A Capacitive-sensing Physical Keyboard for VR Text Entry

Abstract

In the context of immersive VR Head-Mounted Displays, physical keyboards have been proven to be an efficient typing interface. However, text entry using physical keyboards typically requires external camera-based tracking systems. Touch-sensitive physical keyboards allow for on-surface interaction, with sensing integrated into the keyboard itself, but have not been utilized for VR. We propose to utilize touch-sensitive physical keyboards for text entry as an alternative sensing mechanism for tracking user's fingertips and present a first prototype for VR.