The new NexusTouch sensing and localized haptic platform from Boréas Technologies allows designers to expand touch-based user interfaces on the sides of smartphones and gaming phones. The platform enables seamless context-sensitive swipes, taps and clicks—all while delivering rich haptic feedback. Blending advanced gesture sensing with localized haptics, NexusTouch supports a range of new use cases, from finger-clicks that makes a smartphone feel like a DSLR camera to customizable trigger effects that replace mechanical toggles on a
premium gaming phone.
NexusTouch also features dynamic virtual button-mapping, which allows manufacturers to replace traditional mechanical power and volume 
buttons with area-specific system functionality and tactile effects.
Touch technology is evolving. Old-fashioned capacitive touch technology has forced users into mechanical switches and button pushes on the sides of the phone. Newer ultrasonic technology provides gesture detection, but not the sensory feedback. In contrast, NexusTouch piezoelectric sensor technology supports both manufacturer-customizable gestures, and intuitive, localized haptic effects—essential requirements of a satisfying user experience.
“The race for competitive advantage in smartphones is fierce—and the user interface is a vital part of that competition,” said Simon Chaput, founder and CEO, Boréas Technologies. “While manufacturers have tried replacing traditional buttons and switches with different sensor technologies for gesture detection, they’ve not caught on in the mainstream because all lack the reassuring physical sensations of haptic feedback. Our NexusTouch offers the best of both worlds, opening new real estate for the first time on the sides of the phone to advanced gesture detection with localized haptics.”
NexusTouch is based on Boréas CapDrive Technology, a patented, scalable high-voltage, low-power piezoelectric platform that enables high-definition (HD) haptic effects for a wide range of applications, from wearables and smartphones to automotive infotainment and next-generation safety applications. NexusTouch marks the introduction of gesture detection to the Boréas portfolio of user-interface technologies.
Boréas Technologies Inc., 45 Boulevard de l’Aéroport, Bromont, QC J2L 1S8, Canada, 450-534-8000, www.boreas.ca/nexustouch, info@boreas.ca.
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