Touch Nook STR: screen protection issues

[SteveDuck]

I took my new Nook STR to the beach yesterday. Attempted to protect it from the elements with a transparent ziplock plastic bag.

Worked great in sleep mode.

Attempting to wake the device & actually read did not work well at all.

I could not unlock the nook using the touchscreen thru the plastic bag. I needed to reach inside to touch the touch screen directly. Once in reading mode and bag sealed, the display proceeded to "freak out" as if being assailed by random touch input...despite the lack of input from my fingers. I was able to get a few page turns triggered via screen thru the plastic, but not necessarily in the desired direction. I experienced random page turns, in random directions, and a near constant presentation of the context menu where one can change fonts, etc.


The New Nook STR was unusable while sealed inside a ziplock bag.

This is a big disappointment. I bought this for use as an outdoor beach reader, planning to protect it from the elements.

I'm glad I did this test before spending a few bucks on a Trendy Digital WaterGuard, because I bet it won't work either.

I'm now wondering how stick-on screen protectors will affect performance.


Has anyone else tried touch thru screen protection?

[da_jane]

I had the same problem and returned my nook for a new one. I tried resetting, restarting, changing the settings but after about 5 minutes of reading the nook would start cycling through the pages without any input.

[RAH]

I wonder if this is static electricity from the bag.

I doubt if the screen protector sold by B&N would cause a problem like this. I suppose it might slightly affect the touch sensitivity, but probably not much. Of course, it doesn't give you as much protection as a plastic bag.

[khalleron]

Cool as the touchscreen is, for beach and tub reading, it might be best to get a reader without one.

Walmart.com has the Sony PRS-300 (same screen as the PRS-505) for $99.98, and the lighted cover for $10.00 when you buy them together.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-Reade...undle/12425705

[toddos]

Plastic bag != screen protector.

Remember, the touch screen on the TSR is not a capacitive touch screen like on the Nook Color (or iPhone/iPad/Android smartphones/etc). It's IR-based. There are a bunch of IR transmitters and receivers spaced around the inside of the bezel, and when you "touch" with your finger (or pen, or carrot stick, or feather, or ...) it determines the position of the touch based on occlusion of the IR signals.

Your screen "freaked out" because I suspect the plastic bag was not pulled taut. It sagged and dipped, and made the screen think it was being "touched" continuously in multiple places. A normal screen protector would be flat on the screen, below the IR transmissions, and thus shouldn't interfere. Of course it also won't really do much for protecting the rest of the reader.

Try pulling your baggy taut, so that the part over the top of the screen is tight and not sagging anywhere at all. You should no longer have touch issues, but of course you won't be able to use touch that way.

[paultakeda]

I think this sort of issue is going to besiege consumers who are used to LCD touchscreens, so it's probably best to save all you wrote, toddos, because it's going to come up again and again and again.

[SteveDuck]

Plastic bag != screen protector.

Agreed...I should have titled this thread "trouble attempting to protect Nook STR from elements while reading"...or something like that.


I'm aware the "touch" interface is IR based, not capacitive. I suspect it detects isolated ir spikes compared to ambient levels. I'll guess the a plastic bag creates IR spikes which get detected as touch input. I was using it on a tropical beach in full sun...and strong breezes which rendered futile any attempt to draw the bag taut .

I'm curious to know if the stick on screen protectors work trouble free or causes false input problems...although this would not provide the water, salt spray 7 sand protection I desire while reading

I'm also curious to know the results of anyone's experiments with a TrendyDigital Waterguard. Perhaps a purpose built transparent enclosure would not trigger false IR input.

This whole issue could be simply addressed by B&N within software with the addition of a setup option to temporarily disable touch input & re-enabling it when the nook button is pressed. This would allow for water protected reading sessions.


I suppose the best bet is to buy the extended warranty & return device if it gets damaged...and not worry about engaging in potentially damaging behavior.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by SteveDuck

Agreed...I should have titled this thread "trouble attempting to protect Nook STR from elements while reading"...or something like that.


