UICO, a global leader in touchscreen technology has unveiled a patented all-weather 15.6″ duraTOUCH projective capacitive (PCAP) touchscreen.
The touchscreen beats competing solutions in harsh environments — working with rain, sleet, snow, freezing temperatures, salt water, thick gloves and more.
The PCAP touch screen market continues to rise, as resistive touch screens and mechanical buttons are yesterday’s technology.
Typically, UICO’s OEM customers have required a range of touch screen sizes between 3 and 12-inch diagonal measurements. But, as their designs evolve to include greater advertising real estate, increased innovation in the GUI design, enhanced security, and ADA compliant features, screens are trending towards larger sizes.
According to UICO VP of Marketing Binay Bajaj, in side-by-side comparisons, the majority of devices in the market fail with drops of water rolling off of the touch screen, while duraTOUCH® works with water pouring on the screen.
“Today, duraTOUCH® is the only PCAP touch screen that is in bathroom showers,” notes Bajaj. “Our team has combined years of experience to develop a PCAP touch solution that solves problems still not solved by our competition more than a decade later.”
Bajaj added that UICO has a recognized track record in solving tough touch screen problems.
“In the consumer world the bar is much lower because it is easy to protect smartphones and tablets from the elements,” says Bajaj. “But for outdoor applications (consumer, commercial, and industrial-grade devices), these are exposed to harsh conditions, and failure is not an option.”
Bajaj said that UICO’s 15.6″ large format touch screen is unique in its “all-in-one” ability to reject water while recognizing touches including single touch, two-finger touch, and with extreme-thick glove touch.
“Our algorithms optimize both the response time and accuracy of a reported touch, all while filtering out the unpredictable noise of the environment,” says Bajaj. “The user can use the screen under the same circumstances that cause smartphones and tablets to lock up, ‘false activate,’ or shut down altogether.”
Another key benefit for customers is that like UICO’s standard touch screen offering up to 12.1″, the duraTOUCH® 15.6″ touch screen works with a variety of cover lens materials and a variety of thicknesses. A typical smartphone cover lens is often less than 1mm thick, making it much easier for the sensing system to recognize a finger. In markets like industrial, gas pump and medical the touch system is required to work with up to 4mm thick cover glass bonded on top of the touchscreen for safety and robustness. In the gas pump market for example, people tend to bang on the screen with the nozzle of the gas pump, so it must be extremely robust.
As cover lens thickness increases, it becomes more complex at the software and firmware level to drive the touch screen to recognize the difference between a finger and water droplets. UICO has proven their technology to work with the extremes — very thick glass, the ability to recognize touch through a fireman’s glove and motorcycle gloves, and when water is pouring on the screen. And, they have now solved these problems in the first of many larger form factors to come.
Lastly, notes Bajaj, another unique benefit of the 15.6″ is UICO’s supply chain.
“We offer the complete stack-up solutions to ease our customers’ supply chains. Our stellar ITO and display partners allow us to deliver a fully integrated unit,” he says. “duraTOUCH® 15.6″ samples have already been provided to key customers, and development kits will begin shipping to a broader audience in Q1, 2018.”
Kits can be requested at www.uico.com/contact.
About UICO
UICO is a technology company located in Silicon Valley and Chicago. UICO has brought together leading global touch sensing experts that are finding innovative solutions to some of the biggest problems users complain about when using touch enabled devices in the rain, with gloves, with sweaty fingers, when dirty, and in extreme temperatures. UICO has close ties to the University of Chicago and the Booth School of Business, and is backed by renowned Midwest VCs Hyde Park Angels, Plymouth Ventures, and Beringea.
