The level to which we are able to interact with electronics is getting deeper and deeper, and haptic technology is the latest in a long line of technology used to enhance how we communicate with our devices.
What is haptic technology?
Haptics is a tactile feedback technology that basically uses the sense of touch by applying forces and vibration motions to the user (think of a Rumblepad on a game controller). Haptics are enabled by actuators embedded in the device, and go a long way towards making the user experience more physical and realistic.
Advances in the field of sensing and actuation in mobile devices have brought about various forms of haptic feedback, which has made person-machine communication through touch possible.
Market size and forecast
Technavio has recently published a new report on the haptics market for mobile devices in the US. Due to the novelty of the technology, the market is expected to grow by 181.1% in 2015.
This kind of volatility is expected to continue until 2018, when the growth rate is expected to level off, resulting in a cumulative average growth rate of 39.1% from 2014-2019.
At the moment, the market is dominated by Immersion, and the market size is equal to the revenue generated by the company’s mobile device category. The company generates revenue through licensing its patented touch feedback solutions to mobile device OEMs.
Apple late to the game, but expected to make waves
In 2014, only 90.2 million mobile devices sold in the US were integrated with haptic technology.
Part of the reason for the slow uptake of the technology is that, while bigwigs like LG, Samsung and Sony all made the jump, for a long time there was one glaring omission from the list of vendors offering haptics-integrated products—Apple.
The company has finally started including haptic technology in its products—most notably in the Apple Watch, as well as the trackpad of the new MacBook—but it’s still in its early days when it comes to iPhones.
However, the recently-released iPhone 6s pairs a 3D Touch digitizer with a Taptic Engine actuator, which enables pressure sensitive, multitouch interaction.
Since Apple is by far the biggest vendor of mobile devices in the US, the company’s slow adoption of haptic technology was a major factor restricting market growth in the US.
But buy-in from Apple will help haptics become mainstream, and Technavio expects that by 2019, there will be more than 313 million mobile devices integrated with haptic technology in circulation in the US—by far a majority of the mobile devices in circulation.
