Touch screen is the simplest and most direct way to interact with computers. Although it was only born in 1971, it is a new technology first promoted to the market by Elo TouchSystems, but it is the most basic way for people to interact. You can point to any place you need. Both adults and children can use it directly.

The function of touch screen has been successfully developed and applied in a wide range of commercial fields. Airlines use touch screen to simulate the running state of aircraft and train their pilots. Real estate merchants use touch screens to allow buyers to click with their fingers to get the true color renderings of the house for easy selection. Greeting card companies use touch screens to enable customers to create their own personalized greeting cards. Hotel catering industry uses them to simplify operations and achieve click-through sales. Medical schools use it to train their own students so that they can cope with emergencies.

although it has been used in industry, the most basic function of the touch screen has never changed.

the touch screen enables a person without any training to use the computer immediately.

Users can choose to click on a clearly defined menu, so touch screen technology actually eliminates mistakes in user operation.

touch screen technology eliminates cumbersome and daunting keyboards and mice.

the touch screen is strong enough to withstand many harsh environments, which usually damage the keyboard and mouse easily.

Touch screen technology provides the quickest path to all digital media, and it does not need complicated text descriptions.

touch screen technology does not need to add other input devices on the desktop or anywhere else, because the input devices have been integrated into the display.

how does the touch screen work?

The following five basic components constitute a touch screen system:

A touch screen for touch.

a computer (usually a personal computer) suitable for touch screen display.

a control card that can convert touch signals into control signals.

a set of drivers for communication between the control card and the operating system.

A set of application development software, which enables touch program developers to establish their own application touch programs and adapt the existing touch application contents and methods according to their own needs.

who is buying a touch screen?

Many different types of users are shopping for touch screens to simplify computer operation and speed up access to intermediate data. Most of the buyers are from original equipment suppliers (OEM), and many of them realize the great value of eliminating the keyboard in the use of the client and using a more direct and friendly touch screen as the user interface. OEM has developed many application programs based on finger click, which are suitable for all walks of life. They can be applied to hospitals, restaurants, factories and stadiums, as well as public facilities such as tree-lined paths and tourist centers.

Like other system integrators, value-added distributors, such as IBM, DEC, Apple and EDS, have also purchased a large number of touch screen devices and designed and installed them in products to provide them to customers as a whole. In many cases, value-added distributors and system integrators focus on the best man-machine interface and use touch screen technology to improve the functions of their products in limited solutions or limited environments, so as to increase their use value and commercial value. The main reason why more and more value-added dealers and system integrators use touch screen interface is that it can simplify the man-machine interface.

many large companies also buy touch screens as information technology solutions in their respective fields. For example, many large financial institutions use touch screen technology as a trading platform. Some big retailers like Macy's and J.C. Penny Co use touch screens for classified warehousing.

Elo TouchSystems: redefining touch technology

Elo TouchSystems, which founded touch screen technology, has long recognized the potential of a touch screen system with excellent design. After more than 21 years of unremitting efforts by engineers of Elo TouchSystems, touch technology and products have been developed very well. In this process, they have repeatedly redefined the main trend of the touch screen industry. Today, the company has 27 technical patents related to all kinds of touch products, including many pressure-sensitive technologies-this technology is the most popular touch screen technology at present, and also has several surface wave technologies-which can ensure that touch products have good durability and reliability in harsh or public environments.

auxiliary equipment support: easily form a system

Just like an epic movie, the protagonist of the movie can get hundreds of special help. Elo TouchSystems' production line also provides many auxiliary equipment, which are not as conspicuous as the touch screen itself, but they are essential components to form a touch screen system. First, Elo TouchSystems has provided a complete control card production line, which can provide various types and specifications of control cards, from bus and serial structure to the bus specification of Macs, and even make special interfaces that can be embedded in their computer boards according to the requirements of OEMs. Second, the production line of Elo TouchSystems provides a series of perfect drivers and application software development programs, which makes it easy for developers to develop touch-driven applications. For example, on-screen mouse software is a unique and innovative application, which can transform a mouse-driven program into a program that can be controlled by touch. On-screen mouse software enables the touch screen to simulate various functions of the mouse, and users can pull down menus with their fingers to complete daily affairs. Screen mouse software can be used in DOS, Windows, OS/2, Macintosh and Windows NT operating systems.

in addition, the touch screen provided by Elo TouchSystems can meet the requirements of various models and sizes of displays that are popular today. the touch screen products of elo touch systems can be installed in flat, cylindrical and spherical cathode ray tubes, and can also be installed on electronic light-emitting tubes and liquid crystal displays, even meeting the requirements of new technologies such as plasma. The company can provide a variety of sizes, ranging from small curved units on large or oversized displays to small flat touch screens suitable for compact point-of-sale systems.

