Contactless haptic technologies deliver tactile feedback remotely, eliminating the need for direct skin contact and reducing setup time. However, current technologies have relatively weak intensity or coarse perception resolution. This paper proposes SparkTouch, an approach exploring the use of electric arcs for delivering contactless spatio-temporal patterns in the palm and fingertip. We first quantified the perceptibility of electric sparks as a function of frequency and hand location. We then conducted a spatio-temporal pattern recognition study (n = 30), where we measured user’s discrimination accuracy for sparks moving along the palm and fingertip for 14 patterns, including lines and shapes of different directions. Results show that (1) accuracy is similar to other contactless methods, (2) discrimination between lines or shapes is over 85%, and (3) their direction can be detected. This study is the first to investigate contactless spatio-temporal haptic patterns on the fingertip; and we demonstrate (4) an equivalent recognition accuracy between fingertip and palm, making electric arcs a promising technology for mid-air haptics on the fingertip. Altogether, SparkTouch paves the way for future fine contactless haptics, with envisioned scenarios such as contactless mid-air interaction with public kiosks or keypads.
Cite this Work
BibTex:
@inproceedings{donkov2025sparktouch,
title={SparkTouch: Contactless Haptic Spatial Patterns on the Palm and Fingertip using Electric Sparks},
author={Donkov, Stefan and Bouzbib, Elodie and Aldea, Mikel and Irisarri, Josu and Elizondo, Sonia and Ezcurdia, Inigo and Marzo, Asier},
booktitle={World Haptics 2025},
year={2025}
}APA:
Donkov, S., Bouzbib, E., Aldea, M., Irisarri, J., Elizondo, S., Ezcurdia, I., & Marzo, A. (2025, July). SparkTouch: Contactless Haptic Spatial Patterns on the Palm and Fingertip using Electric Sparks. In World Haptics 2025.