The large multi-touch trackpad was once synonymous with the MacBook. And as of 2015, a haptic feedback trackpad was added, which simulates a physical click via a motorized engine beneath the surface. It was quite a revelation, and despite some initial skepticism, it really caught on.
- Based on evolving interaction
- Why Sensel’s technology is better than its rivals
- Cool concepts and an external haptic touchpad
- My expectations are high
As you might expect, Apple had a patent on the technology, giving it a five-year head start on other laptops. Early attempts at haptic feedback trackpads on Windows laptops weren’t promising either.
Then along came a company called Sensel, which began to turn the tide in a big way. It’s easy to forget that small component companies like Sensel exist, but they’re making a huge difference in pushing MacBooks back and modernizing the competition. I got an inside look at how the company got to where it is today, and where it’s headed in the future.
Based on evolving interaction
Sensel was founded in 2013, after the co-founders gained experience at Amazon's Lab 126. Sensel's goal at the time was to make multi-touch interfaces more responsive and subtle. They did this with what is now known as their PressureGrid technology.
Think of this technology like the resolution of a computer monitor, with each spot on a touchpad being a pixel. Touchpads at the time had low resolution and poor linearity, which could result in less accurate touches and poor finger tracking. Sensel’s technology aimed to change that by increasing the resolution and tracking of a touchpad, at no additional cost to either Sensel or its partners.
But that’s exactly what it did for touchpads. You’ve probably heard of it, but Sensel is also known for the Morph, a multi-touch pressure sensor accessory that looks like a giant touchpad. It’s this product that put Sensel on the map, as it was the first product that consumers could buy.
The Morph came out around 2015, but since then Sensel has evolved to deliver its technology into PC products. The first haptic trackpad came in the ThinkPad X1 Titanium Yoga, the world’s first premium haptic touchpad in a Windows PC. In 2021, Sensel also inked its first licensing deal with Microsoft, bringing the haptic trackpad to the Surface Laptop Studio.
With those partners, Sensel has since transitioned to a solutions-as-a-service business model, providing hardware, software, mechanical, and manufacturing support for haptic trackpads to partners like Lenovo and Dell. It’s now a leader in the space, with products like the ThinkPad X1 Fold 16, Z13 and Z16 Gen 2, Surface Laptop Studio 2, and XPS 16 all featuring Sensel technology.
Why Sensel's technology is better than its rivals
Haptic touchpads don’t have any physical moving parts, but there are a few pillars that make them special and help them stand out from the competition. There’s touch sensing, which is used to track your finger, force sensing, which triggers haptics at the right time, and finally the haptics themselves.
The perfect combination of these three is important. If you are even 10 milliseconds slow or fast with force sensing, there will be a delay and you will feel like your haptic touchpad is not working properly.
Sensel’s competitors have traditionally had to partner with force-sensing and haptic technology vendors to deliver haptic force pads into laptops, but these can result in poor performance and high costs, as multiple technologies from different companies are combined into a single solution. I demoed a laptop with a haptic trackpad using Sensel technology and another without, and I could immediately feel the difference. The laptop with Sensel technology feels smoother, more natural, and has less buzzing.
Sensel is the only one that brings all three pillars together to create the perfect haptic touchpad, while also allowing laptop makers to customize it to their liking.
Companies like Lenovo would come to Sensel for ideas on things like touchpad size, functionality, and overall look, and Sensel would handle the mechanical, electrical, software, and firmware aspects, while laptop makers would handle the industrial design. Sensel would even go so far as to travel to the manufacturer when production began to make sure everything was working properly.
Apple has been making haptic touchpads in-house for a while now, so I asked Sensel what makes its technology so special. When I showed them a cutout of the trackpad in a MacBook Pro, I saw it for myself. Sensel’s haptic touchpads are much thinner and save more space, making them much cheaper to make.
Sensel also claims that the DirectDrive technology powering its trackpads has stronger haptics and up to 315% higher output than Apple’s. This is thanks to factors such as Sensel’s larger haptic magnetic coils and software that can fire the coils at different strengths and simultaneously.
Cool concepts and an external haptic touchpad
Next one
As part of this story, Sensel allowed me to use a haptic touchpad evaluation kit. This is essentially an external haptic touchpad like the Apple Magic Trackpad 2. It’s not an official product, however, and while Sensel tells me it’s considering it as a standalone touchpad, funding and other considerations are holding it back from doing so.
I took it home and used it for a week while writing this story, and it felt better than anything Apple has done with its MacBooks. This is largely due to the Click Composer software that Sensel bundled with it. This software is the same software that Sensel customers get, and it allows for customization and things like creating unique haptic clicks. I was able to change the click force, haptic intensity, haptic frequency, and even choose presets that matched those of the MacBook’s touchpad.
It’s this level of customization that makes Sensel’s haptic trackpads unique. Manufacturers can really put their own spin on them. In fact, the trackpad is so sensitive that Sensel showed me how to use a brush on its surface and have it track even the slightest of movements. Sensel’s custom visualization software also showed me how the trackpad could detect my touches and pressure points, something I’d never thought of before.
After using Apple's Magic Trackpad 2 as my daily trackpad for the past few months, I have to say that the Sensel does a better job. I sincerely hope this becomes a real product someday.
Sensel also showed me a proof of concept of how they plan to take the technology further. I saw a haptic touchpad with RGB lighting, media controls, a numeric keypad and a calculator. This was created with their investor, Global Lighting Technology.
Another concept, a piece of leather with haptics embedded in it, showed how Sensel wants to bring force touch and haptic technologies to the automotive industry. These are all great ideas and show how ambitious the company’s goals are. They go way beyond trackpads, that’s for sure.
My expectations are high
Windows is an open ecosystem and relies on companies like Sensel to make its products great. This shift in the industry, with haptic touchpads becoming increasingly important, is just a microcosm of how the Windows platform is working across the board. We need more pioneering companies like Sensel that are open to partnerships and raise the bar for quality.
Ultimately, it’s technology like Sensel that allows companies like Dell to take design experimentation to the next level. Just look at the XPS 14 and XPS 16, which feature a seamless haptic touchpad that helps complete the ultra-sleek look it’s going for. Hopefully we’ll see more innovation from Sensel in the future, as haptics continues to play a key role in next-gen input and advanced interactions with our PCs.
