ThermoFeet: Assessing On-Foot Thermal Stimuli for Directional Cues

Bettina Eska, Jeff-Owens Iyalekhue, Sebastian Günther, Jasmin Niess, Florian Müller

MUM 2023

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia

TL;DR

What we did: We built ThermoFeet, a system that provides thermal feedback on the feet to convey directional cues using four thermal actuators.

What we found: We found that users could more accurately detect cool thermal signals compared to warm ones, and that stimuli directly associated with the spatial distribution of actuators resulted in better recognition than phantom sensations.

Takeaway: Our work suggests that thermal feedback on the feet can enhance navigational experiences, with practical implications for applications in mobile interaction and immersive environments.

Abstract

Thermal feedback has been studied for navigation purposes with directional cues and a variety of other use cases. Yet, to date, systems providing thermal feedback were primarily designed for the upper body, targeting hands and arms in particular. As these parts are often occupied with other tasks, there is a need to extend the design space of thermal feedback to other body parts. To close this gap, we assess thermal feedback on the user’s feet. This research explores if creating stimuli representing any direction on a circle with only four actuators is possible. To evaluate this concept, we conducted a user study asking the participants to indicate the perceived direction after getting a hot or cold stimulus by direct actuation using one actuator or phantom actuation using two actuators. The results indicate that the detection accuracy was higher for cold signals. In addition, the results showed higher recognition for stimuli linked to actuator distribution than phantom sensation due to spatial summation.