Random touches on Onyx Boox Poke 3

[jamescridland]

I love my little Poke 3, but recently it is randomly opening the menu (I use KoReader) as I read books. It seems to be random, ghost touches to the top of the screen. Those touches are getting worse, too, as time goes on.

Has anyone else seen this? It appears to only be the top of the screen - is this a swelling battery (is there a website showing the insides of this thing)? Is there something I can be doing to help fix it?

Help would be very welcome.

[jamescridland]

Perhaps to help others - https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/s/tw3S1L3QOE has a view of the inside of the Poke 2, which I suspect is quite similar. That shows the battery is behind the top of the screen, and confirms my suspicion that it’s a swollen battery, pressing against the screen from the inside.

I wonder where I get a replacement battery from?

[Renate]

How often does this happen?
If it's once an hour it will be hard to trace.
You can use my UsbMode.apk (in my sig) which will report touches.
You can also use Settings > Developer options > Show taps.
Also Show pointer.

Of course, I've taken my Poke3 apart.
Do you have a cover (the one with the plastic "cradle" in the back)?
You can take off the proper back of the device and put it in the cradle.
That it's semi-open on the edges it will collect more dust inside.
But this gives you some breathing space if it is the battery.

This is actually how I have my Poke3 after the battery swelled and died and I had to replace it with a battery to something else which is thicker than the stock super-thin battery.

[jamescridland]

Originally Posted by Renate

How often does this happen?

Seems to be once every five minutes now. It's beginning to be quite frustrating.

But - I've decided it's probably the battery, so have spent about AUD$35 on a replacement battery from Ali Express. The only downside is that I'll have to wait for delivery - apparently it might take 60 days!

Originally Posted by Renate

You can also use Settings > Developer options > Show taps.

Nice idea; but I guess I think I can guess where they're coming from now.

Originally Posted by Renate

Do you have a cover (the one with the plastic "cradle" in the back)? You can take off the proper back of the device and put it in the cradle.

I don't have a cover for it - it didn't come with one, and I don't much like covers.

But I did consider opening the top back up slightly, to relax the battery pressure against the screen - assuming that's to blame - while I wait for the replacement. Annoyingly, it's only started happening one week before a long set of flights over the next three weeks: and I use the Poke 3 the most in an aeroplane. But perhaps it's the best thing to do in the meantime.

Thanks!

[Renate]

Well, since it's capactive touch, I'm not really sure that pressure on the back can do anything.
I put my Poke3 face down on the desk (using my AdbGrab to monitor the screeen) and pressed as hard as I could on the battery and also directly the aluminum shield behind the display and could not get any touches.

[jamescridland]

Originally Posted by Renate

Well, since it's capactive touch, I'm not really sure that pressure on the back can do anything.
I put my Poke3 face down on the desk (using my AdbGrab to monitor the screeen) and pressed as hard as I could on the battery and also directly the aluminum shield behind the display and could not get any touches.

Ah, that's interesting. I can get the menu to show up by putting pressure above the screen.

"Show touches" seems not to actually show quick touches, such as a tap to advance the book page. However, the equivalent of a click or tap at the top of the screen appears to happen throughout the UI, not just in KOReader, so perhaps something worse is happening to the device. Might open it up anyway to take a peek.

[Renate]

Use my UsbMode.apk instead of a reader app. A reader app will be flipping pages and make the tap visualization hard to see. UsbMode.apk will be showing coords.

[jamescridland]

Checking back in again...

The replacement battery (with tools) came from AliExpress.

I used the spudger to open up the back of the Poke3, and looked at the original battery inside the unit. It has not swelled and looks fine. (It's retaining its charge perfectly well anyway).

It also seems that the battery itself is positioned below the top of the screen, and therefore even if it were expanding, it couldn't be pressing the top menu bar anyway. I must say, I was quite impressed at the build quality inside - everything looked very nicely done.

So, I closed the Poke3 back up again. And, perhaps predictably, there have been no more phantom screen presses. I can only guess that there was something which I've now dislodged that was confusing the digitiser.