Haptic or touch feedback has become a critical component of devices that enable the transfer of information to users. Example applications range from “feeling” objects in virtual reality to simulating physical interactions on smartphone and smartwatch surfaces. Haptic devices with sufficient capability to serve as research platforms are costly, difficult to reproduce, and require a high degree of prior knowledge and expertise to design and build. Experimental hardware platforms that leverage low-cost actuation would reduce the financial burden and required expertise to perform haptics research, increasing accessibility and encouraging collaboration among a broad range of developers. This thesis presents three low-cost haptic device platforms that are used to support rigorous haptics research. The Vibro-Tactile Sleeve, comprised of low-cost vibrotactile actuators modularly embedded in a modified athletic sleeve, was used to evaluate the effect of directing human subjects’ focus on their ability to accurately interpret vibrotactile sequences. Findings in these experiments suggest that multi-modal focus, spatial focus, and sense of agency all affect human vibrotactile sequence perception while temporal focus does not. Snaptics is presented as an open-source, low-cost, 3D-printed, and modular multi-sensory development platform for wearable haptic devices. Experiments conducted with Snaptics devices demonstrated similar multi-sensory cue saliency and user performance as those performed with research-grade haptic devices in comparable studies. Finally, this thesis presents a fluidic-actuated textile-based approach to rapidly fabricating low-cost wearable haptic devices. Devices built with this fabrication approach were capable of delivering salient and easily distinguishable haptic cues. A prototype device enabled the investigation of passive, active, and multi-scale haptic perception and demonstrated the potential for multi-scale haptics as a means to transmit salient and information-dense haptic cues. These three platforms demonstrate that well-designed, accessible and low-cost devices are capable of delivering high-quality and salient haptic cues, and can support rigorous experimental evaluation.