RunPacer: A Smartwatch-Based Vibrotactile Feedback System for Symmetric Co-Running by Visually Impaired Individuals and Guides
Yichen Yu, Huan-Song Xu, Ming-Yen Lin
TL;DR
This work tackles the challenge of enabling safe, autonomous, symmetric co-running for visually impaired individuals, where traditional guide-based cues can hinder rhythm and agency. It introduces RunPacer, a smartwatch-based shared cadence engine that delivers synchronized vibrotactile pulses to both guide and runner, with static preset and adaptive modes and sub-100 ms latency. A Swift/Apple Watch prototype implements a three-module system (Shared Cadence Engine, Vibrotactile Feedback Delivery, Dual-Mode Operation) and a preliminary heuristic evaluation with ten participants showing reduced cognitive load and increased autonomy. The results point to a pathway for inclusive, embodied running and broader applications in social entrainment, rehabilitation, and group training, with future support for multimodal feedback and open-source tooling.
Abstract
Visually impaired individuals often require a guide runner to safely participate in outdoor running. However, maintaining synchronized pacing with verbal cues or tethers can be mentally taxing and physically restrictive. Existing solutions primarily focus on navigation or obstacle avoidance but overlook the importance of real-time interpersonal rhythm coordination during running. We introduce RunPacer, a smartwatch-based vibrotactile feedback system that delivers synchronized rhythmic pulses to both runners. In contrast to conventional guide-running systems that rely heavily on continuous verbal communication or mechanical tethering, RunPacer emphasizes interpersonal cadence alignment as its core interaction model. By pre-setting a target step frequency or dynamically adapting to the guide's natural pace, the system ensures that both runners receive identical haptic cues, enabling them to maintain coordinated motion intuitively and efficiently. This poster presents the system architecture, positions it within prior research on haptic entrainment, and outlines the vision for future field deployment, including potential multimodal feedback extensions. RunPacer contributes a lightweight, socially cooperative, and non-visual assistive framework that reimagines co-running as a shared, embodied, and accessible experience.