types of touch screen monitors free sample

A surface capacitive touchscreen uses a transparent layer of conductive film overlaid onto a glass sublayer. A protective layer is then applied to the conductive film. Voltage is applied to the electrodes on the four corners of the glass sublayer to generate a uniform electric field. When a conductor touches the screen, current flows from the electrodes to the conductor. The location of the conductor is then calculated based on the activity of the currents. Surface capacitive touchscreens are often used for large screen panels.

Projected capacitive touchscreens are extremely precise and quick to respond and are typically found on smaller devices such as iPhones, iPod touches, or iPads. Unlike the surface capacitive touchscreens, which use four electrodes and a transparent conductive film, the projected capacitive touchscreens use a vast amount of transparent electrodes arranged in a specific pattern and on two separate layers. When a conductor moves near the screen, the electrical field between the electrodes changes, and sensors can instantly identify the location on the screen. Projected capacitive touchscreens can accurately register multi-touch events.

You interact with a touch screen monitor constantly throughout your daily life. You will see them in cell phones, ATM’s, kiosks, ticket vending machines, manufacturing plants and more. All of these use touch panels to enable the user to interact with a computer or device without the use of a keyboard or mouse. But did you know there are several uniquely different types of Touch Screens? The five most common types of touch screen are: 5-Wire Resistive, Surface Capacitive touch, Projected Capacitive (P-Cap), SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave), and IR (Infrared).

We are often asked “How does a touch screen monitor work?” A touch screen basically replaces the functionality of a keyboard and mouse. Below is a basic description of 5 types of touch screen monitor technology. The advantages and disadvantages of type of touch screen will help you decide which type touchscreen is most appropriate for your needs:

5-Wire Resistive Touch is the most widely touch technology in use today. A resistive touch screen monitor is composed of a glass panel and a film screen, each covered with a thin metallic layer, separated by a narrow gap. When a user touches the screen, the two metallic layers make contact, resulting in electrical flow. The point of contact is detected by this change in voltage.

Surface Capacitive touch screen is the second most popular type of touch screens on the market. In a surface capacitive touch screen monitor, a transparent electrode layer is placed on top of a glass panel. This is then covered by a protective cover. When an exposed finger touches the monitor screen, it reacts to the static electrical capacity of the human body. Some of the electrical charge transfers from the screen to the user. This decrease in capacitance is detected by sensors located at the four corners of the screen, allowing the controller to determine the touch point. Surface capacitive touch screens can only be activated by the touch of human skin or a stylus holding an electrical charge.

Projected Capacitive (P-Cap) is similar to Surface Capacitive, but it offers two primary advantages. First, in addition to a bare finger, it can also be activated with surgical gloves or thin cotton gloves. Secondly, P-Cap enables multi-touch activation (simultaneous input from two or more fingers). A projected capacitive touch screen is composed of a sheet of glass with embedded transparent electrode films and an IC chip. This creates a three dimensional electrostatic field. When a finger comes into contact with the screen, the ratios of the electrical currents change and the computer is able to detect the touch points. All our P-Cap touch screens feature a Zero-Bezel enclosure.

SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) touch screen monitors utilize a series of piezoelectric transducers and receivers. These are positioned along the sides of the monitor’s glass plate to create an invisible grid of ultrasonic waves on the surface. When the panel is touched, a portion of the wave is absorbed. This allows the receiving transducer to locate the touch point and send this data to the computer. SAW monitors can be activated by a finger, gloved hand, or soft-tip stylus. SAW monitors offer easy use and high visibility.

IR (Infrared) type touch screen monitors do not overlay the display with an additional screen or screen sandwich. Instead, infrared monitors use IR emitters and receivers to create an invisible grid of light beams across the screen. This ensures the best possible image quality. When an object interrupts the invisible infrared light beam, the sensors are able to locate the touch point. The X and Y coordinates are then sent to the controller.

We hope you found these touch screen basics useful. TRU-Vu provides industrial touch screen monitors in a wide range of sizes and configurations. This includes UL60601-1 Medical touch screens, Sunlight Readable touch screens,Open Frame touch screens, Waterproof touch screens and many custom touch screen designs. You can learn more by viewing TRU-Vu Touchscreens or call us at 847-259-2344. To address safety and hygiene concerns, see our article on “Touch Screen Cleaning and Disinfecting“.

As the world returns to the office — at least in some capacity — one of the biggest concerns that companies have is ensuring that a given work set-up keeps employees safe, connected, happy, and effective at doing their work. What an office setting will look like will vary greatly, however, it is becoming more and more accepted that work is not a place you go, it"s a thing that you do. And as such the work-from-anywhere environment will become increasingly more common.

Because of this, touchscreen displays will play an important role in allowing digital collaboration between hybrid teams to continue in a seamless way. Up until a few years ago, touchscreens were clunky devices that were too complex and difficult to use. But improvements in the accuracy of the touch interface have enhanced the user experience greatly. You can now use them with the familiarity of your personal touch devices.

There are a number of great reasons for using digital devices in your sessions, but choosing which touchscreen display to get is not that straightforward. The touchscreen display market is becoming increasingly crowded with many different brands, screen technologies, sizes, and extras to choose from. And more importantly also the space, software, methods, and people need to be taken into account before such an investment is made.

