Uico of Silicon Valley and Chicago, USA has unveiled a patented all-weather 15.6″ duraTouch projective capacitive (PCAP) touchscreen. The touchscreen is claimed to beat competing solutions in harsh environments — working with rain, sleet, snow, freezing temperatures, salt water, thick gloves and more.
Typically, the firm’s OEM customers have required a range of touch screen sizes between 3″ and 12″ diagonals 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. Resolution is 4096 x 2160 and the unit has a 1.9V to 5.5V power requirement. Operating temperatures are -20º C (-40º C in storage) to 85ºC.
According to 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. He said:
“Today, duraTouch is the only PCAP touch screen that is in bathroom showers. 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. In the consumer world the bar is much lower because it is easy to protect smartphones and tablets from the elements. But for outdoor applications (consumer, commercial, and industrial-grade devices), these are exposed to harsh conditions, and failure is not an option. Our algorithms optimize both the response time and accuracy of a reported touch, all while filtering out the unpredictable noise of the environment. The user can use the screen under the same circumstances that cause smartphones and tablets to lock up, ‘false activate,’ or shut down altogether.”
The new screen works with a variety of cover lens materials and a variety of thicknesses. 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.
The unit is sampling now.
