Touch, carried across distance

Stay in touch.

Screenless, voiceless messaging.

Telehaptics carries text messages between people through tactile feedback.

Two numbered right palms show touch point 5 selected on one hand and highlighted on the receiving hand, with a signal traveling between them.

No separate keyboard or screen

Everything you need is already at your fingertips.

The hands can serve as both input and display. A thumb selects a phalange; sensing technology reads the touch, and feedback technology can return a sensation at the corresponding point.

SENDING

Ways to send a message

Touch can be detected through methods such as:

Capacitive touch
Skin conductivity
EMG
EEG
Physical buttons

A right thumb reaches across the same right palm to select one of its numbered phalanges.

RECEIVING

Ways to receive a message

Feedback can be delivered through methods such as:

Vibration
Mechanical actuation
Piezoelectric feedback
Electrotactile stimulation
EEG stimulation

A shared character map

Twelve touch points.
One 4 × 3 grid.

Four fingers—excluding the thumb that selects each location—with three phalanges apiece create 12 touch points in a four-row, three-column grid.

Map each point to a key or character group. A familiar keypad or custom character layout can use the same 4 × 3 surface.

fMRI maps of all finger phalanges in the somatosensory cortex

Numeric keypad

Numeric keypad example, four rows by three columns.
1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9
*	0	#

Custom character map

One possible letter and control mapping, four rows by three columns.
ABC	DEF	GHI
JKL	MNO	PQR
STU	VWX	YZ.
Space	Back	Send

Directional controls

Eight directional arrows surround a center dot in the top three rows, with Back, Home, and Enter system buttons in the bottom row.
↖	↑	↗
←	•	→
↙	↓	↘
Back	Home	Enter

Custom layout for family communication

Twelve everyday icons for family messages, including poop, food, a car, laughing and upset faces, celebration, no, 100 percent, reactions, and help.
💩	🍽️	🚗
😂	😞	🎉
🚫	💯	❤️
👍	👎	🆘

Designed with blind people in mind

A chat you can feel.
No screens, no speakers, no devices

Two deaf-blind people can communicate without any devices or batteries, simply by tapping each other’s phalanges. A shared tactile map turns each tap into a deliberate message.

One index finger gently taps a phalange on another person’s open hand.

A tactile interface

EEG-friendly.

A flat silhouette wearing a slim EEG headband, with wireless waves around the head, a signal path down the right arm, and the left hand lowered without palm or back details.

Each finger tap has a known location, giving EEG sensors a clear, concrete signal to detect instead of trying to decode an unspoken thought or infer an intended movement.

AI does not need to translate these locations into text. The two people share a tactile map and understand what each tap means directly.

fMRI study mapping all finger phalanges in the somatosensory cortex

Input without a controller

VR-friendly.

A person wearing a VR headset with visible cameras tracks a right-hand gesture as the thumb touches the index fingertip.

Camera-based VR hand tracking can estimate finger-joint positions. On supported headsets, an app could recognize phalange taps and map them to an intuitive virtual keyboard, without reaching for a controller.

The same 4 × 3 map is Meta Neural Band-ready: an app could map the band’s EMG-detected finger gestures to the same keys.

Meta VR hand tracking Meta Neural Band and finger gestures