Magnet-Loaded Multifunction Button Alignment With Minimal Play
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing remote controls lack precise alignment and guidance of buttons with minimal play, leading to potential misalignment and reduced user experience.
Innovation Solution
A multifunction button with radially offset key areas and magnets is designed, using pins with thickened heads and a support plate to ensure precise alignment and guidance, with magnets and counter-magnets providing haptic feedback and outward push, while sensors detect position changes for signal generation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If magnets are used to push the button outward, then haptic feedback is provided, but precise alignment and guidance of the button becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces pins with thickened heads as intermediary elements between the button and the housing. These pins extend through openings in the housing and provide mechanical guidance and alignment for the button, while the magnets are positioned on the button to provide haptic feedback. The thickened heads of the pins act as bearing surfaces that ensure precise positioning without interfering with the magnetic haptic feedback mechanism.
2Ease of operation
If the button is designed to move outward, then user interaction is enhanced, but alignment precision and play minimization become problematic
Solution Approach 1:
The button assembly is segmented into multiple functional components: the button itself, pins with thickened heads for alignment, openings in the housing for guidance, and magnets for haptic feedback. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function independently - the pins provide mechanical alignment, the openings provide guidance paths, and the magnets provide haptic feedback - while working together to achieve both user interaction enhancement and alignment precision.
3Manufacturing precision
If pins with thickened heads are used for alignment, then button positioning is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The pins with thickened heads serve multiple functions simultaneously: they provide mechanical alignment for the button, act as guide elements through the housing openings, and serve as structural connectors between the button and housing. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate alignment features, guide rails, or additional positioning mechanisms, thereby limiting the increase in device complexity despite the improved button positioning.
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
The solution ensures precise alignment and minimal play of buttons, enhancing user experience by providing clear haptic feedback and accurate signal detection, allowing for versatile button configurations like circular rings or pressure pads.
Implementation Method 1
magnets and counter magnets are polarized and arranged such that the multifunction button is depressed in a first direction toward the exterior of the housing
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~4
Figure 5~7
AI summary
The remote control has at least one multifunction button (7) which is force-loaded in one direction by magnets (17) and counter-magnets (18) or mechanical springs and to which pins (31) with thickened heads (32) are attached, the thickened heads (32) being in Serve together with bearing shells (33) of a support plate (16) as a centering, guiding and movement stop of the multifunction button (7).