DuoTouch: Passive Two-Footprint Attachments Using Binary Sequences to Extend Touch Interaction

TL;DR

DuoTouch is a passive attachment for capacitive touch devices that encodes motion using binary sequences with two contact footprints, enabling tangible input without occluding content or requiring device modifications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel passive attachment method that uses binary-encoded contact footprints to extend touch interaction on unmodified devices.

Findings

Decoding accuracy depends on actuation speed, trace width, and sampling rate.

Two configurations enable command mapping and direction estimation.

Versatile form factors demonstrate practical applicability.

Abstract

DuoTouch is a passive attachment for capacitive touch panels that adds tangible input while minimizing content occlusion and loss of input area. It uses two contact footprints and two traces to encode motion as binary sequences and runs on unmodified devices through standard touch APIs. We present two configurations with paired decoders: an aligned configuration that maps fixed-length codes to discrete commands and a phase-shifted configuration that estimates direction and distance from relative timing. To characterize the system's reliability, we derive a sampling-limited bound that links actuation speed, internal trace width, and device touch sampling rate. Through technical evaluations on a smartphone and a touchpad, we report performance metrics that describe the relationship between these parameters and decoding accuracy. Finally, we demonstrate the versatility of DuoTouch by embedding the mechanism into various form factors, including a hand strap, a phone ring holder, and touchpad add-ons.