Skin+

Abstract

Wearable technologies have been supporting and augmenting our body and sensory functions for a long time. Skin+ introduces a novel bidirectional on-skin interface that serve not only as haptic feedback to oneself but also as a visual display to mediate touch sensation to others as well. In this paper, we describe the design of Skin+ and its usability in a variety of applications. We use a shape-changing auxetic structure to build this programmable coherent visuo-tactile interface. The combination of shape-memory alloy with an auxetic structure enables a lightweight haptic device that can be worn seamlessly on top of our skin.