Support DIY and Instructables : Become a Pro Member Today!

Making A Glove Work With A Touch Screen

intro
Creative swashbuckler. Jack of all trades, master of a couple. If it involves computers, cooking, mechanical design, material science, electronics, photography or just about anything else I'm inter...
more »
 

introMaking A Glove Work With A Touch Screen

You can do this in just a few minutes without a lot of know-how. 

Winter's coming up (if you're in the Northern Hemisphere) and with winter comes cold  weather, and with cold weather comes gloves.  But even in the cold your phone probably still rings.  And while I love my touch screen phone, I hate that I can't use it with gloves on.

There are gloves out there that allow you do use your touch screen, but why buy special gloves when, with just a few stitches you can convert the gloves you already have?

Making A Glove Work With A Touch Screen
 
Remove these ads by Signing Up.
To View All Steps on one page,  
Go Pro Today!  
step 1What You Need
Most modern touch screens use "capacitive touchscreen" which you can read about at length here, but in short it means that for a glove to work with a touch screen it needs to complete a circuit with your finger.  So that's what we're going to do by putting some conductive thread between the screen and our finger.SkillsYou need to be able to sew a few stitches without ki…

step 2Sew
#1 Thread your needleYou don't need a whole lot of thread, just a foot or so.#2: Sew a few stitches in the finger of your glove.On the outside try to make the stitches pretty close so it only touches the screen in a smallish area (about 1/4" or 6mm in diameter.)  This will help your finger touches be more accurate. Tip: Don't make it too small!  The iPhone, for example,…

step 3Use
Go ahead and give it a try!  Put on your glove and see what you can do with your phone.No, it won't be as accurate as using your bare hands but it is good enough that I was still able to type on the iPhone keyboard without too many errors.  And now I don't have to take off my glove just to answer a call or read an email. 

115 comments
1-50 of 115
Jan 24, 2010. 3:56 PMWolfix says:
 What are those gloves? They look awesome!!
Jan 25, 2010. 9:55 PMfungus amungus says:
That sounds like the burton logo.

https://www.nexternal.com/shreddingb/images/burton%20logo.jpg
Jan 25, 2010. 5:13 PMbornahorse says:
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.
Jan 24, 2010. 10:10 AMcorkey123 says:
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.
Jan 25, 2010. 1:47 PMcorkey123 says:
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.
Jan 18, 2010. 4:59 PMhappycats says:
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 :)

Jan 3, 2010. 1:17 PMShastaw2006 says:
You could also save a lot of effort, and use a AA or AAA battery.

It even works with one that's dead.
Jan 10, 2010. 1:31 PMdirtygreek says:
 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 ;)
Nov 25, 2009. 4:24 AMBartboy says:
My ipod works with gloves...?
It's not the conductivity, it's the heat.
Dec 2, 2009. 6:39 PMcyrozap says:
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
Dec 3, 2009. 2:57 PMBartboy says:
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.
Dec 3, 2009. 7:12 PMTHE_GEEK2007 says:
My iPhone most certainly does work with cold fingers. I'm not sure you are right about this...
Dec 3, 2009. 7:39 PMBartboy says:
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.


Dec 7, 2009. 9:07 PMEggbertius says:
 My Touch G1 works fine when my fingers are cold. Here's a specific: -27. Celsius.
Dec 8, 2009. 5:13 AMBartboy says:
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 )
Dec 10, 2009. 5:41 AMFieldownage says:
 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".
Jan 5, 2010. 2:24 PMjaydubs says:
Excellent theory. I think you're probably right.
Dec 10, 2009. 5:44 AMFieldownage says:
 Someone probably said the same before me. Not reading all comments before posting leads to nowhere.
Dec 10, 2009. 3:00 PMBartboy says:
That or warmth=sweat, Sweat=salt, Salt = conductivity
Jan 6, 2010. 8:52 AMtck1000 says:
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).
Jan 24, 2010. 2:21 PMNastySpill says:
"It's not the heat, its the humidty"



Nov 25, 2009. 3:25 PMroychook says:
heat would be very inaccurate and you really need to do research before you talk.
Dec 2, 2009. 7:06 AMpow says:
roy you are the reason why i hate people...mostly, mostly
Dec 2, 2009. 1:21 PMroychook says:
i know im a duche bag and im sorry didnt mean for that to come out as offensive
Nov 25, 2009. 4:06 PMBartboy says:
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.
Nov 25, 2009. 6:32 PMroychook says:
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.
Nov 25, 2009. 6:57 PMBartboy says:
Why does it work with something that's warm then?
Nov 25, 2009. 7:06 PMroychook says:
give me an example of somthign you used that was warm and it worked
Nov 26, 2009. 4:20 AMBartboy says:
It worked with my glove that I wasn't wearing.
Nov 26, 2009. 8:17 AMroychook says:
im sure it dident and again is it an itouch or the older ones that you rotate
Nov 26, 2009. 3:26 PMBartboy says:
One of the very first Ipod touches
Nov 26, 2009. 7:10 PMHoudinipeter says:
 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.
Nov 26, 2009. 8:00 PMBartboy says:
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?
Nov 26, 2009. 8:09 PMHoudinipeter says:
 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.
Nov 27, 2009. 4:23 AMBartboy says:
So you're saying they designed it to work, but it doesn't?
Nov 27, 2009. 11:52 AMValche says:
Give it up, chump. It's not heat sensitive.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/iphone1.htm
Nov 27, 2009. 1:18 PMBartboy says:
Ok, I'll ask it in the questions section, because nobody is capable of explaining why ipods don't work when you're cold.
Nov 27, 2009. 6:36 PMcupojoe999 says:
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.
Nov 28, 2009. 10:54 AMBartboy says:
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.
Nov 28, 2009. 7:16 PMcupojoe999 says:
 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
Nov 29, 2009. 2:13 PMBartboy says:
"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
Nov 27, 2009. 7:03 AMHoudinipeter says:
 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.
Nov 27, 2009. 5:57 PMLance Mt. says:
Arrogance. (Sigh)
Nov 25, 2009. 10:00 PMthenear1send says:
 Bartboy got McPwned
Nov 25, 2009. 10:34 PMDa_Fudge says:
Lol
Nov 25, 2009. 6:21 PMSparkplug says:
Is it an ipod touch or an ipod with a click wheel?
1-50 of 115

Related