New ‘Stickers’ Support Touchscreen Functions with Gloved Fingers

Ever wish you could use your smartphone or tablet computer while wearing gloves? With winter right around the corner, many people will be wearing gloves to protect themselves from the sub-freezing temperatures. Unfortunately, though, many touchscreen devices don’t function with gloved fingers.

We’ve talked about this before on our blog, but it’s worth mentioning again that touchscreen devices are powered by one of two primary technologies: resistive or capacitive. In resistive touchscreen devices, touch is identified by the pressing of two or more layers. This is in stark contrast to capacitive touchscreen devices, which measure the disturbance of an electrical field created by the user. Because our bodies have a small but noticeable electrical charge, capacitive devices can identify touch by measuring the difference in electrical charge created upon touch.

Although effect, capacitive touchscreens have some caveats, such as the inability to use them with gloves. If you wear gloves, the electrical charge from your body won’t transfer over to the device; thus, it’s not able to identify your touch. But a new company has proposed a simple solution to this problem: stickers.

No, that’s not a typo. TAPS is a special type of stickers with fingerprints that transforms gloves into a working pair of touchscreen gloves. Furthermore, they can be used to unlock mobile devices with fingerprint recognition.

TAPS is currently a Kickstarter project, so there’s no guarantee that it will turn into a working product. Nonetheless, it’s certainly a promising and innovative idea that’s sure to turn heads.

As explained by the creators, these stickers are designed to work on nearly all touchscreen devices. The user simply places the sticker to the tip of his or her gloves, at which point they will register an approved fingerprint to use with the sticker. The actual sticker features nanoparticle technology that identifies prints. Whether or not TAPS works, though, remains open to debate. We’ll have to wait until the product is released before making any conclusions.

“TAPS is a touchscreen sticker that will make any glove touchscreen compatible. It is also built with a unique fingerprint for touch ID function. Powered using Nanotips®, TAPS is made with an extremely adhesive conductive material that can be applied to any surface for touch capability. TAPS are formulated to stick and stay on almost any surface and guaranteed to work on all touchscreen devices,” explained the company.

What do you think of TAPS?