Clickable Control Pad Uniform Click Feedback via Cantilever Guidance
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional clickable touchpads in remote control devices often provide uneven click feelings and distracting noise due to the hinge mechanism, which can vary with the click location and angle, leading to a suboptimal user experience.
Innovation Solution
A mechanical structure with peripherally located boss-hole combinations and cantilevers ensures uniform perpendicular sliding movement and consistent click feedback, allowing for a seamless clicking experience by guiding the touch-enabled top part's movement and providing a return force through deformation of cantilevers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a hinge mechanism is used to enable clicking on a touchpad, then the touchpad can provide click functionality, but the click feeling becomes uneven and noise increases depending on click location and angle
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the hinge mechanism from the touchpad structure and replaces it with a button integrated directly into the touchpad surface. This eliminates the rotational movement and uneven click feelings caused by the hinge, providing uniform click feedback regardless of where the user clicks on the touchpad surface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges the button functionality directly into the touchpad structure, creating an integrated clickable touchpad where the button is part of the touchpad surface itself rather than a separate hinged component. This integration ensures consistent mechanical properties and uniform click feeling across the entire touchpad area.
2Adaptability or versatility
If buttons are added to a touchpad to enable additional functions, then functionality increases, but the design becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal clickable touchpad surface where any location on the touchpad can function as a clickable button. This multi-functional design allows the entire touchpad surface to serve as clickable areas, eliminating the need for separate physical buttons while maintaining enhanced functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the touchpad surface into multiple clickable zones or regions, each capable of independent interaction. This allows the touchpad to provide multiple functions and commands without requiring separate physical buttons, reducing design complexity while maintaining versatility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design provides a uniform and reassuring click feeling, reduces noise, and enables the addition of multiple buttons, enhancing user acceptance and control precision in remote control devices, while allowing intuitive finger gestures without needing to look away from the display.
Implementation Method 1
the cantilevers deforming towards the plane of the frame and exerting a return upwards force to push the touch-enabled top part during clicking
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~3
Figure 4
AI summary
A clickable control pad, comprising a top part (101), a frame (103), and a mechanical structure (101a, 103b) for guiding a movement of the top part (101) with regard to the frame (103) in a direction perpendicular to the frame (103).