Input Overlay Device with Tactile Feedback for Touch Screens
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Solution Overview
Problem
Touch screen computing devices lack the physical characteristics of traditional keyboards, such as haptic feedback and raised features, making them less practical for long-term use due to the absence of satisfying typing experiences.
Innovation Solution
An input overlay device with index dots, top edge markers, and push buttons that can be placed on a touch screen display to mimic a traditional keyboard layout, providing tactile feedback and allowing users to interact with the device like a physical keyboard by detecting touch and interpreting it as key presses.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a soft touch keyboard is displayed on the touch screen, then the device provides keyboard functionality, but it lacks physical characteristics such as haptic feedback and raised features
Solution Approach 1:
A transparent or translucent physical keyboard overlay is introduced as an intermediary layer between the user and the touch screen. This overlay includes raised key features that provide tactile feedback and haptic sensation while allowing the touch screen to remain visible and functional underneath, thus bridging the gap between virtual and physical keyboard experiences
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard overlay is constructed using flexible or rigid thin film materials that can be placed directly over the touch screen display. These thin films incorporate raised key features and haptic elements that maintain the flexibility and thinness needed for integration with touch screen devices while providing physical tactile feedback
2Reliability
If a physical keyboard overlay is added to provide tactile feedback, then typing experience improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard overlay is segmented into modular components including individual key caps with raised features, haptic feedback elements, and transparent or translucent base layers. This segmentation allows for simplified manufacturing, easy assembly, and the ability to attach the overlay directly to the touch screen without requiring complex integration with the device's internal structure
Solution Approach 2:
The overlay creates a physical copy or replica of traditional keyboard features on the surface of the touch screen. By copying the raised key structures and haptic characteristics of conventional keyboards onto a thin film overlay, the invention provides authentic tactile feedback without needing to replicate the entire internal mechanical structure of a traditional keyboard
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
Enhances the typing experience on touch screen devices by providing a more traditional keyboard feel and functionality, improving typing speed and comfort through tactile feedback and familiar key layout interaction.
Implementation Method 1
Each push button may include a conductive element that is in contact with the touch screen display when the push button is in the second position
Implementation Method 2
Each push button may include a capacitive or conductive element that is in contact with the touch screen display when the push button is in the second position
Data Source
AI summary
Technologies for interfacing an input overlay device with a touch screen of a computing device are disclosed. A computing device includes a touch screen and at least one processor to execute instructions to: determine parameters associated with an input overlay device overlying the touch screen, the input overlay device separate from the computing device, the parameters to identify a first area of the touch screen and a second area of the touch screen different than the first area, the first area corresponding to an area of the touch screen covered by the input overlay device; detect a position of a touch on the touch screen; if the position of the touch is in the first area, determine an input for the computing device based on the position of the touch; and if the position of the touch is in the second area, ignore the touch.