Ever wonder what will happen when you push that button? NKK Switches (Scottsdale, AZ; www.nkksmartswitch.com), a subsidiary of Nihon Kaiheiki Kogyo in Kawasaki-shi, Japan, may have the answer for you. The company has recently offered four new products: high-resolution SmartSwitch and SmartDisplay systems with either OLED or LCD displays. These systems have 15 x 11 mm displays on the front surface of the 23 x 21 mm button. The SmartSwitch devices include a built-in SPST 100mA, 12V switch while the SmartDisplay systems have a similar display in a slightly smaller form-without the switch function.

Matt Brennesholtz
Insight Media Analyst

The passive matrix addressed OLED version is said to be good for 15,000 hours, on the assumption 40% of the pixels are on. This would be the equivalent of 1.7 years of 24/7 operation, a likely operating schedule given the proposed applications. The button is good for 1,000,000 operations, or 67 per hour for the life of the OLED.

These devices are intended for a variety of applications requiring a graphical user interface or real-time sequencing. The ability to display a button’s function simplifies and improves complex multi-decisional operations in string-dependent switch systems. Applications include audio-video broadcast workstations, industrial control panels, medical equipment, and communications systems.

The OLED-based systems can display full color bit-mapped images while the LCD systems are intended to display four lines of text with up to 10 characters per line. The available information on these OLED systems does not make it clear if they can display full-motion video, although that appears likely since the LCD version has a 8MHz clock rate. The LCD systems use a transflective display and the built-in RGB backlight can provide 64 colors.

In addition to the high-resolution units just introduced, NKK continues to sell its lower resolution (36 x 24) LCD-based SmartSwitch and SmartDisplay devices.

At $35 apiece in quantities of 1000 for the lowest-priced version, these systems are still a bit pricy for most consumer electronics. Runco and Bang & Olufsen, are you listening?

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