Making A Glove Work With A Touch Screen

 What are those gloves? They look awesome!!

That sounds like the burton logo.

https://www.nexternal.com/shreddingb/images/burton%20logo.jpg

Would these gloves work with a classic ipod wheel? That'd be great, cause then I wouldn't have to keep taking off my gloves to adjust the volume.

I dunno if anyone asked this, but why wouldn't you just sew some fine copper wire into the finger.  The reason being the wire would be easily at hand rather than ordering conductive thread. Just a thought.

Fair enough, there seems to be some ways around it to me but the conductive thread looks like the best way to do it. The screen seems pretty indestructible to anything coming into contact with it (except the ground when innocently dropped...). Either way, good idea and nice ible.

I put together a kit on ebay to make it easy to convert your gloves works pretty good :)  and pretty cheap with everything you need, if you search for

Iphone / Ipod Winter Glove Kit

you can find it :)  or if you have everything already and need help msg me and I can help you out with making your own :)

You could also save a lot of effort, and use a AA or AAA battery.

It even works with one that's dead.

 That does work, but then you have to have a battery handy. Sewing a few pieces of thread into a glove isn't really much effort, then you never have to remember your battery... plus it's so much cooler to have magic gloves ;)

My ipod works with gloves...?
It's not the conductivity, it's the heat.

It is most certainly the conductivity. The iPhone's screen is a capacitive touchscreen, and as it says on Wikipedia, "A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide (ITO). As the human body is also a conductor, touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the local electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance." Laptop trackpads and iPod scroll-wheels work using the same principle, so this glove mod can also be used for those devices.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#Capacitive
And here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_sensing
And for the iPhone specifics, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone#Screen_and_input

A bit late, If you look below you'll see I already know that...

My point is that ipods do not work with cold fingers.

My iPhone most certainly does work with cold fingers. I'm not sure you are right about this...

Ipods I have:
G2 Original (30GB)
G5 Video (30GB)
V1 Touch (32GB)
V2 Touch (32GB)

NONE of them work in the climate here, how cold are you talking?

My Ipod shuffle G1 and G2 Both work, obviously.

 My Touch G1 works fine when my fingers are cold. Here's a specific: -27. Celsius.

Mine stops working before then, about -20 C.

But some of my friends do work, so it might be just mine.

But when it gets really cold, none of them work (The coldest temperature here was below -50 C )

 Noticed the same while living my entire life in Finland. My theory is that when your hands are warm they are rarely very dry, but when they're cold they are more dry than warm hands leading to less conductive hands so maybe when they're cold the touchwheel or touchscreen recognizes them as some kind of "background noice".

Excellent theory. I think you're probably right.

 Someone probably said the same before me. Not reading all comments before posting leads to nowhere.

That or warmth=sweat, Sweat=salt, Salt = conductivity

Just stick a finger up your nose for a few seconds before you use the ipod touch, or iphone, and you'll be good as gold (no pun intended).

"It's not the heat, its the humidty"

heat would be very inaccurate and you really need to do research before you talk.

roy you are the reason why i hate people...mostly, mostly

i know im a duche bag and im sorry didnt mean for that to come out as offensive

Explain why my ipod works ONLY when my fingers are warm, no matter how thick the gloves I am wearing it still works if the tips are warm.

its called capacitive touch which means it acts like a capacitor and not any heat sensor and you cant tell if your fingers are cold or not, your body temperature is mostly constant. and if your i pod doesnt work somtimes then your in trouble and do you really think apple is dumb enough to do somthing like that where if its freezing out side the device wont work. and we are talking about the ipod touch if your getting confused about another one.

Why does it work with something that's warm then?

give me an example of somthign you used that was warm and it worked

It worked with my glove that I wasn't wearing.

im sure it dident and again is it an itouch or the older ones that you rotate

One of the very first Ipod touches

 i think its possible that your glove was just thin at that moment or the heat let your electric current go through, but the ipod wouldn't be designed to sense heat because it should work with cold fingers, and not while in a hot bag.

Ok, in that case, think differently.
Why doesn't it work with cold fingers?
 I agree it probably isn't heat, but why would it not work with cold fingers?

 i said they design the product to work with cold fingers. i'm sorry but you don't need to keep commenting on this there are already a lot of posts explaining how they work.

So you're saying they designed it to work, but it doesn't?

Give it up, chump. It's not heat sensitive.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone1.htm

Ok, I'll ask it in the questions section, because nobody is capable of explaining why ipods don't work when you're cold.

i hope this helps with the confusion arguments on this instructable , sorry for making is so long

there are 2 types of touch screens, the kind that work with a stylus, i will call them "type A" (PDA, Nintendo DS), and the kind that you use with your finger "type B"(ipod touch/iphone,ATM machines)  none of them are heat sensitive.
with "type A" there is a sensor that detects where the stylus (or finger, they work with just about anything) is at to work.  "typeB" have a special membrain between the screen and circuit boards behind the screen.  when using that kind of touch screen your finger is literally smashing the membrane and the screen together,(which is why an iphone will not work with a stylus, its not based on pressure but on surface area of the pressed space). like most electronics when its to cold/to hot they will malfunction slightly.  they are calibrated so that a finger is the "only" thing that works on them, (other wise they would do weird things in your pocket) gloves usually make touch screens not work because they get in the way of the small amount of electricity humans naturally have in there bodies.  this "electricity" causes the touch screen to get a different reading where ever your finger is. if your gloves are thin enough they will not interfere with the "connection".  if you want more information on this topic just send me a message, ill go in more depth and try to add some pictures if that will help.

OK, I get that.
But what I don't get is why the "type B" ones don't work when your fingers are really cold.

 its not that your fingers are cold, as i stated before,"like most electronics when its to cold/hot they will malfunction.  in the "type B" ones the membrane is slightly frozen so its not as responsive, or the circuit boards are to cold and not functioning.  if the device has been in your pocket or some place "just the right temperature" but your hands are cold (ipod warm, hand cold) then it is a lack of electrostatic connection due to cold hands being to dry/moist to successfully carry a large enough charge to make a reading.  if you still have more questions please send me a private message, this question chain is getting ridiculously long

"it is a lack of electrostatic connection due to cold hands being to dry/moist"
Thanks, no more questions.

Although, every comment increased the number of comments on this ible :P

 i'm saying that they designed it to work with cold fingers so they wouldn't make it heat sensitive. and i really don't care if you don't understand anymore. there are way too many comments on this.

Arrogance. (Sigh)

 Bartboy got McPwned

Lol

Is it an ipod touch or an ipod with a click wheel?