Touch Sensitive Mechanical Keyboard Simultaneous Input
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional keyboards lack the ability to simultaneously detect touch events and key depressions without altering their appearance or user experience, limiting their functionality in providing both textual and cursor input functions.
Innovation Solution
A touch-sensitive mechanical keyboard with individually depressible mechanical keys and a touch sensor that can detect touch events and key depressions, allowing for multi-purpose keys capable of being depressed to multiple levels, and a processor to distinguish between these inputs, enabling simultaneous textual and touch input without requiring users to remove their hands.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a conventional mechanical keyboard is used, then text entry efficiency is maintained, but the ability to perform cursor functions without hand removal is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The keyboard integrates both traditional mechanical key switching and capacitive touch sensing capabilities into a single device. The same key surfaces serve dual purposes: they can be physically depressed for text input while also detecting touch gestures for cursor control, eliminating the need for separate input devices and maintaining both text entry efficiency and cursor accessibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines two different input detection technologies (mechanical switching and capacitive sensing) into one unified keyboard system. The mechanical keys provide tactile feedback for typing while the capacitive layer detects touch gestures, merging the functionality of a physical keyboard and touch screen into a single device that supports both text entry and cursor control.
2Adaptability or versatility
If touch-sensitive capabilities are added to mechanical keys, then multi-functionality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The capacitive touch sensing layer is integrated within or alongside the existing mechanical key structure. The touch-sensitive material is positioned between the keycap and the mechanical switch, or as a separate layer above the PCB, allowing the keyboard to detect both mechanical depression and capacitive touch without requiring completely separate systems for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The same physical key structure serves multiple detection purposes. The mechanical switch detects key depression while the capacitive layer detects touch gestures, allowing a single key component to provide both traditional typing functionality and modern touch interface capabilities, thereby improving versatility without proportionally increasing complexity.
3Ease of operation
If multiple input types are detected simultaneously, then user convenience is improved, but difficulty of detecting and measuring inputs increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides tactile feedback through the mechanical key switch when a key is physically depressed, while capacitive touch gestures produce different feedback patterns. This differential feedback mechanism helps the system and user distinguish between intentional key presses for text input and touch gestures for cursor control, resolving the ambiguity of simultaneous input detection.
Solution Approach 2:
The keyboard dynamically adjusts its detection and response behavior based on the type of input detected. When a mechanical switch activation is detected, the system prioritizes text input processing; when capacitive touch patterns are detected without full key depression, the system prioritizes cursor control functions, allowing flexible adaptation to different input modes.
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
Enables users to enter textual input and perform cursor functions like point, click, scroll, and drag without hand removal, integrating multi-touch input capabilities into a familiar typing experience without compromising text entry efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
A touch sensor can be included to detect touch events on the surface of the mechanical keys
Implementation Method 2
When a key is depressed, the key pushes down on a rubber dome sitting beneath the key. The rubber dome collapses, giving tactile feedback to the user depressing the key, and causes a conductive contact on the underside of the dome to touch a pair of conductive lines on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) below the dome, thereby closing the switch
Data Source
AI summary
Touch sensitive mechanical keyboards for detecting touch events and key depressions on the keyboard are provided. The keyboard can include a set of individually depressible mechanical keys having a touch sensitive area located on their surface. A touch sensor can be included to detect touch events on the surface of the keys. A keypad can also be included to detect a depression of the mechanical keys. One or more of the depressible mechanical keys can be multi-purpose keys capable of being depressed to multiple levels. The touch sensitive mechanical keyboard can receive key depression input, touch event input, or combinations thereof at the same time. The touch sensitive mechanical keyboard can further include a processor for distinguishing detected touch events from detected key depressions. The processor can generate a key depression command or a touch event command in response to the detected touch events and key depressions.