On January 18, 2022, AAC held a modest technical meeting to launch its RichTap® haptic feedback solution for smart devices and CyberEngine ultra-broadband X-axis linear motors. For most ordinary consumers, such technical communication may not attract their attention, but in the eyes of me, a die-hard fan of linear motors, it is a big thing, to paraphrase the words I said when the VOOC fast charging technology was launched at the OPPO Find 7 conference in 2014: "Finally someone said this." Yes, I must be convinced that vibration feedback will be the future, and it will be an extremely important part of our interaction with smart devices.
The magic of the touch
Perhaps many people remember the war of words about two years ago about the mobile phone vibration motor "buzzing" and "clicking", although I have little interest in this kind of marketing drama and even onlookers, but I have a feeling: the field of vibration feedback is finally going to change from the splendor of Apple TapticEngine to a hundred flowers. Sure enough, from that time on, the X-axis linear motor was adopted by more and more Android manufacturers, and this small part, which had no sense of existence, finally began to walk from behind the scenes to the front of the stage, and a tactile revolution that I had been waiting for for a long time finally arrived...
At first, I had no idea of touch, until 2008, after using Motorola's ROKR E8, I was unforgettable for its magical Morphing haptic feedback technology, which allowed the phone to simulate a click experience on a glass plate that was the same as that of a physical button, allowing the E8 to provide ModeShift functionality and achieve a unique experience in different modes. For the first time, in an era when physical keys were still absolutely mainstream, the ROKR E8 impressed me for the first time with the magic of tactile feedback, which was achieved by a rotary motor that was the mainstream at the time.
The first model that gave me an idea of the X-axis linear motor was the Nokia N9, the Nokia MeeGo system's "first and last generation." For Nokia's own reasons, this product launched at the end of 2011 does not have a strong presence in the history of mobile phones, but I think it has two important contributions to mobile interaction: first, sliding switching interaction without the Home starting point concept, and second, X-axis linear motor. It is the combination of the two that makes the nokia N9's interactive experience novel and comfortable, especially the combination of motor vibrations and system sound. You know, although the iPhone 4S released at the same time is one of the classic models in Apple's history, it still uses a rotor motor, and the iOS system at that time also relied on the physical Home button as the starting point for all operations.
In September 2014, the milestone event on haptic feedback arrived, Apple equipped the 3D Touch function on the more classic generation model iPhone 6s/6s Plus, in order to make this feature have a good user experience, the X-axis linear motor called "TapticEngine" appeared on the iPhone for the first time. Although the 3D Touch function was not successful and could not be continued, the use of TapticEngine to bring a variety of comfortable tactile feedback on a glass plate became one of the core of the iOS experience.
Because of the existence of TapticEngine, the iPhone 7 was able to use the Home button of vibration simulation - many consumers did not know that it was actually a piece of glass until the phone was used; because of the existence of TapticEngine, Apple killed the mechanical trackpad for the first time on the 12-inch MacBook launched in 2015, and the experience of ForceTouch + TapticEngine together has not been able to match the PC notebook so far Because of the existence of TapticEngine, even if the Apple Watch has been 18 hours of battery life for so many years, the comfortable vibration + "ding" of a signature prompt sound (non-mute), has become an indispensable part of the daily life of Apple Watch users... It is no exaggeration to say that with the support of TapticEngine's magical tactile feedback, Apple products can provide a unique experience and one of apple's core competitiveness in the world for so many years. As a long-time user who has used iPhone, Apple Watch and MacBook for many years, it has become a habit to experience haptic feedback on these products every day to bring operations, and even fascinated...
For work reasons, I always compare the experience of Android and iOS products. Android from birth, in the openness of the apple on the ground rubbing, but in the tactile experience it seems to be the other way around. In the meantime, although there is also such an excellent program as mEngine adopted by Meizu 15, its influence is limited. The great development of the Android camp's haptic feedback finally arrived in the second half of 2019 to the first half of 2020, Xiaomi 10 series, Huawei Mate 30 series, OnePlus 7/8 series, vivo NEX series and other new machines launched during this period, all began to use X-axis linear motors, more importantly, these motors without exception all come from AAC.
