Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A Better TV Remote – Adding Haptic Motion Feedback to the Television Experience

TV broadcasters have a new way to add value to the customer television experience – an interactive television remote with physical senses feedback control. Gabriele Smith from Ruwido explained to me at the IPTV World trade show that a key challenge for broadcasters is how to allow users to visualize and interact with a large number of content items and new services. Ruwido discovered that by adding tactile feedback (haptic) interaction capability to the television remote control, the physical feedback provides users with a full feeling of “in control” and interaction with television services. This provides more control options than can be provided with a touch screen device.
TV remote haptic interfaces allow TV system operators to more closely tie viewers to their services. Better navigation allows viewers to find and consume (purchase) additional content. Intuitive navigation helps the customer to understand the service options and reduces trouble calls.
The key element of the organic haptic control is the simplified body of the TV remote control device which has a reduced number of buttons. The user control the TV device by TV remote movements such as rotating the device left (on/off), turn the device right (volume up/down), along with other movement controls.
There are many options for haptic feedback. For example, viewers can push controls such as a moveable slide for an input device faster or slower. The more tactile resistance can be felt by the user enabling the device (the TV remote) to provide additional information to the navigation system (faster sliding can indicate the viewer want to scroll through more content or different content categories). The tactile interface is a way to discover the viewer’s navigation intent

No comments:

Post a Comment