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Is your watch screen too small? Use your skin!

After Apple introduced its smartwatch, there was a real boom in these devices. If you compare how many people are on the street with a smart watch, and, for example, 5 years ago, the difference will be tens of times. However, such gadgets have one problem: if they still display information normally, then inconvenience constantly arises with the input of any data. The problem is a small screen, which rarely exceeds one and a half inches diagonally. But can’t you put a 5-inch display on your wrist, like a smartphone? Of course not. And German scientists have proposed a solution to this problem, and you do not even have to buy a new smart watch.

Scientists from the University of Hanover were able to make the most ordinary smart watch could recognize touch magnetic stylus to the man’s wrist. For example, you want to send text directly from a watch or a small drawing, pick up a stylus and … draw directly on your skin. The stylus is completely home-made – there is a magnet and a touch sensor on the end, which determines contact with human skin. It’s better to see for yourself – you can do this at this link, the copyright holder does not allow embedding the video on sites other than YouTube.

James Bond Watch

Such a stylus works best on a smooth hand and for about hours

How did a regular watch work with a stylus, like in a spy movie? In fact, everything is simple – they used a magnetometer, which is built into any modern phone from which you read our Telegram chat, or smart watches.

Магнитометр - специальный прибор, который измеряет магнитное поле вокруг, а также магнитные свойства материалов.

Why is a magnetometer in hours, do they really measure the Earth’s magnetic field? In fact, yes – this device allows the device to determine the cardinal points for improved navigation. Due to the magnetometer, the built-in Compass application works in iPhone and other smartphones, and many smart watches understand where you are and where you need to turn so as not to stray from the route.

In the case of a scientific experiment, the magnetometer in the clock after calibration was able to determine the position of the magnet on the tip of the stylus relative to the clock. The developers only have to write a graphic editor for the watch with extended functionality, which can be controlled with the stylus.

During the study, scientists tested input using a stylus, as well as on the watch itself. With a stylus, this turned out to be much faster and more accurate. True, much depends on the skin itself. If it is rough or there is too much hair on it, the accuracy of the stylus will become less. In addition, the farther you drive the stylus from the watch, the worse the response. The magnetometer in the watch is not so “long-range” to recognize touches, for example, in the palm of your hand.

Посмотрите на самые необычные в мире наручные часы, среди них много действительно интересных.

Why is this needed? Now smart watches are becoming a full-fledged device, and not just a “companion” for a smartphone. They go camping, jogging, leaving the phone at home. Many watches already know how to receive calls and work independently. However, interacting with a 1-1.5-inch screen is still a torture. Here you can take a stylus with you (to build a small one in the watch case or a strap, for example) and get at your disposal additional space for interacting with the watch. Although it would be even cooler to somehow attach the magnet to the tip of the finger and draw or, for example, scale the map not on the watch, but next to it, with characteristic multi-touch gestures.

Before, I remember, a stylus came with almost every touch-sensitive mobile phone – an electronic pen for entering text or drawing. And some still actively use it, such as Samsung with its Note line smartphones. Now Apple Pencil is out – does this mean that styluses will soon enter our lives again? Quite. There Samsung is already making clamshell phones, and Motorola is returning to the market old phones with a new “stuffing.”

Is returning an electronic pen the right solution? This question can be viewed from two points of view. On the one hand, the stylus is sometimes really not superfluous. I know a lot of people with big and thick fingers who can hardly get into small letters on the phone’s keyboard, I don’t even speak about watches. On the other hand, such a control so far looks a little ridiculous, just like on a clock that predicts death. But the fact that it can work like that is impressive. Who knows, suddenly Apple is already running with a similar technology to the patent office?

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