IntelliTouch technology: a breakthrough in touch screen technology

IntelliTouch touch screen technology (intelligent touch screen technology) is a surface wave-based technology, which has the advantages of providing the best and clearest image display effect and the durability of the touch screen. Once the surface wave technology was introduced in 1997, it immediately promoted a breakthrough leap in the touch screen industry. Why do you say that? Because it is the first and only technology that can be used directly on the glass display screen so far, there is no need for additional plastic coating, conductive coating or special inclined base of cathode ray tube. Only a glass sensing layer is needed between the user and the screen. Surface wave technology provides users with unparalleled clarity and durability. Elo TouchSystems applied this technology to the production line of IntelliTouch touch screen, which immediately made the products of this touch screen family the most popular products for developers. They are mainly used in high-definition graphics processing and public display systems, and you can often find their applications in electronic phone books, video games and computer simulation training systems.

working principle of surface wave technology

the working principle of intelligent touch screen based on surface wave technology is introduced below: the intelligent touch screen includes a high-definition glass coating matched with the shape of the display, and a piezoelectric transducer for transmitting and receiving signals and a set of reflection strips are arranged on the coating in each axial direction. The touch screen controller sends a pulse signal with a frequency of 5MHz to the transmitting transducer and converts it into a surface acoustic wave signal. This surface acoustic wave is a mechanical wave that can propagate on the surface of a glass object. The reflective strip can propagate this pulse signal to the surface of the coating. When a finger or a gloved hand or other soft object touches the touch screen, the vibration wave in this area will be absorbed. The control card can measure the coordinates of the X axis and the Y axis you clicked by analyzing the change of the received signal, so as to know the area you clicked. Similarly, the Z-axis value can be measured by the number of signals absorbed. Unlike other technologies, the click position can only be judged by the ratio, so it is easy to drift and cause wrong reactions. Intelligent touch screen technology determines that it is a stable technology and can provide drift-free operation.

IntelliTouch touch screen production line

IntelliTouch touch screen series products are very popular in applications where picture and reliability are the priority. For example, IntelliTouch touch screen can be used in commodity catalog system, video gambling system, real-time real estate inventory system, and also in the increasingly popular computer simulation training system for training nurses, pilots, managers and other types of employees. All the above applications need high-quality image output, and the IntelliTouch touch screen can fully meet the above requirements.

IntelliTouch touch screen products can not only provide brighter and clearer images, but also resist external impact and ensure good reliability because it is only composed of a simple single-layer structure. The traditional touch screen has such a common problem that it can't repair the scratched conductive coating, while the IntelliTouch touch screen has no such problem because of its all-glass structure, and it can resist the damage of external forces. We know that the touch screen installed in some public places (such as boulevards, tourist centers, supermarkets, etc.) is easy to be damaged due to customers' mistakes or rough operations. At this time, the IntelliTouch touch screen can fully reflect its advantages. Reliability statistics have been made on touch screens all over the United States. IntelliTouch touch screen is often used in video games in bars (such as touch poker machines), so some gamblers who lose their eyes often use it to vent their grievances, but even so, it can still withstand such damage and work well. Therefore, the IntelliTouch touch screen system without drift effect can ensure good reliability and can work continuously without the trouble of frequent calibration.

In some cold application environments, other touch screens will encounter a problem: users often wear thick cold gloves, so it is difficult to activate the control mechanism of the touch screen. At this time, the IntelliTouch touch screen provides you with a good solution. If you use the IntelliTouch touch screen, you can avoid such troubles, and it can respond to your operation well whether you wear gloves or not.

Pressure sensitivity: Three-dimensional space application

In addition to being sensitive to the touched area, the surface wave IntelliTouch touch screen can also be sensitive to the applied pressure, which adds more control means for users. For example, the engineer in charge of checking the engine quality in the engine factory can change the engine speed to check the engine quality by changing the force of clicking an icon.

AccuTouch touch screen technology: the leader in touch screen field

In addition to surface wave technology products, Elo TouchSystems also produces and sells another popular touch screen product, resistive touch screen. Elo TouchSystems has applied their patent of resistive touch screen to AccuTouch's touch screen production line. The upper AccuTouch touch screen can show its good efficiency and reliability in polluted and humid environment, and can be used in restaurants, factories, hospitals and other applications.

let's introduce the working principle of AccuTouch (resistive touch screen) technology: each touch screen is composed of a glass panel that is well matched with the display, and there is a transparent hard plastic conductive layer on the inside of the glass layer, and there is a gap between this conductive layer and the glass layer that is less than one thousandth of an inch. When the screen is clicked by hand, The plastic conductive layer will contact the inner glass layer and transmit the click signal, so that the controller can determine the click position within one hundredth of a second.

application of AccuTouch touch screen

many users often choose accutouch touch screen for its durability and good performance even in demanding occasions. If necessary, you can even add a sealing protection layer on the surface of the AccuTouch touch screen to make the display waterproof. This makes it widely used in fast food, high-end restaurants and other click-through consumption occasions, and cashiers can click on it to input a sales message. According to the statistics of the national emergency management agency, AccuTouch touch screens are also widely used in factories. In medicine, AccuTouch touch screen can resist all kinds of pollution and provide a simple and good working interface for medical workers.

versatility: you can also operate the touch screen with gloves on

Unlike other touch screen technologies, both AccuTouch and IntelliTouch touch screens can be operated with gloves on, which makes it not only suitable for applications in cold environments in public places, but more importantly, it can meet many occasions such as food processing, hospitals, factories, etc. where gloves need to be used frequently. Sometimes workers in these situations have to wear gloves before they can do their homework. For example, some states in the United States (such as New York) stipulate that food processors must wear gloves when they are working. At this time, this technology fully embodies its advantages. Elo TouchSystems provides a good solution to such a difficult problem.

What will be the next step-the future of touch screen technology

Since the mid-1991s, several different trends have changed the booming touch screen market. First of all, the price of touch screen will continue to decline, and the application ability of touch screen will be further developed. This good trend will improve the performance-price ratio of products, thus promoting the sales of products. Especially in the application of personal computer in unknown fields, it can provide a friendly user interface for unskilled operators.

Elo TouchSystems plans to ensure that their latest touch screen products will be launched on the market simultaneously with the latest monitors. At the same time, Elo TouchSystems also focuses on products controlled by microprocessors and software, and they are still in personal computers.