Unfortunately, due to the different understandings of the layout and adjustment of the X-axis linear motor, coupled with the difference in the response of the X-axis linear motor supply chain to the needs of various Android manufacturers, the experience of this series of models using X-axis linear motors is very different, such as Huawei Mate 30 Pro arranges the linear motor in the half of the fuselage, and the final result is to vibrate a "lonely". This year's experience has also made AAC feel that to do a big touch feedback cake, it is not enough to rely on the small parts of the motor.
By 2021, there are more and more Android mobile phones with excellent haptic feedback performance, such as Xiaomi 11 series, OnePlus 9 series, Redmi K40 series and Note10/11 series, Meizu 18 series, vivo X70 series, and even iQOO 7/8/9 series, which use dual X-axis linear motors, of which a considerable proportion of X-axis linear motors are from AAC. However, there is also oppo Find X3 Pro, which is stubborn and stubborn to hold the Z-axis linear motor and not let go, especially criticized. Entering the new machines released in 2022, the OnePlus 10 Pro and the Realme GT2 Pro clearly state that they use the SLA0815 X-axis linear motor from AAC's oversized size, and their actual use performance is also quite excellent. However, this drama has only just begun...
"My phone is turned off the vibration when I get it, I think it is useless", of course, there are many people who will react to this after reading the above paragraph, and my response is: "Before using excellent touch and vibration feedback, I deeply understand this view", but I believe that more and more people will turn on the vibration switch of the mobile phone later, because a golden age of tactile interaction is about to open again.
Broadband out of wonders
The question arises: "Why has only iOS and a handful of Android manufacturers been able to provide tactile feedback on smartphones for a long time?" Why is it that now all of a sudden, from upstream to terminal, we are actively laying out X-axis linear motors and haptic feedback experience enhancements? "We need to look for answers on multiple levels. The need for interactive experience is primary, the earliest vibration exists on the mobile phone, mainly in the incoming call or information reminder to do the second layer of reminders in addition to the sound, such as the user set the premise of mute, will not miss the information. As smart phones enter the era of full screen, gesture interaction has slowly replaced the original three major diamond keys, coupled with the full touch operation allows some consumers to have tactile feedback needs for input and other scenarios, so the linear motor has begun to be used by some manufacturers because of its natural advantages over rotor motors, but because the interaction requirements are relatively simple, so the Z-axis linear motors with low cost and less internal stacking pressure are more popular with mobile phone manufacturers.
However, Z-axis linear motors also have their inherent shortcomings. First of all, the vibration sense is not good, and the vibration waveform burrs are more; secondly, because of the problem of its layout and direction of action, it is easy to resonate with the fuselage structure or internal components. The combined experience of these two points is that the vibration is not crisp, either it cannot be contained, or the response to the click operation is not timely, the feedback cannot be synchronized, and more seriously, the motor vibration is "snorting", and even less than some rotor motors that are better tuned. Finally, the performance of the Z-axis linear motor is greatly affected by the placement position and temperature, and the overall performance is unstable.
In contrast, the advantages of the X-axis linear motor can be described as many, rapid response, convergence and release autonomy, diverse vibration sensations, rich layers, soft and rigid... In addition to the expensive point, the large size, of course, there are adjustment difficulties, almost for the rich tactile feedback tailor-made program. As an industry giant in X-axis linear motors, why did AAC choose to come to the stage to promote its own RichTap solution and CyberEngine broadband linear motors?
In this regard, Ding Xiang, head of marketing and products of AAC Technology Electromagnetic Drive, said in an interview after the meeting that the main reason is that the industrial environment has undergone great changes. Consumers' taste and taste of the product is much higher than in the past, and the use of the scene is also undergoing various changes, especially after the proportion of mobile games has become larger, so that the tactile feedback experience has been valued; the details of the product are also becoming higher, pay attention to the personalized and playable experience, and whether in the game or daily use, excellent tactile feedback can cater to this change in consumer demand.