I'm aware the "touch" interface is IR based, not capacitive. I suspect it detects isolated ir spikes compared to ambient levels. I'll guess the a plastic bag creates IR spikes which get detected as touch input. I was using it on a tropical beach in full sun...and strong breezes which rendered futile any attempt to draw the bag taut .

I'm curious to know if the stick on screen protectors work trouble free or causes false input problems...although this would not provide the water, salt spray 7 sand protection I desire while reading

I'm also curious to know the results of anyone's experiments with a TrendyDigital Waterguard. Perhaps a purpose built transparent enclosure would not trigger false IR input.

This whole issue could be simply addressed by B&N within software with the addition of a setup option to temporarily disable touch input & re-enabling it when the nook button is pressed. This would allow for water protected reading sessions.


I suppose the best bet is to buy the extended warranty & return device if it gets damaged...and not worry about engaging in potentially damaging behavior.

The IR touchscreen should be relatively imune to environment IR noise. It works off of occlusion (blocking the beam), not inclusion (adding more IR info) Think of it like a grid of IR beams across the page, one beam per pixel in the X and Y axes (I'm sure it's not that accurate, but let's just work with that). If you block the IR beam from getting to its corresponding transmitter, it can figure out by math where you're touching.



But when you put it in the baggy, it ends up touching the screen in a bunch of places all at once and it has no idea what's going on.



That's a side-profile of the screen, where the red dot is a transmitter and the blue dot is a receiver. Notice that they're slightly above the screen itself, which means that thin stick-on screen protectors should not interfere with the touch functionality (lower-quality, thicker protectors very well might). The light blue outline is a cross-section of your baggy. As you can see, it dips into the IR line multiple times. Now consider that in two dimensions and it should be pretty obvious why it "broke".

Note that external IR sources like sunlight shouldn't be an issue unless you hold the nook at really weird angles (and even then it shouldn't happen, if they used properly polarized lenses on the receivers for example).

[SteveDuck]

Toddos: Thanks for the detailed input.

... the red dot is a transmitter and the blue dot is a receiver. Notice that they're slightly above the screen itself...

I wonder if this design renders the new nook subject to false input from other sources of beam interference such as grains of sand and bits of hair which land on the screen. Took the nook to the barber, then the beach...with no protection. I had a few bits of debris collect on the margins of the screen & experienced a couple "random" page turns.
Once I cleared the screen, it behaved well.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by SteveDuck

Toddos: Thanks for the detailed input.

I wonder if this design renders the new nook subject to false input from other sources of beam interference such as grains of sand and bits of hair which land on the screen. Took the nook to the barber, then the beach...with no protection. I had a few bits of debris collect on the margins of the screen & experienced a couple "random" page turns.
Once I cleared the screen, it behaved well.

It's surely possible, but it seems like they've built some de-sensitivity into it. This was an issue that people had with the latest Sony touch screens, to the point where one person had the page turn simply because a fruit fly landed on the screen. I've poked around at my STR with a few random household objects, and it seems that if the "touch" area is significantly less than the size of a finger the Nook ignores it. So the sharpened tip of a pencil probably won't work (because the STR ignores it), but the unsharpened tip or the eraser end should.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Somebody posted a review that showed that the Sony stylus doesn't work with the STR. I am guessing that the desensitivity as you put it is probably related to the spacing of the IR sensors around the edge maybe?

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Somebody posted a review that showed that the Sony stylus doesn't work with the STR. I am guessing that the desensitivity as you put it is probably related to the spacing of the IR sensors around the edge maybe?

I suspect it's done in the touch screen driver software, as the STR panel is almost certainly the same hardware as the Sony panel and the Kobo panel. It wouldn't make economic sense to have custom-built panels for each of these devices that are otherwise identical -- 6", Pearl eInk, IR touch.

[Bookworm_Girl]

That could be. I agree that it must register the size (diameter) of the obstruction and that's why it doesn't register the Sony stylus (very thin). The STR is most likely less sensitive to tiny crumb specks than the Sony is.