• Registered: 2008-04-29
  • Posts: 6

Topic: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

First off I love the Chumby concept and I wish the company success, but I feel like I have purchased a lemon of a Chumby.  For the price payed I did not expect my touch screen to have a phantom spot apear on it with the slightest touch.  Customer support tells me that all Chumby's do this but when I look at the videos of other Chumbys they do not seem to exhibit this problem.  Do any other users experience this problem?  It makes some widgets unuseable making no want to use my Chumby.  Here is a link to my Chumby in action (please excuse the lameness of my presentation I was in a hurry making this video for the customer support team that does not want to offer me an exchange).  Any input would be appreciated, Thank you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pa5gspdK5I

  • From: North East UK
  • Registered: 2008-03-28
  • Posts: 156

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Yup - my LCD screen has that 'touch spot'. So what....

quizengine's Website

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

This is an inherent property of the LCD display itself, and has nothing to do with the touchscreen - it's a variation of what happens if you touch the display of your laptop or other LCD display, except that in this case the screen is small enough that the distortion due to the flexing shows up in the center rather than at the hit point.  It's not a manufacturing defect - they *all* do this, because that's simply what these displays do, so an exchange wouldn't make much sense - though, it's possible that you might get one that's a bit less sensitive in any given batch.

The phone on my desk, which has an old school black and white LCD, does the same thing.  I just flexed a video iPod and got exactly the same artifact.

Duane's Website

  • From: Denver, CO
  • Registered: 2008-03-15
  • Posts: 34

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Every screen I touch does this.  Chumby, Powerbook, Dell Laptop, HDTV, iMac...  I never gave it any thought--can't even say I ever "noticed" it consciously, and I'm an extremely anal-retentive person when it comes to product quality.  Sorry, but I wouldn't say it makes a Chumby anything even close to "unusable."  Once you get into a normal Chumby usage routine, your finger really won't be touching the screen all that often.

Neocyberdude's Website

  • From: Kansas City
  • Registered: 2008-05-01
  • Posts: 59

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

I think you may be pressing the screen too hard. When I do my usual tap, I don't get it. If I press harder, the "spot" does appear. Try using a stylus or another nylon tipped pointing device.

  • Registered: 2008-04-29
  • Posts: 6

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Even when I press very soft with my a stylus that spot appears in the center reguardless of where I touch the chumby, or how hard I am pressing it with the stylus.

  • Registered: 2007-10-17
  • Posts: 150

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Yep, mine does it. I've had my Chumby since January and that's the first time that I've noticed it.

Experimenting with the Picasa widget, I found that the it's possible to interact with the widget WITHOUT seeing this spot if you press more softly with your finger, but it's a delicate balance between spot appearing / touchscreen not working.

I don't see how this would make some widgets unusable though. Can you give an example of how this is the case?

  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-29
  • Posts: 159

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Remember that the best way to interact with chumby's touchscreen is not to mash on it with the pad of your finger, but rather to "tap" it with your fingernail or fingertip.  I think you'll see that this approach is more effective and lower stress on your chumby.

Steve Tomlin's Website

  • Registered: 2008-05-16
  • Posts: 1

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Just received my chumby today - I had a similar problem with it 'out of the bag'.  I found that i needed to really tap very hard to get the screen to respond, which of course resulted in a very pronounced spot on the LCD.  Once I had been into the control panel and recalibrated the touchscreen, the lightest of taps with my fingernail/tip now works with virtually no LCD spot.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Yes, most issues folks have with the perceived unresponsiveness of the touchscreen are due to poor calibration.  I use typically use an object like a stylus or unextended ballpoint pen during calibration, being very careful to hit the exact center of the star icon.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-04-29
  • Posts: 6

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

I have no problems with the responsiveness of my touch screen,  my problem is when I touch it extremly soft even with a stylus I get a big blob in the center of the screen.

  • From: Boston
  • Registered: 2007-06-05
  • Posts: 61

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

To be fair... I can't really tell if I've just gotten extremely used to it, or what... Mine does do this, but not the extent that teameldo's seems to. I notice it more if the ambient temperature in the room is chilly (like, below 65F or so.)

