Patent Application
20100090966
This disclosure relates generally to touch screens and more particularly to the use of capacitive touch screens on devices such as cell phones and media players while wearing gloves.
New generation consumer devices increasingly rely on touch screen inputs such as virtual buttons and sliders displayed on a screen as an alternative to physical inputs. For example the Apple iPhone® is operated almost exclusively by manipulating virtual buttons, sliders, scrollers, and the like on a screen with the fingers. Capacitive touch screen technology is largely displacing resistive touch screens due to industrial design, durability, and performance considerations. Generally, capacitive touch screens require “bare-handed” contact to sense a touch because the touch pad senses the fleshy fingertip, which, due the conductivity of the flesh, perturbs the field of the screen. This gives rise to a problem when a user wears cold weather or protective gloves. Most devices using capacitive touch screens cannot be used while wearing gloves because the material of the glove is an electrical insulator that insulates the fingers and prevents the capacitive screen from detecting the conductivity of the fingertips through the gloves. The thickness of the glove material also limits the closeness of the finger to the screen and certainly prevents actual touching. One solution has been to provide a glove with the tip of the index finger sheath cut out so that a wearer's bear fingertip protrudes slightly from the end of the sheath. While this does allow the bear fingertip to be used with a capacitive touch screen, it is far from ideal because the fingertip is exposed to the elements and is not protected or kept warm. The opening in the glove also allows air circulation and moisture penetration, which often defeats the very purpose of wearing gloves. For protective gloves, such as electrician's gloves, breaches of the glove are simply unacceptable. A need exists for a glove that retains all of its insulating and protective attributes and while allowing a wearer to operate the capacitive touch screen of a consumer device. It is to the provision of such a glove that the present disclosure is primarily directed.
Briefly described, the present invention, in a preferred embodiment thereof, comprises a glove that allows a wearer to interact with the capacitive touch screen of a device without removing the glove or exposing the wearer's fingers. The glove comprises a traditional glove body configured to cover the palm and back of the hand and finger sheaths that cover the fingers. At least one of the finger sheaths, for example the index finger sheath, is provided at least at its tip portion with an electrically conductive material beneath the outer layer of the glove. When a capacitive touch screen is touched with the end of the finger sheath bearing the conductive material, the conductive material perturbs the field of the screen just as does the conductive skin of a bear finger and thus emulates a touch with a bear finger. As a result, the virtual buttons and other elements of the screen can be activated while wearing the glove of the present disclosure without any breaches or openings being formed in the glove.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the glove of this disclosure will be better understood upon review of the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures, which are briefly described as follows.
Referring now in more detail to the drawing figures, wherein like reference numerals identify like parts throughout the several views,
An electrically conductive material 23 is disposed at least at the tip 22 of at least one of the finger sheaths. In
The electrically conductive material may take a variety of forms and be composed of a variety of materials depending upon application specific requirements and parameters. For instance, the electrically conductive material may take the form of a small disc embedded in the tip of a finger sheath beneath the outer layer of glove material with the disc being made of a conductive metal such as copper or brass. The material may, alternatively, be a conductive fiber material such as fibrous copper or another metal or a more exotic fibrous material such as nano-coated silver fibers disposed in or woven into the material of the sheath. In such a case, the fibrous conductive material may be woven into the material of the outer layer of the finger sheath, or, alternatively, may be woven into an inner layer of material beneath the outer layer of the finger sheath. The electrically conductive material may also be a conductive semiconductor material, a carbon impregnated semiconductor material, aluminized Mylar, graphite, or conductive carbon fibers. In fact, the invention encompasses and includes any material, now know or hereinafter discovered, that exhibits sufficient and appropriate electrical conductivity to activate a capacitive touch screen. The term “electrically conductive material” as used herein encompasses all of the forgoing.
It will thus be seen that a conventional glove may be modified according to the invention with an electrically conductive layer applied at the fingertip of the index finger and/or the thumb or, in fact, any or all fingers if desired. The layer may be a thin sheet of electrically conducting material or a conductive plastic material or otherwise. In one embodiment, the layer of electrically conductive material is applied close to the outer surface of the glove with any insulating or protective layers of the glove preferably being beneath the electrically conductive material. The layer of electrically conducting material, then, simulates the capacitive response of an unshielded finger when interacting with a capacitive touch screen interface.
The invention was prototyped by embedding at the tip of a glove finger a small disc made from a thin sheet of brass shim stock that was less that 5 mils thick. The disc was placed at the tip of the index finger sheath of a standard glove and covered with insulating tape to simulate an outer later of insulating material. The modified finger tip was then brought into contact with the click wheel of an iPod Nano® device. The prototype finger tip properly activated the click wheel of the device.
The invention has been described herein in terms of preferred embodiments and methodologies considered to be the best mode of carrying out the invention. However, various modifications and variations of the illustrated embodiments might be made by skilled artisans with such representing equivalent substitutes. For instance, while the invention has been illustrated within the context of a glove worn on the hands, it also might be implemented with normally non-conducting devices other than gloves. For example, the invention contemplates embedding an electrically conductive material in the plastic cap of a pen or pencil so that the pen or pencil might be used to interact with a capacitive touch screen. These and other additions, deletions, and modifications might well be made by those of skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, which is defined not by the illustrated embodiments but by the claims hereof.
