US Patent 10528074 Magnetic manual user interface devices

Various finger tip controlled manual interface devices that can be used as inputs to personal computers, electromechanical systems and video game consoles utilize concentrically arranged magnets. The polarities of the magnets are oriented to provide restoration forces on a one of the magnets to bias it toward a neutral position. A magnetic sensor including a plurality of sensing elements such as Hall effect devices generates output signals representative of direction and amount of movement of the magnet that is biased to the neutral position.