Abstract
Providing users with rich sensations is beneficial to enhance their immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Wetness is one such imperative sensation that helps humans avoid health-risking conditions and adjust grip force when interacting with objects. Recently, researchers have begun to explore ways to create wetness illusion, primarily on face or body skin. In this work, we extended this line of research by creating wetness illusion on users’ fingertips. We first conducted a user study to understand the effect of thermal and tactile feedback on users’ perceived wetness sensation. Informed by the findings, we designed and evaluated a prototype—Mouillé—that provides various levels of wetness illusion on fingertips for both hard and soft items of varied weights when users squeeze, lift, or scratch it. We further presented demo applications that simulate an ice cube, iced cola bottle, a wet sponge, etc, to show its use in VR.