I’ve always been fascinated by touchscreens. Could someone explain in simple terms how touchscreens detect and respond to our touch inputs?
In: Technology
there are tiny wires going across the screen in a grid pattern, so small that you can’t see them, that have electricity flowing through them. Your finger interferes with that flow and the location of the interference is communicated to the software on the device and updates the screen image to reflect the changes, such as launching an app.
There’s two types:
**Resistive touchscreens**: These are like what you get on old PDAs or the Nintendo DS. You can tell it’s a resistive touchscreen because they usually feel a little “plasticy,” there’s a certain “give,” when you press on the screen, and anything will usually activate them from your finger to a toothpick. This type of touch screen works by having a grid of conductive material on a top, flexible layer, a grid of conductive material on the bottom glass screen, and about 1mm of space between the two. When you press down you press the two together, completing the circuit. Based on which wires in the grid were connected, the device knows where you touched.
**Capacitive touchscreens**: These are what you get on every smartphone since 2007 and most modern smart devices. There’s no “give,” to these screens, and they’re usually made out of glass. There’s a grid of microscopic wires embedded in the screen, and when you touch with your finger (or a special stylus) your finger completes the circuit between the segments of the grid, letting the device know where you touched based on where the connection was completed.
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