SpecialEffect's accessible GameBase

Hello,
well, I don't know if this is really helpfully but I thought of using capactive buttons instead of push-buttons.

Capacitive technology is mostly used in high-priced smartphones as a touchscreen and in some consumer electronics to replace physical buttons (-> old PS3 power/eject button). Capacitive switches and screens use the capacity of living material (-> human finger) - to be more specific the water in it - to change the capacitance of the switch/screen material.

As an effect you do NOT have to apply any pressure to a capacitive switch. While you have to really push a usual switch you only have to slightly touch a capacitive sensor (actually getting very near to the sensor will be enough).

As mentioned before I'm not sure if this could help anyone but maybe there are people who are getting tired of applying a lot of pressure to switches due to a muscular disease.

Technically you COULD implement everything on a simple microcontroller but that's a big task (the bad thing about it is the adjustment). There are very good solutions by ATMEL. The QTouch 1103 microchip for example offers up to 10 touch inputs and a UART output. Using a USB microcontroller it could be turned into a simple USB HID (-> operates like a keyboard/joypad). The chip is about 5€. Some more components are needed for operation, the whole thing would be about 10€. I guess that's a very good price for such a device.

Tell me whether it could useful, then I'll do some more research and maybe build a prototype.
TD

Hi TD,

Wow, thanks for all this really useful advice. This idea sounds brilliant - especially tied up with this: http://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2010/05/touch-sensitive-gaming-on-pc.html.

I'd be really interested in this. I guess as an HID device, if acting as a keyboard, it could work on an Xbox 360 via an XFPS 360 adapter?

Even if just as a PC device, this sounds very interesting idea. Please do run with a prototype, and if it's only going to be 10 euros or so, I'll happily PayPal you the amount.

Thanks again. Great to have you on board!

Barrie

Yeah I could make it work with the XFPS thing.

But please don't mess up capacitive switches with capacitive touch panels, the difference is that with the cheap switch solution you will only be able to detect whether the switch was touched or not, no way to get the position of the user's finger.

Of course you can add multiple switches though.

Still interested in a prototype? I'll try finding a shop where I can buy the chip then.
Another problem is the SMD package of the chip, those are designed to be placed onto a PCB. I'll try to come up with a solution for that.
TD

All sounds very good. No worries re. the cheap solution. I'm thinking initially of someone who might use an off-the-shelf glide-pad for mouse control / thumb-stick control - and your capacitive switches for the other hand for super-light movement to activate several extra game functions (e.g. the A,B,X,Y buttons, or shape buttons on a PS2). Thinking of an alternative to the keyboard interface, would it be possible to get these super-light capacitive switches connecting to basic accessibility switch interfaces using the standard 3.5mm plug/socket standard? That way they could be attached to a huge array of toys, gadgets, game interfaces.

would it be possible to get these super-light capacitive switches connecting to basic accessibility switch interfaces using the standard 3.5mm plug/socket standard? That way they could be attached to a huge array of toys, gadgets, game interfaces.

yes. that's what I'm trying to do
but getting a controller IC seems to be very hard since almost no shop sells them...
TD

okay I found some information on building those things on your own
you will need some tricks for calibration but things should work then i guess
I'll try it when I get some time
TD

Thank you! In your own time of course. Whatever you can manage is hugely appreciated.

no way to do it with a simple microprocessor
the calibration algorythms are too hard to implement -> it won't work well
I'll search for a controller with good availability
TD

Thanks for update. Let us know how you go.

things are turning out bad i guess
the needed chips are very rare and shipping is incredibly high
I won't spend 50€ on some touch controllers just to try how they work
things would be different if this would be requested by someone but it's to expensive for no purpose

close?
TD

Hold fire, I guess. There is something in the pipeline, but will have to check out a few more standard options first. I'm waiting on a video from an OT of the two potential users of touch sensitive controls. Might need to delve into your idea quickly, maybe not until someway off in the future. Thanks so much for your efforts so far.

no problem
something different came into my mind
I don't know what exactly those interfaces are used for but have you ever thought of using an android based device as a touch interface?
android is a linux based open source mobile operating system running a dalvik java virtual machine
so there are mobile phones with capacitive touch screens running android
the SDK is pretty simple to use since it's all java and the android plugin for eclipse even features an interface designer
the downside of this is the high price of android phones, I have a HTC Desire phone, that was about 420€, the cheapest android phones are like 250€
I was able to implement a very simple 3D game on android in only one day without any knowledge of the sdk so it should be pretty simple for a good dev to make the needed application

that would consist of two parts, the android app and a server app running on a pc
the PC thing would listen to a TCP port and the android app would connect to that port through a WiFi network
the rest is simple, android app samples input, pushes them through the tcp connection, pc app receives the commands, hooks into mouse/keyboard driver and inject the button values
TD

Very interesting, and would work out a lot cheaper that using an iPhone with Air Mouse. I think I'll first take a look at what can be achieved with a Track mapper touch pad in tandem with something like the Peregrine glove (http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/1/AGS/AGS-various.htm). Thanks for illuminating all these possibilities that I've never really considered before, due to them being beyond my skills. Exciting to think what could be.