be worn (specifically if protective clothing is likely to be present). Because of the portability, smaller Ø 10mm ~ 16mm motors are typically utilised, and naturally low current devices are preferred as most applications must run from a battery. For this reason nearly all sub Ø 8mm motors are wound with a nominal voltage of 1.5, or 3v. Most of our models can be customised with different mountings, leads and Connectors.
Touchscreen Feedback
Many touch screen mobile phones (though oddly enough not the iPhone) have introduced haptic feedback over the last couple of years. By timing a vibration pulse in co-ordination with on-screen events users can be 'tricked' into feeling the tactility of on-screen buttons. This area is still in its infancy mostly due to the inertia problems with the use of 'eccentric mass actuators', AKA vibration motors. This particular problem is likely to be solved with the introduction of Piezo vibration mechanisms, though it should be noted that these devices have nuances of their own, and are not yet commercially manufactured.
A particular challenge is the introduction of haptic feedback into in-car displays, and other larger displays. Because of the size, mass and mounting requirements of these displays, the choosing of appropriate vibration mechanisms is non-trivial.
For this reason, we supply dynamic specifications for all of our vibration motors and are the only manufacturer world-wide to do so. Please take a look at our range of our stock low inertia haptic vibration motors. We are leading the development of products that can be used in touch-screen applications, and are always very happy to assist potential customers - please contact us for support.
Emergency Alerting
Emergency alerting is a small but important market, whereby the introduction of vibrating alerts can help save lives. By introducing vibration alerts into respiratory equipment, chemical monitoring, and fire alarm equipment users and operators are more likely to receive an early warning, giving them valuable time to evacuate or make remedies to the situation.
We thought one care-home's introduction of vibrating pillows to wake heavy sleepers in the case of an emergency was an intelligent use of vibrating alerts. It proved highly effective at the next fire drill.
A number of vehicles manufacturers are also introducing vibration mechanisms to combat driving fatigue and alert the driver, for example, if they veer lane. Either due to the higher bus voltages of most modern vehicles, or because you need advice on a mounting method, please take a look at our guide on vibrator motor customisation to see how we can help your company include value-adding emergency alerting functionality to its product-line.
Operator Feedback
Another growth market relating to the touch-screens mentioned above is that of operator feedback. Operators of complex machinery such as JCB's, cranes and large pneumatic systems currently have to rely on visual feedback. In some more advanced systems, pulsing the pressure in the pneumatic lines causes the controls to offer some rudimentary feedback, though this method is expensive to implement.
A much cheaper, option is to use eccentric mass motors, i.e. vibration motors embedded into the controls to do this. In addition to improved costs, more than one motor can be added to the control stick, meaning that operators can get a better idea of what's happening at the load end of their machine without necessarily being able to see it.
One can of course also modulate the vibration to offer yet further feedback to the customer. If you would like some advice on this, please contact us and one of our application engineers will be more than willing to help.
Medical Simulation & Video Gaming
The careful control of vibration with low-inertia eccentric mass vibration motors can be used to create a feeling of immersion. This is popular in two areas; medical simulations and video gaming.
Soon after being introduced in pagers, the next utilisation of vibration feedback in the early 90's was in early games consoles. It soon caught on with the popular 'dual-shock' system which uses two vibration motors with difference eccentric masses to generate impulses of different strength and inertial times.
With advances in software and better motor characterisation (Precision Microdrives is the only manufacturer to present inertial data on its datasheets) more demanding applications such as medical simulation have started to adopt vibration motors as a means to train doctors. This is an emerging field, but our application engineers understand the issues well. If you have an application in either of these sectors, we would welcome the chance to talk it through with you and offer you assistance. Please contact us for help.
