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A touchscreen as a part of the smart home

A wall-mountable touchscreen computer can become a central element of the smart home. Such computer does not need a mouse; all buttons should by pressed by a finger directly on the screen surface. As for a usual keyboard it is substituted by specially developed on-screen ones. Owners of rapidly gaining popularity pocket PC’s know how convenient touch-sensitive screens are.

A wall-mountable computer with a touchscreen may serve as a multimedia center for playing music, movies or even viewing digital photos. At that, record, film and photo libraries may be stored on another computer of the home network. Such computer can be also used for automatic devices control (as well as their reprogramming) and control of ecologic and physical safety of the house. But for this purpose you will need to install special software.

However, it is possible to use a free standing touch-sensitive monitor. It can be mounted by placing a touchscreen over the standard LCD monitor. Installation process is rather complicated so it should be done by specialized service companies.

Touchscreens can be of different types owing to the manufacturing technique. According to the principle of operation, there exist resistive, surface acoustic wave based, infrared and capacitive ones.

Based on surface acoustic wave technology and resistive touchscreens (for example, General Touch) are ideal for smart homes. SAW based touchscreens provide excellent optical clarity and precisely recognize a finger or stylus touch. They are scratch resistant and force sensitive. Resistive touchscreens were designed for rugged environment applications and therefore are characterized by improved reliability and durability. They cannot be affected by outside elements such as dust, water, vapour or steam condensate but offer reduced clarity.

When offering wall-mountable touch-sensitive computers, it in necessary to care about development of the control program with user-friendly interface (for example, having large buttons etc.).

Based on article by Sergey Barichev, “Business Journal”, №13-14 (50)

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