I tried on a VR headset at a tech expo last year. Visually? Absolutely stunning. I was standing on a mountain peak, surrounded by soaring eagles, with clouds drifting past me. My eyes were completely convinced I was there.
Then I reached out to touch a tree trunk. My hand went straight through it. The illusion shattered instantly.
That’s the problem with current VR and AR, they’ve mastered sight and sound, but touch? We’re still living in a world where virtual objects have no substance. You can see them, hear them, but you can’t feel them.
Enter haptic technology. Haptics is the science of applying tactile sensation to a user’s interaction with software. It’s the tech that makes your phone vibrate when you type, your controller rumble when you crash in a racing game, and soon, the technology that’ll make virtual worlds feel genuinely real.
The global haptic technology market size was estimated at USD 6.43 billion in 2024 and is predicted to increase to approximately USD 8.21 billion in 2030, expanding at a CAGR of 4.5%. More importantly, AR/VR hardware revenue hit $13 billion in 2024, with haptic devices accounting for $1.2 billion of that, and analysts predict a CAGR of 25% from 2025–2030 as haptics move from enterprise to prosumer.
So let’s talk about why haptics might be the most important technology nobody’s paying attention to.
What Haptic Technology Actually Is
Before we dive into the cool stuff, let’s define what we’re talking about. Haptics has successfully become part of our lives to an extent when we don’t even notice it. Remember the last time your smartphone vibrated when you beat an especially tricky level in your favorite game? That’s a basic example of haptics in action, a technology that transmits tactile information during your interaction with a software application.
But haptics goes way beyond simple vibrations. Modern haptic technology can simulate:
- Pressure and resistance
- Texture and surface details
- Temperature changes
- Stretching and pulling sensations
- Impact and collision
- Even complex sensations like liquid flowing or wind blowing
Northwestern University engineers have unveiled a new technology that creates precise movements to mimic complex tactile sensations, including pressure, vibration, stretching, sliding and twisting. The compact, lightweight, wireless device applies force in any direction to generate a variety of sensations.
Think about that. We’re not talking about a simple buzz anymore. We’re talking about technology that can make you feel rain on your skin, the texture of sandpaper, or the resistance of drawing a bow.
Why We Even Need This
Here’s something most people don’t realize: considering that the sense of touch is the second most important way for humans to understand things (with vision being on the first place), no wonder this technology is so valuable.
Touch is fundamental to how we navigate and understand the world. When you pick up your coffee cup, you’re not just seeing it, you’re feeling its weight, temperature, and texture. That feedback loop between touch and action is automatic, unconscious, and absolutely critical.
Virtual and augmented reality advancements have succeeded at tricking our eyes and ears, but not yet our sense of touch. Without haptic feedback, VR and AR applications remain visually immersive but emotionally flat.
And that’s the problem. VR and AR can show you incredible things, but without touch, something feels fundamentally off. Your brain knows something’s wrong even if you can’t articulate what it is.
The Three Types of Haptic Devices
Not all haptic tech works the same way. There are various types of haptics equipped devices, based on how they are used. The three most common types are: Graspable devices (like joysticks that generate kinesthetic feedback), Touchable devices (like smartphone surfaces that respond to touch), and Wearable devices (like VR gloves that simulate a sensation of contact).
Let’s break these down because each serves different purposes:
Graspable Devices: Controllers and Wheels
These are what most people think of when they hear “haptics.” Your Xbox controller that rumbles during explosions? That’s haptics. Racing wheel that fights back when you turn? Also haptics.
Simple haptic devices are common in the form of game controllers, joysticks, and steering wheels. Many console controllers feature built in feedback devices, which are motors with unbalanced weights that spin, causing it to vibrate, including Sony’s DualShock technology and Microsoft’s Impulse Trigger technology.
But modern controllers are getting way more sophisticated. The Sony PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers support vibrotactile haptic provided by voice coil actuators integrated in the palm grips, and force feedback for the Adaptive Triggers provided by two DC rotary motors. The actuators can give varied and intuitive feedback about in game actions; for example, in a sandstorm, the player can feel the wind and sand, and the motors in the Adaptive Triggers support experiences such as virtually drawing an arrow from a bow.
That’s wildly different from the simple rumble packs of the past.
