HaloTouch++: Towards Portable and Condition-Tolerant Surface Touch Input for Mixed Reality (To Appear)

Abstract: Touch interaction on everyday surfaces has long been envisioned as a natural extension of mixed-reality input, offering tactile feedback and proprioceptive cues that enhance user comfort and precision. Yet, most existing mixed-reality touch-sensing techniques are designed for static, dry, and large surfaces, making them unsuitable for real-world use where surfaces may be handheld, wet, or smaller in size. We introduce HaloTouch++, a reflector assisted mixed-reality touch input technique that enables low lift-off, water-tolerant and finger profile modified interactions on handheld surfaces. The system harnesses multi-path interference from time-of-flight depth sensing as a stable optical cue for detecting physical contact. By attaching a lightweight reflector onto arbitrary surfaces, HaloTouch++ amplifies structured global interference patterns, forming a distinctive “Halo” signature around touch points that remains consistent under varying poses and moisture conditions. In a 15-participant evaluation spanning multiple materials, user poses, and water conditions, HaloTouch++ achieved 97.3% touch-down accuracy and 93.3% gesture recognition accuracy.

Paper: To Appear

Demo: Coming Soon