Button Development
April 23rd, 2007 by Dan
Just a quick update on the button. We assembled the revision 3 parts of the button and have made significant improvement over the previous revision. Mathew and Brian got the button hardware up and running on the non-form factor board. Great work!
Posted in Hardware Development | 2 Comments » | Other posts by Dan
April 29th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
What’s the major difference from the falstaff button? ‘Hardware Development Progress’ made it seem exciting and innovative. Do you have cool software driving that single button?
I have to say I like the new look for Rozencrantz, with the black body and silver round-rect on the top. It’s much less nano-ish, but still slick and even smaller than before.
April 30th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Hi Spencer! Good to hear from you.
In Falstaff, we had two simple, mechanical/electrical buttons. For a really elegant design, we’re shooting for a single button. So, we want a button that can act as a button, but that is also able to control a UI well.
We also wanted to make it really simple for customers, hobbyists and third parties to take the oPen apart, and the button needs to be firmly attached to the shell of the oPen, so we would need wires connecting the circuit boards and the button for normal electrical buttons (or connectors that slide into place easily and reliably when the insides are re-inserted).
We are currently trying out a design that involves using what’s known as the Hall Effect, or electro-magnetic sensing at a distance, to sense the button press on the circuit board without physical connections between the button and the board. As part of this solution, we’re also getting more than just a binary on/off signal, so we are experimenting with creating a great UI experience using the button.