Touchable Devices: Smartphones and Tablets
Every time you tap your phone screen and feel a subtle vibration confirming your action, that’s haptics at work. For example, simply locking your phone screen is often accompanied by a familiar lock click sound and soft vibration.
Modern touchscreens are getting even more sophisticated. Some can simulate different textures, making buttons feel different from sliding controls, or creating the sensation of physical clicks on completely flat surfaces.
Wearable Devices: The Future Gets Tactile
This is where things get really interesting. Haptic gloves, suits, and vests that let you feel virtual environments. Examples include TeslaSuit, KOR-FX, and bHaptics TactSuit, which embed actuators in suits to simulate impacts, pressure, and environmental effects. Applications range from industrial training to military simulation.
Imagine wearing a vest that lets you feel where enemies are in a game. Or gloves that let you feel the texture of objects in VR. Or a suit that makes you feel impacts, temperature changes, and even simulated wind.
We’re not far off from that being consumer reality.
Gaming: Where Haptics Shines Brightest
Let’s be honest, gaming is where haptic technology has had the most visible impact. Haptic feedback is commonly used in arcade games, especially racing video games. In 1976, Sega’s motorbike game Moto-Cross was the first game to use haptic feedback, causing the handlebars to vibrate during a collision with another vehicle.
Nearly 50 years later, we’ve come a long way from vibrating handlebars.
Gaming: The ability to create an immersive and “realistic” environment is integral to the success of modern games. With consoles, haptic game controllers enable a heightened sense of immersion through vibration and pulsing effects created by haptic drivers and actuators inside controllers.
But the future of gaming haptics goes beyond controllers. Full body haptic suits are being developed that let you feel every action in the game, getting shot, feeling explosions, even environmental effects like rain or heat.
The question isn’t whether this will happen. It’s how soon and how affordable.
VR and AR: The Missing Piece
Here’s the brutal truth about current VR: it’s impressive but incomplete. In recent years, visual and auditory technologies have experienced explosive growth, delivering unprecedented immersion through devices like high fidelity speakers and fully immersive virtual reality goggles. Haptics technologies, however, mostly have plateaued. Even state of the art systems only offer buzzing patterns of vibrations.
And that’s a problem because the sense of touch involves different types of mechanoreceptors (or sensors), each with its own sensitivity and response characteristics, located at varying depths within the skin. Replicating that sophistication and nuance requires precise control over the type, magnitude and timing of stimuli delivered to the skin.
But progress is happening. Modern advancements have paved the way for multisensory haptic devices that integrate various forms of touch based feedback, including vibration, skin stretch, pressure and temperature.
Some of the coolest innovations:
Mid Air Haptics: Technology that creates sensations in mid air without requiring any wearable device. Ultraleap’s STRATOS beams ultrasonic vibrations that simulate shapes and textures just above the skin. This method supports VR/AR without wearable devices, ideal for public installations, collaborative XR workspaces, or hygiene sensitive industries.
Imagine reaching out in VR and feeling resistance and texture without wearing gloves. That’s the promise of mid air haptics.
Full Body Feedback: Haptic floors and object based feedback (embedded in handheld props) simulate weight, balance, and surface resonance for virtual objects. These solutions enhance training simulations by engaging proprioception.
The goal? Making VR indistinguishable from reality, at least as far as your sense of touch is concerned.
Healthcare: Where Haptics Saves Lives
This is where haptic technology moves from “cool” to “genuinely transformative.”
Haptic technology has shown promising results in improving clinical practice. Examples include the performance of medical interventions by using the nature of haptic information and its perception in remote surgery and interventional radiology procedures.
Let’s unpack what that means:
Remote Surgery
Surgeons can perform operations from thousands of miles away using robotic systems with haptic feedback. The Shadow Hand, an advanced robotic hand, has a total of 129 touch sensors embedded in every joint and finger pad that relay information to the operator, allowing tasks such as typing to be performed from a distance.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now. Surgeons are performing delicate procedures remotely because haptic feedback lets them feel what the robot is touching.
Rehabilitation
Haptic technology, particularly in the form of robot integrated systems and non robotic devices, has shown considerable promise in rehabilitation settings. The studies predominantly focused on motor activity and performance, with 75% reporting clinically significant improvements. In the post stroke rehabilitation population, haptic feedback was found to improve motor function, with effect sizes ranging from 0.35 to 0.87.
