Future Microsoft Surface Models May Feature Haptic Keyboards

You might have heard about Microsoft’s latest patent in which they envisage their aspirations to anew the Surface keyboards typing experience with the haptic feedback mechanism. But do you know what haptics is and how it works?

Haptics or Haptic Feedback mechanism is a sensory touch response of the device to the touch action of the user giving the user perceptibility of the successful accomplishment of the pressing action. In other words, this technology recreates the sense of touch through vibrations and other means to the user.

But how is this feedback mechanism going to improve the key experience on the Surface keyboards?

In the patent issued by Microsoft in January 2019, Microsoft compares the traditional typing depressing key mechanism with the Haptic feedback mechanism. The aim is to give a demonstration on how this mechanism would refine the typing experience by giving the users an extra sense of press and help them achieve optimum performance of the action.

Traditional mechanical keyboards are equipped with keys that are user-depressible and convert the physical push of the user into the electrical signal which is consequently processed by the device. I

In these mechanical keyboards, the keys undergo a physical depression between 0.2mm to 1.00mm to provide the user with the desirable perception of the press and achieve better performance. These keyboards use scissor mechanisms, springs, rubber domes, metal domes and the compressing pads to allow the successful key physical travel.

The haptic feedback mechanism in the keyboards, that can be initiated at the upfront, in between or at the end of the physical travel of the key, works in affinity with the physical key depression mechanism. This tech solution stimulates enhanced user- perceptibility of the key travel equivalent to the actual key travel of 0.6mm to 3.2mm.

Only time will tell if Microsoft decides to implement this technology into future Surface keyboard models.