Haptic Belt recreates the feeling of being live at a concert, even in lockdown

You can get the feeling of being live at the concert. A German startup has developed a Haptic Belt that lets users feel the full frequency of music and sound on their body. As the coronavirus pandemic puts a hold on live music events, the belt may be the closest thing to feeling the pulse of a live concert.

Berlin, Germany: The Potsdam-based company launched Feelbelt, a Haptic Belt that lets users feel music and sounds on their body, recreating the feeling of being live at a concert. It transfers higher frequencies as well.

Features of the Feelbelt:-

• Bass vibrations come through small speakers on the front. Higher frequencies come through the sides.
• The Feelbelt has ten so-called impulse generators.
• The belt connects to a smartphone via Bluetooth, the headset connects to the belt using a standard cable.

"With the Feelbelt you can feel everything through haptic vibrations that you would also hear in music or gaming," explains says Carsten Klippstein, Feelbelt's business development manager. "You feel it as vibrations on your body, that means that you can feel everything that is happening in the film, the music or the game."

"The big thing is, when you are at a live event of some sort, the sound waves leave the source, like a big speaker, and the whole sound wave hit my body," says Klippstein."But when I'm sitting at home with just my headset, I lose that whole sound wave. I just get everything directly in the ear. The belt can take that big sound wave and put it back on the body."

Nicole Scott, editor of Mobilegeeks technology website, says the Coronavirus pandemic has opened a new market for gadgets that can fill a hole in people's lives, like live music. "The pandemic is reshaping our relationship between online and offline," she says.

"And products that come in to bridge this gap, are seeing a bit of an interest in these days. I don't think that we have a hard solution on how you're going to replace that tech tile emotional connection, but a product like this one is a great start to doing so."

The Feelbelt is still at the prototype stage, an upgraded version should be shipped to early project backers towards the end of the year.

(Inputs from AP)