That’s huge. We’re talking about measurable improvements in helping stroke patients regain movement and function.
Medical Training
Haptic technology can enhance learning outcomes and engagement by providing realistic and immersive feedback and guidance. For example, haptic devices can simulate the texture and shape of different materials, organs, and tools for students and professionals in fields like medicine.
Medical students can practice surgical techniques on virtual patients, feeling realistic resistance and feedback, before ever touching a real person. That’s a game changer for medical education.
Automotive: Keeping Drivers Safe
You might not realize it, but you’ve probably already experienced automotive haptics. In the realm of driving, tactile interfaces, including steering wheels and seats, serve as crucial components of the user interface in vehicles. For instance, Cadillac installs vibrating seats into some of their cars that not only inform drivers of impending dangers, such as a pedestrian about to cross the street, but also contribute to a comprehensive touch and force feedback system.
With the introduction of large touchscreen control panels in vehicle dashboards, haptic feedback technology is used to provide confirmation of touch commands without needing the driver to take their eyes off the road.
This is critical for safety. You can adjust your climate control or navigate through menus without looking away from traffic because haptic feedback tells you when you’ve successfully pressed a button.
Accessibility: Expanding Human Capability
Here’s something that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: Assistive technology and communication applications leverage tactile interfaces to help individuals with vision or hearing impairments by translating auditory or visual information into touch based signals. Navigation and guidance systems benefit from haptic wearables by providing intuitive directional cues, aiding visually impaired individuals.
NeoSensory is developing a vest with 32 vibratory motors that can translate sound into tactile sensation to make spoken language more intelligible to people with profound or complete hearing loss. They’re also working on translating aspects of the visual world into vibrations for people who are blind.
Think about what that means. People who can’t see could navigate independently using vibration patterns. People who can’t hear could “feel” speech through haptic feedback.
Technology like this doesn’t just enhance experiences, it fundamentally expands human capabilities.
The Challenges We Still Face
Before we get too excited, let’s be real about the obstacles:
It’s Expensive
High fidelity haptic devices often start around $1,500. Mid range users may prefer mid air systems under $500. This affects scaling across educational institutions and SMBs.
For consumer adoption to really take off, prices need to drop significantly. Consumer adoption will accelerate once device weight <300 g, battery life >8 hours, price < $199.
Battery Life is a Problem
Powerful haptic feedback requires energy. Lots of it. Current devices either need to be plugged in or have frustratingly short battery life.
It’s Technically Complex
The mechanics of skin deformation are complicated. Skin can be poked in or stretched sideways. Skin stretching can happen slowly or quickly, and it can happen in complex patterns across a full surface.
Creating technology that can realistically simulate all these sensations while remaining lightweight, affordable, and comfortable to wear? That’s an enormous engineering challenge.
What’s Coming Next
Despite the challenges, the trajectory is clear. Haptic technology, prevalent but often unnoticed in our daily lives, is integral for immersive experiences and will be core to the future of spatial computing.
Here’s what we can expect:
Mainstream VR Haptics: Enterprise adoption is faster, medical, defense, training sectors justify the cost. Consumer adoption will accelerate as prices drop and technology improves.
Social Touch Over Distance: Haptic bracelets and rings can enable couples and families to feel each other’s heartbeat, hug, and hand hold across long distances.
Cognitive Enhancement: One promising application of haptic technologies is their use in enhancing cognitive function and pain modulation. Haptic devices could potentially be used to enhance cognitive function and learning by providing sensory stimulation.
The Bottom Line
Haptic technology is at a weird inflection point. It’s everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. Your phone has it. Your car might have it. But truly immersive, realistic haptics? That’s still mostly in labs and high end enterprise applications.
But here’s what I know: The next decade will see haptics transform from novelty to necessity.
We’re going to look back at 2025 the way we look back at 2007 iPhones, old, limited, but clearly pointing toward something transformative.
The question isn’t whether haptic technology will become ubiquitous. It’s how quickly we’ll get there and what that world will feel like.
Because here’s the thing about touch, it’s the sense that makes everything feel real. You can see a photo, hear a recording, even smell something recreated. But until you can touch it, feel its weight and texture and temperature, some part of your brain remains unconvinced.
Haptic technology is the bridge between virtual and visceral. Between seeing and believing. Between impressive technology and genuinely transformative experiences.
And that future? It’s almost close enough to touch.
