While going through the USPTO directory, I spotted a couple of interesting patents from Microsoft. One patent was for a dual-screen “Surface Phone”, which probably won’t ship ever, so let’s not talk about it. There was another patent which I think is worth highlighting – a Surface Laptop with a trackpad that doubles as a speaker so you can listen to any music.
First spotted by Windows Latest, the trackpad of the patented Surface Laptop is very unique compared to current devices in the market. For example, Apple’s MacBooks have a Taptic Engine for haptic feedback, but they don’t double as a speaker. ASUS ScreenPad had an interface to adjust the audio level, but it cannot play sound.
Microsoft’s idea is to turn a regular trackpad into a speaker so that you can have an impressive audio experience with a Surface Laptop running Windows 11.
The patent application is titled “HAPTIC TRACKPAD LOUDSPEAKER” and is about a Surface Laptop that introduces a haptic trackpad-based loudspeaker. The patent was published on November 14, 2024, by UPSTO and filed by Microsoft on May 12, 2023.
Surface Laptop with a trackpad that doubles as a speaker
Based on my analysis, the Surface Laptop’s trackpad doubles as a speaker. At the same time, it acts as a regular touch-sensitive trackpad for controlling Windows 11, and it even manages to produce haptic feedback.
For those unaware, haptic touch feedback refers to the vibrations or clicks that give you a sense of pressing a button when the panel is a glass type.
So how does it work? According to the patent application, the trackpad is made of glass and supports a haptic touch motor. Then, we have resilient spacers, which are under the PCB, and they act like springs, allowing the trackpad to vibrate and down in the z-direction (vertically).
But you might wonder how this is a new tech. I mean, it’s normal for a haptic trackpad to have a vibrator to generate the touch feel, right?
What’s different here is Microsoft’s patented haptic motor is designed to handle both low-frequency vibrations for haptic feedback (below 400 Hz) and higher-frequency vibrations for audio playback (400 Hz to 10,000 Hz).
The trackpad area in the patented Surface Laptop acts as a speaker diaphragm. A speaker diaphragm is a part of a speaker that vibrates to create sound. It moves up and down to produce a sound that you can hear.
As a result, the trackpad is capable of taking care of little to medium levels of music, such as playing songs and handling notifications or audio alerts, just like a regular speaker. I also noticed that the audio frequencies range from 400 Hz to 10 kHz, which covers most of the range needed for music, speech, and Windows 11 OS sounds.
While reading the patent, I noticed that Microsoft designed two modes for the trackpad-based speaker.
The first mode is called Piston Mode, which is used for lower-frequency sounds, such as voices or bass tones. Then, we have distributed Mode, which produces sound above 3 kHz), and the Surface Laptop should be able to handle higher-frequency sounds.
The patent explains that the spring-mass system, tuned spacers, and flexible surround allow the trackpad to transition smoothly between these two modes. As a result, the system is “optimized for resonance at less than 400 Hz for haptic feedback” and capable of “audio output from 400 Hz to 10 kHz.”
It’s also worth noting that the Surface Laptop is not ditching the traditional audio or speaker system for trackpad-based speakers. It’s likely the device will have a multi-channel audio system, and the sound coming from the trackpad area would improve the overall music experience.
For now, this is just a patent application, so it may or may not happen like most of the other ideas.
According to Zac Bowden, Microsoft is currently busy preparing Surface products with Intel Lunar Lake. New innovative or unique hardware will probably not happen anytime soon.
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