To be able to install MURAL the display needs to run on Windows 10. If the integrated PC doesn’t do this you can oftentimes insert a Windows 10 slot-in PC or connect a personal device that runs Windows 10.

For a smooth MURAL experience we recommend using a good graphics card and at least 8GB of RAM (but preferably 16GB of RAM). This will make sure the touch experience is smooth.

Try quick drawing and moving sticky notes in MURAL to see how the latency (delay) of the screen is. The less latency the better, as we’ve seen screens not being used because of their high latency.

By asking yourself each of the questions below, you can make sure that you are making an investment in a touchscreen display that will allow your hybrid, remote, and in-person teams to collaborate effectively.

Start with the question: what is the main purpose and use case for this touchscreen display? Too often we have seen touchscreens collecting dust because the purpose for using it wasn’t clear from the beginning.

The purpose of this type of space is to generate ideas or solve complex problems collaboratively. Collaborators often work standing up and sessions typically last several hours to even full days.

Work here is often done in break-out groups of five to eight people where they will work on one screen to solve a problem using a variety of techniques. This set-up is very flexible and groups are often moved around different areas of the space. Touch experience, multi-touch (allows multiple people to work on the screen at the same time) and movability of the device are very important here. The screen size can also be a bit smaller. For instance, you can even do breakout group work on a 27” touchscreen monitor set up on a hightop table.

In a presentation room a presenter conducts a speech or presentation before an audience of attendees. This can be the plenary section of a workshop or a presentation on itself.

The only person interacting with the screen will be a presenter or facilitator, to display their presentation, synthesize work and make annotations. The larger the screen the better here. Sometimes it is even connected to a large projector for bigger groups. Multi-touch experience is not crucial. And the screen might be in a fixed position.

The purpose of meeting rooms is often to make decisions (on budgets or project plans for example). These meetings are typically short (max. one hour), attendees work standing up or sitting down, and include 2 to 8 people.

Touchscreen displays typically come in screen diameters of 55”, 65”, 75” and 85”. But also 27” touchscreen monitors such as the Microsoft Surface Studio could work well.

If we bring this back to the use cases mentioned earlier, break-out sessions in innovation labs are often best served by a 55-65” screen, but the 27” Microsoft Surface Studio on top of a high table works just as well. For presentation rooms you would almost always need to go for the largest screen size, or even connect it to a projector with a larger screen size. And meeting rooms could best use a 55-75” screen, depending on the size of the room.

We’ve seen large touchscreen displays mounted to a wall in a meeting room where it was just being used for screen sharing like a normal TV screen. You want to avoid that.

The advantage of having the screen on a rolling stand is that its users will be able to work in the best places to support whatever task is at hand. It allows people to be more agile and creative. Which is essential for teams in innovation labs. But it can also provide more flexibility to meeting and presentation rooms, as you are likely not going to equip every single room with a touchscreen display.

Reasons for why touchscreen displays are fixed to a wall are because of saving space and aesthetics. But also IT might not want to have expensive equipment moving around. And the extra cost of a rolling stand might weigh in sometimes too.

Next to a big screen on a rolling stand, a smart projector like Adok is an interesting solution to provide a touch ‘screen’ in a portable format, that can be set up anywhere.

The adoption of any tool is driven by its ease of use. When something works well its use is seamless to the user, reducing the need for training and support. But next to ease of use, also security is an essential aspect of a device that is commonly placed in shared office spaces.

Built in PCs can run on Windows 10, but regularly run on an OS (Operating System) specific to the manufacturer (based on Android). These PCs are often very entry-level and just powerful enough for basic software.

Built-in PCs as well as OPS PCs can run on both PC/Desktop Mode or Kiosk Mode. PC/Desktop mode is mainly used in individual offices or secured rooms, because all the settings and files on the PC are freely accessible.

Microsoft has developed a specific Windows 10 version for their Surface Hub device that essentially provides a kiosk mode. UC Workspace and Kickle are two examples of software that aim to provide this type of control to any other device type.

OPS PC’s are shipped with every Operating System PC’s can have and are usually the norm for corporate clients, for example to run Windows 10 that is standard across other devices. Next to that these PCs are added to have more power in order to run more advanced software and have a better touch experience. Just like built-in PCs these can be set up both in PC/Desktop or Kiosk mode.

This is a new concept for touchscreen displays that is gaining popularity recently. Here the display is basically just an empty screen without any operating system. You just connect your own device to make use of the screen. It’s plug & play to project your device’s display on the big screen and use its touchscreen to control. This has two advantages. No worries for IT because there is nothing to secure on the touchscreen display. And ease of use for the user because they know very well how to operate their personal device.

The Microsoft Windows Collaboration Displays developed by Avocor and Sharp are great examples of this. But you can essentially connect your personal device to any touchscreen display. You can for example connect your device running Windows 10 to a Samsung Flip (that has an Android based OS) to run the apps you need.

To make a choice between these three modes it is important to review the use case, which OS is needed for the software users use and IT security guidelines.

Some touchscreen displays come with webcam and microphone integrated. Others are easily upgradeable with a camera plus microphone such as the Huddly. Both of these options work great when collaborating with a smaller team close to the screen.