The terminal manufacturers naturally conform to this demand, and pay more attention to the details of polishing when creating product characteristics, which also makes the X-axis linear motor have more room to play. Of course, AAC also hopes that in this way, it can better listen to the voice of consumers and seize the real market demand.
To meet the change of demand is only one aspect, on the other hand, the need for industrialization. The application of the X-axis linear motor and the application of the moving iron unit on the headphones are very similar, because we can simply think of the moving iron unit as a miniature version of this linear motor, and the basic working principle is to use the magnetic force to drive the metal tie rod spring mechanism to achieve the desired result. Headphones perform better, three points to see the unit, seven points to see the tuning, and the same is true for linear motors.
How to make the talented linear motor perform well, it is necessary to start from the interaction design of the front end of the system and application, do a good job of scheduling at the bottom and drive level of the system, provide the correct instructions to the algorithm, and then communicate to the final execution of the linear motor. That is to say, only an X-axis linear motor is only the first step in the fuselage, and the entire application ecology must keep up, so that the motor can work in the most appropriate way to reflect its greatest advantages.
Therefore, AAC launched the RichTap® program, which includes the tactile feedback adaptation of mainstream input methods, large-scale mobile games and even leisure mobile games, and this ecology will slowly grow with the communication between AAC and developers, and will be packaged and delivered to mobile phone manufacturers with its own X-axis linear motor. Not only that, the haptic feedback also has the inherent advantage of being friendly to the visually impaired, the diversified vibration feedback with the sound prompt, but also allows them to operate the smartphone freely, MIUI also relies on the support of AAC RichTap® technology, with the accessibility characteristics, won the iF Design Award 2021 award, I raise my hands in favor of this.
AAC also knows that richTap® solutions and software ecosystems must be developed by leaps and bounds, and better hardware must keep up, so there is this CyberEngine broadband linear motor. Why the word "broadband"? Or use the principle of the front headphones to explain, although the human ear to the frequency response range is 20Hz ~ 20KHz, but the frequency response range of the headphone unit can not only be limited to this range, but the more open the better, so that the bass can be submerged, the treble can be pulled up. The same is true for linear motors, because the human touch can clearly distinguish 14% to 15% of the vibration intensity classification, if the frequency of the linear motor is not open enough, with such a classification cut down, the number of vibration ratings will naturally be greatly reduced, the haptic feedback will not be very delicate, just like the poor performance of the headphone sound paste into a clump.
Compared with the Z-axis linear motor on the market now 170Hz ~ 270Hz and ordinary X-axis linear motor 100Hz ~ 350Hz (some products can reach 400Hz) bandwidth, The bandwidth of the CyberEngine broadband linear motor is 50Hz ~ 500Hz, according to the human touch classification mentioned above, the Z axis can only do 4 to 5 fixed frequency bands, the ordinary X axis is about 10, and the CyberEngine broadband linear motor can be as many as 20 or so.
Coincidentally, the same is true of AAC's definition of haptic feedback for CyberEngine broadband linear motors, which are divided into ultra-low frequencies, low frequencies, mid-low frequencies, intermediate frequencies, high frequencies and ultra-high frequencies, which are very similar to the classification of headphone sounds. Therefore, it can provide a vibration experience with a very wide range of touch, so as to meet the experience needs of different use scenarios. In many parameters that consumers who do not like to use vibration care, CyberEngine broadband linear motor claims to save 40%, 0.12W power consumption will not bring much burden to the system, 33dBA working noise is also reduced by 40%, will not bring people may be crazy "buzzing" noise interference.
Write at the end
In the final part of the conference, AAC also announced that the Redmi K50 series mobile phone released after the Spring Festival will become the first product of CyberEngine broadband linear motor, and the ESA1016 used on it will increase the size of the motor again, and the effect is naturally worth looking forward to. In addition, the application scope of CyberEngine broadband linear motors will also be from mobile phones to wearables, tablets, smart cars, gamepads, VR controllers, bone conduction headphones and other electronic products layout. I still insist on my "violent theory": "Only after using really good haptic feedback and linear motors, a new product experience world will open to you", turn on the vibration of the mobile phone, and feel a richer product experience.
(Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from the Internet)