This is why your next laptop might not have a keyboard

Last month, Sony introduced the DualSense Edge, a premium controller for the PlayStation 5. With interchangeable joysticks and customizable controls, it’s exactly what fans of high-end gamepads from Sony, Microsoft’s long-awaited competitor to the Xbox Elite, have been waiting for – now in its second generation.

But Sony itself may have been a little upset by the hype about upgrading to the PS5’s standard DualSense controller. After all, it’s no fool, and even as an entry-level entry, it offers something that No The Xbox Pad does: adaptive triggers and enhanced haptics.

This goes well beyond the basic vibrations introduced in games by the Rumble Pak add-on for the N64 in 1997, allowing gamers to feel the tension of a coil spring or the tension of a bowstring. Shooters such as the Deathloop use it to create a different trigger feel for each weapon, or even to simulate the feel of a weapon jamming when the trigger is blocked.

Of course, tactile sensations go far beyond games. You probably encounter them most often on your phone, where ringtones and text alerts gradually give way to the soft buzz of vibration mode. This year they took it one step further as iOS 16 introduced the ability to add haptic feedback to the keyboard as you type, a setting Android owners are more familiar with, having turned it off ten years ago for being a little annoying. .

Enter trackpad

Apple may have finally been inspired to add haptics to the iPhone keyboard after the positive response to the tactile trackpad found on some MacBooks since 2015. Dubbed “Force Touch”, these trackpads don’t actually move at all – static glass instead. use sensors to detect your input and buzz the pad to make you feel “click”.

Apple’s implementation doesn’t change anything about how we use our laptops. Aito enters.

The Amsterdam-based tactile company already supplies tactile trackpads to at least one major Windows laptop OEM, but its ambitions go beyond that: to change the way we know laptop trackpads and more.

For manufacturers, one of the immediate benefits of a haptic trackpad is that it’s smaller than a traditional trackpad, allowing them to make laptops thinner and their batteries bigger. Aito’s version of technology is only 2.4mm thick, thinner than a mechanical pad and half as thin as Apple’s technology.

Aito also claims that its haptics are more advanced than Apple’s by using twelve different points for detection and feedback. Using them together can determine the exact position of your finger, and by controlling different levels of feedback at different points, you can create stunningly realistic sensations at certain points, rather than just moving the entire trackpad as one.

Even with a simple click, its tactile sensations can trick your brain into thinking that the trackpad itself is moving, and that association is nearly impossible to break. Only when the laptop is turned off can we say that nothing has moved.

More than a click

However, tactile sensations can go far beyond simply reproducing a mechanical click. More advanced options include different feel for one, two or three finger clicks; simulate the feel of a mouse scroll wheel when sliding across a page; or creating the same DualSense spring tension to indicate how hard you push.

There are practical results here. One demo CEO Nedko Ivanov showed me created a subtle sliding tension as I clicked and dragged the cursor to select text—disappearing as soon as I let go.

The other option is for high-end manufacturers who want to discreetly integrate tactile trackpads into their laptop chassis, as Dell did with this year’s XPS 13 Plus (Aito didn’t confirm or deny that this is tech is responsible). It’s impossible to tell by eye where the trackpad ends and the chassis begins, but an invisible tactile border is all your finger needs.

Adam Patrick Murray

The latest generation of Huawei MateBook X Pro has its own tactile trackpad, which is used as feedback for new keyboard shortcuts, such as swipe down the right side to increase or decrease the volume, or lets you click in the top corners to minimize or close the screen . current window.

Until now, this technology has been used only in expensive premium devices, although Ivanov is confident that it is widely used.

“I would say that over the next two years it will seep into the so-called middle segment,” Ivanov told me, predicting that there will be a big paradigm shift in 2024.

Keys to the future

However, Aito’s ambitions go beyond the trackpad, and he wants to replace almost every moving part in a modern laptop. After all, if you can mimic a trackpad, why not a keyboard?

We’re already seeing manufacturers designing dual-screen devices like the Asus ZenBook Duo range, or laptop-sized foldable devices like Lenovo’s recently updated ThinkPad X1 Fold, which uses a detachable magnetic keyboard. But if the bottom half of our laptops do go full-screen, then the keyboard will have to go forever – just like it did on our phones not too long ago.

Dominic Preston / Foundry

Typing on a phone is one thing, but typing on a computer keyboard is another. And, as Ivanov says, if you’re going to convince consumers to ditch the keyboard, then “you have to have a much better typing experience on a display than on an iPad.”

However, Aito’s tech is impressively close to the real thing, thanks in part to the inclusion of enough motors to give personalized feedback exactly where you type, rather than buzzing the entire device like your phone.

Aito’s implementation felt amazingly natural surprisingly fast – and even includes new options like pressing harder to capitalize a letter, a sort of customizable setting that could hypothetically help some people type. Faster here than on the real board.

Will it win over mechanical keyboard enthusiasts who argue about switch types and travel distances? No, but it doesn’t need to – most laptop keyboards already provide compromised typing capabilities, so the bar is comparatively low.

However, consumers are unlikely to jump at the chance to ditch their “real” keyboard for a tactile alternative. But manufacturers have plenty of incentives to reward buyers, as embedding a keyboard into a display not only allows for thinner laptops, but can also save huge amounts of money in manufacturing costs in the long run by freeing companies from having to create models with different keyboards. for every market and language.

Ivanov told me that Aito is already working with an obscure OEM to implement its on-screen keyboard, so we might see it arrive sooner rather than later. A haptic mouse is also in development, offering the enticing prospect of a sleek, seamless peripheral in the vein of Apple’s Magic Mouse – however there’s no word on where they’ll place the charging port.

Our hectic future is still a few years away, but the promise of streamlining supply chains while adding fancy new features all but guarantees that the tactile experience will remain, and from what I’ve seen, it’s only going to get better.