Logitech Europe S.a.

Florent Berney

Nuno Miguel Pereira Dos Anjos Valverde

Cyril Yves Anthony Drezet

James O'Connor

Vasco Eugenio Michele Foletti

Olivier Theytaz

Nicolas Ramond

Jan Stoeckli

Jean-Claude Dunant

Daniel Bonanno

In some embodiments, a computer mouse comprises a housing, a depressible keyplate disposed within the housing, a carrier platform including a top side and disposed within the housing, a haptic element coupled to a top side of the carrier platform, a biasing system configured to couple the carrier platform to the housing and provide a pre-loading force that pushes the haptic element coupled to the carrier platform against a bottom surface of the depressible keyplate, and a limiter element operable to physically limit a movable range of the keyplate in one direction that prevents a top surface of the keyplate to deflect past an adjacent top surface of the housing due to the pre-loading force, the top surface of the keyplate and the adjacent top surface of the housing forming a continuous contour when the depressible keyplate is in a non-depressed, neutral position.

Haptics and sensing systems for an input device

In some embodiments, a computer mouse includes a housing, a depressible keyplate, and a haptic element coupled to a bottom surface of the depressible keyplate. The haptic element can be configured to operate in a plurality of modes of operation including a first mode and a second mode. In the first mode of operation, the haptic element can generate a haptic output that statically and unidirectionally deflects and holds the haptic element and coupled keyplate at a deflection distance. In the second mode of operation, the haptic element can generate a second haptic output that bidirectionally deflects the haptic element relative to the deflection distance thereby generating a vibrational feedback that is superimposed on the unidirectional deflection at the deflection distance. In some aspects, the haptic element is a piezoelectric device and the control signal is a voltage applied to the haptic element.

Aspects of the invention include an input device comprising a housing having a region, a haptic element coupled to the housing, the haptic element configured to generate a haptic feedback and couple the haptic feedback to the region of the housing, and a force-sensitive element coupled to the housing, the force-sensitive element configured to detect a threshold input force applied-to and removed-from the region of the housing, the force-sensitive element being different from the haptic element. The haptic element may generate a first haptic feedback in response to the force-sensitive element detecting the threshold force being applied to the region of the housing, and the haptic element may generate a second haptic feedback in response to the force-sensitive element detecting the threshold force being removed from to the region of the housing, the first haptic feedback being different than the second haptic feedback.

Input device with haptic interface

Growing community of inventors

Echallens, Switzerland

Florent Berney