Haptic-feedback touchscreens, essentially displays that affirm inputs with sensory feedback, have been around for years. Typically these systems tend toward the binary, buzzing, vibrating, or “clicking” in response to a digital button press on a flat touch screen. We’ve sampled Bosch’s haptic touchscreen, dubbed Neosense, at CES and can report that it offers more comprehensive, nuanced response and feedback than any haptic screen we’ve used yet. And for that reason it holds the potential to be nearly as simple to use as good old-fashioned hard buttons.

 

We often wax poetic about the virtues of hard buttons, which we acknowledge lack the sexiness of today’s high-definition touch-screen displays, but we do so for good reason. The buttons never rearrange depending on which menu you’re in, and thus are easy to find by touch alone, and they affirm inputs by physically moving or clicking. Bosch, as a supplier, is showcasing its haptic screen at the Consumer Electronics Show in “concept” form; final versions will be dictated by the OEMs that choose to adopt the technology. As such, Bosch’s Neosense demo resembles just that: a demo. There are no sexy graphics, just a few sample menus consisting of bland, square buttons and simple on-screen sliders. Perhaps the most telling example screen we tried consisted of several blocky buttons, each displayed with a different texture animated over it. Running our fingers ove...