It is a property of LCDs, as stated, to do this sort of thing, and the touchscreen might be responding as expected, but I'd totally advise recalibrating a few times even though everything seems fine in terms of touch. Like I said, not sure if it was something I got used to, or if recalibrating actually helped how pressure was distributed through the touchscreen/LCD and it helped the problem, but it probably is worth a shot.

shoe's Website

  • Registered: 2008-02-21
  • Posts: 526

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

The only problem with the chumby is your not using the touchscreen properly...
And im betting its not calibrated right either...

you dont PUSH on the screen, you tap it with the edge of your nail...
of course its gonna bloom, its an LCD if you just push the layers together.. use a stylus (nylon tip would be good) to calibrate it or, a ballpoint pen with the cover on it (the clear ones with the pointed tip do nicely) and gently tap the screen...

This is a user between keyboard error, not a problem with the hardware... the chumby is using a passive touchpad, not capacitance (if i recall correctly)...

Have you read any of the chumby 101 documents... or gone though the user video on the chumby yet?

  • Registered: 2008-05-28
  • Posts: 6

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Neocyberdude wrote:

Every screen I touch does this.

I ran some tests with some other devices I own.  Just for the record, I can't get this to happen on the touch screen of a Nintendo DS or an iPod Touch.

(I also can't get it to happen on a Palm 3, Sony MagicLink 2000A, General Magic DataRover, or Apple eMate, but those are all monochrome devices, so that's cheating.)

  • From: Oceanside, CA
  • Registered: 2008-04-17
  • Posts: 650

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

dfjdejulio wrote:
Neocyberdude wrote:

Every screen I touch does this.

I ran some tests with some other devices I own.  Just for the record, I can't get this to happen on the touch screen of a Nintendo DS or an iPod Touch.

(I also can't get it to happen on a Palm 3, Sony MagicLink 2000A, General Magic DataRover, or Apple eMate, but those are all monochrome devices, so that's cheating.)

Not sure about a nintendo DS, but an iPod touch uses a completely different type of touch screen.  It's glass, and completely different technology.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Materdaddy's Website

  • Registered: 2008-05-28
  • Posts: 6

Re: To all chumby users does your chumby exhibit this behavior?

Materdaddy wrote:

Not sure about a nintendo DS, but an iPod touch uses a completely different type of touch screen.  It's glass, and completely different technology.

The iPod Touch (and iPhone) use a completely different technology.  Your fingernail or a random little plastic stylus won't in fact work on it (I've observed Treo owners struggling with this).  Your figertip or a specially-made stylus will.  Different contacts with the screen register as separate contacts on the input (this enables multitouch).  So yes, it's an utterly different input technology.  This fact shouldn't matter to typical end-users, though.  Most won't care about this detail.  I know my wife and mother-in-law wouldn't.

The Nintendo DS, Palm 3, Sony MagicLink, and General Magic DataRover use the same basic technology as the Chumby.  A stylus gives the best results, then a fingernail.  Different contacts on the screen are averaged, so if you touch two points that are far from each other it should register as one point at the midpoint between those.  The pad of your finger can work, but is considerably less accurate and it can be problematic to do drag operations with it.

The eMate (and other Newton-based devices) uses a modified version of the same basic technology as a Chumby.  Not only does it have the pressure-sensitivity, there's a layer of very very small beads in between layers of the sensor, so that pressure that's spread over too wide an area won't easily get through -- you have to push the beads apart to make the sensors kick in.  So a stylus or fingernail with a small enough contact area works with extremely high precision, and for the most part a fingertip pad won't work at all, not even inaccurately.

In terms of modern "casual user" expectations, the iPod Touch (or iPhone, same tech) and Nintendo DS are probably all that it's worth considering.  It's very natural for large sets of naive users to compare any touch screen to one or the other of these, and in both cases, using the device naturally with your fingertip does not result in any visible warping of the display, even without any training.  (I ran the other, monochrome device tests to satisfy my own curiosity, to most regular people they'll seem as exotic as my VirtualBoy does.)