You can’t drive a car or fly a plane if the only controls you have are left and right or up and down switches, and that’s what players are stuck with when controlling their virtual avatars. Keyboards. UK startup Peratech wants to change that with a new range of “force feedback” keyboards starting to appear in Lenovo notebook computers. I spoke with the company’s CEO to find out more.
“We launched a power-sensing keyboard. It’s not just keys; It’s user experience. We’ve created a user interface that’s both an application and a game bar widget to give new users an easy out-of-the-box experience, and serious gamers get advanced controls to pick up the mechanics of keyboard usage.” John Stark explains. CEO at Peratech. “With our keyboards, you have tactile feedback. The keyboard knows how hard you’re pressing, and you can change that pressure profile. Say you want really progressive acceleration at the beginning because you tend to hit the gas a lot when you’re cornering: the profile is configurable, and the influencers configure those profiles. You can reach out to people, which creates connections with other followers.Beyond conveying power and providing a superior user experience, I’m talking about community-based user experience content that drives engagement and simplicity.
Feedback technology is available in the Lenovo Legion 7i and 7 game notebooks that launched this summer. For me, Lenovo isn’t necessarily the first brand that comes to mind when I think of “gaming laptops,” but as a company, Peratech has had a relationship that can work to make these keyboards appear in the real world.
“We’ve had a long relationship with Lenovo, and they wanted to do something with Legion to elevate it and innovate. It’s not just for games; when we expanded into a full notebook, other opportunities emerged. It works really well with video editing, says Stark, for example, and with video timelines.” He uses scrubbing as an example. “Imagine that you want to zoom in while you’re scrubbing slowly. Imagine being able to do that with just one button and controlling that speed with your finger. And it zooms in as you move quickly and press hard. Expert users jump back and forth with two hands to We’re making controls that mice are good at jumping around in. We’re taking that cognitive burden of making all those movements and putting them in the hands of users where they can really focus on the content.
The Legion 7i Gen 7 laptop features Peratech’s Hydra software, which allows gamers to customize their keyboards. Image Credits: Peratech
The team hopes that the keyboard will become another tool in gamers’ tool belts for immersion and enjoyment during gaming.
“IIf you basically have a steering wheel for F1 or Forza, you have all the controls of an F1 car, but also all the complexity of F1. It’s fascinating. But then if you’re going to play Call of Duty or GTA or the Witcher, you’re all awake and holding the joystick. And if you’re transitioning from flying to walking or driving to walking — that’s impossible, and something like steering makes you a one-game player,” Stark pointed out. “Another thing to note is that you cannot use these monitors on an airplane. You cannot use them on the bus. You can’t use them in a coffee shop. And so this really makes a big difference for those who buy notebooks.
The laptop’s keyboards have pressure levels of 400 or more, which the company says gives users a great amount of fine control. The keyboards use a thin film layer placed in the mechanical key structure. With thicknesses ranging from 25 to 300 microns, the company says the technology can be built into all keyboards.
“War WWe take the sign [from the keyboard] And we drive through our power control processor. Here, we modify the symbol to make it easier for computer electronics to use. We also use the Windows-native driver. So it’s not like the PC feels hacked or you need this special API. We’re using keyboards, joysticks, mice, trackpads, track sticks, and other drivers to provide that experience with a keyboard: we separate the input from the way you actually use a switch on a keyboard. . “So we offer a better keyboard experience.”
The company’s technology can be described as software-enabled hardware or hardware-enabled software, depending on the level of integration with the keyboard manufacturer. Peratech told me the story of how it was able to redesign an existing keyboard design in CAD in four days.
“There’s a couple different. [microcontroller] Chips that can be used. Depending on the architecture of the computer, you can use the embedded controller on the motherboard, and with Lenovo we have both applications,” Stark explains. “You have to have an ADC that captures the data, and we have some process to process the signal. And that’s what gives you the full dynamic range that you need.”
The company’s keyboard line derives from technology originally developed for smartphones and is designed to add dynamic feedback to smartphone screens. Obviously, the company hopes that in the near future the technology will have more applications and will be seen; The team was tight-lipped about when and if we’ll see it next, but hinted that there could be automotive and smart home applications in the pipeline. For now, Lenovo laptops are the easiest place to try it out – look for “Force Sensor Technology” to see if the Peratech technology lives inside.
