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Modular Touchpad Aims To Replace Most Input Devices

Posted by Soulskill on from the wacom-gets-nervous dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Wired reports on the 'Sensel Morph' input device, which launched on Kickstarter yesterday and blew past its funding goal almost immediately. It's a tablet-sized touchpad, but the key feature is the ability to place custom overlays on it. For example, you can snap on a flexible keyboard and the device starts behaving like a normal keyboard. Other overlays can imitate a game controller or a musical instrument. It's sensitive enough to detect paintbrushes, or you can put a simple overlay on it and use pencil or pen. The magnetic connectors in these overlays tell the device how to process the input, and they're making an open source API so developers can create their own. The touchpad has 20,000 individual sensors, with pressure sensitivity ranging from 5g to 5kg.

11 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Out of Touch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At what point will the tactile experience come back?

  2. link to the actual thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1152958674/the-sensel-morph-interaction-evolved

  3. Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Prediction: Will ship late, underdeliver, and will replace zero input devices for 99.999% of people.

    1. Re:Yeah right... by janoc · · Score: 2

      More like the gizmo will never get made unless they have money from elsewhere and are using Kickstarter only as a marketing campaign. The $60k they are asking for won't cover even the materials. Just the mandatory FCC/CE/UL certifications will take a third of their budget, assuming that they actually pass on the first try.

      This article gives a good breakdown of how much it does actually cost to build and ship a hardware product:
      https://medium.com/bolt-blog/w...

    2. Re:Yeah right... by Sir+Holo · · Score: 2

      Why lug all those things around when the whole point of a tactile-sensitive surface is to liberate people from carrying around peripherals?!?

      I already have a wireless keyboard, no thicker than their (expensive) overlay, that cost $10.

      I already have a wireless mouse, so their product doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM tablet, so it doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM-type tablet with an underlying video display, so their thing doesn't help there, either.

      I already have a USB piano keyboard, so how are they helping me?

      It has sliders, pots, and 8 drum-pad inputs, so their product doesn't help for full audio production.

      What else is there? Trackballs, game-pads, specialist tools. All of these can be had at reasonable prices.

      No consumer is going to buy their (very impressive) touch-surface, and also buy a bunch of plastic clip-on things for it as well. The biggest problem is that it reduces the precision of the link between overlay and their super-sensitive surface with a mechanical-interaction layer — that's right, the overlays have to touch the surface. The consumer is back to square one, at best.

  4. Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because those are always so much fun.

    1. Re:Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Agreed. Touchscreen keyboards drive me insane...

      *puts on sunglasses*

      ..in the membrane.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Hopefully they'll give you the whole ZX81 experience and add half a dozen different shift buttons you have to press in different combinations to get the special characters/keywords you want to type.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. Interesting, but I'd rather just buy overlays by mbourgon · · Score: 2

    Honestly, the part that I dig the most is the tactile overlays. Interesting concept, but too limited for me for the price. That being said, I'd buy the heck out of a $15/$20 overlay that gives you the tactile sensation, but using my Tablet of Choice as a controller. I've seen them for keyboard replacements for the ipad; unsure what else is out there.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  6. Re:Key is included snap-ons by Octorian · · Score: 2

    Except that I'm not sure people want to have to keep a drawer of "snap-on templates" for all their configurations. Its just yet another thing to lose, and inevitably have a hard time replacing. This will become especially true when the next product revision breaks compatibility with the older snap-ons.

    Now when/if they can make the configuration software-controlled, it may have real potential. That's much harder, of course.

  7. Re:Sensitive? by godefroi · · Score: 2

    Didn't look very sensitive in the Z either; they had to smash the brush (a big, heavy brush at that) pretty stiffly onto the thing to get it to register. Plus, it's very laggy. They're insane if they think anyone will replace a WACOM with this for artwork.

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