Touchlab removes a key barrier to mass robotics: lack of touch. Its ultra-thin e-skin wraps hard or soft robots to sense pressure, location, and direction in real time—enabling dexterous manipulation, safer handling, and telepresence. For the ANA Avatar XPRIZE, Touchlab built Välkky, a telerobot letting operators hear, see, speak—and feel—via VR. The e-skin uses quantum-tunneling piezoresistive materials; a triaxial thin-film array detects normal and shear forces for slip and gait analysis.