Touch Screens to make NetRemote Panels

[NeoMorph]

I was thinking that getting a tablet PC just for running NetRemote on was out of my league (I only get disability benefits). I'd seen some of those £2000+ home control panels in my home automation research and just added it to my "if I won the lottery" wish list... then I stumbled over an ebay site selling touch screens for monitors.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/HomeTouchSystems/19-Inch-Touch-Screens.html

I'm now thinking of getting a 19" touch screen and fitting the monitor+touch screen to the wall in my living room. My server is in the kitchen (it's on 24 hours as it downloads my tv episodes from the states via emule... I'm just impatient and it lets me watch what I want when I feel like) and would be easy to set up I'm thinking.

Has anyone else got panels that they made themselves?

[quixote]

Nice find! If you buy one please let me know if it works well, because chances are I'll buy one too if it does.

[TonyNo]

If you are willing to use refurbished hardware, you can do like many others and put a full touch screen system together for US$600 or less...

15" touch monitor: US$349
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2668390&CatId=1449

PC: US$177
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=D510E-PC-1B&cat=SYS
(the same system I run one of my touch screens with)

I know the exchange rate helps tremendously, but I don't know about shipping and taxes.

[NeoMorph]

I had a nice long chat to the guy... very friendly and helpful.

I'm going to be ordering one next week. Gonna to get a 17" one to start and will probably buy a couple of 19" ones if it turns out good.

He said the accuracy is pretty darned good - down to pixel level apparently. The thing I like is that the system can wake up a sleeping monitor too... so if your monitor on the wall is in sleep mode all you have to do is touch it to wake the thing up. I suppose you could add a relay to the power and have one corner of the display linked to a button in NR so that instead of having it in sleep mode it actually turns the thing off. Would probably be more green than having the monitor on standby all the time.

The only downside to having the panel wall mounted is if you come home drunk and accidently trigger off your home media center at full volume at 2am (like I did last night when I pressed the wrong button on my PDA test CCF -I wasn't drunk but doped up on painkiller heh)


When you work out that decent Pronto's cost £500+ having a 19" panel that could cost less than £200 is just too tempting. I'm now thinking of embedding one into a coffee table if I can build a cut down PC with a flash drive instead of a hard drive and no fans. I know it's possible because of some people have already done it using BartPE. :D

This is gonna be sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! :)

[stardust1951]

In a smaller size, the navilock 8" touchscreen monitor works fine. its resolution is limited to 640x480 but it's enough for me.
It's also able to output a video signal (PAL/NTSC) and has also an audio output. It's regular price is CHF399 (~$480).

[quixote]

Sounds promising! The only things that he mentioned that I'll need to ask about before I make an order would be about the dimensions. He has identical specs listed for the 17 inch and 19 inch models.

Second, he mentions how OSes are becoming "'more visual' like the just released Vista", but Vista is not listed as a compatible OS for the system. I'd need to get clarification on that, specifically if it works with vista 64.

Lastly, I live in Canada, so I'll have to find out about shipping overseas.

[Jlee]

Nice find NeoMorph 'cos it's really hard to find anything as affordable as that in the UK. My main concern with one of those add-on kits is whether they look clumsy on top of a sweet looking LCD monitor. If you get one please report back.

The other problem is when you want to wall mount because the VGA cable is very bulky and difficult to hide (then you have USB and power to think about). I've had alternative connection methods suggested (e.g. Cat5) but have yet to find an affordable solution to this.

[NeoMorph]

Nice find NeoMorph 'cos it's really hard to find anything as affordable as that in the UK. My main concern with one of those add-on kits is whether they look clumsy on top of a sweet looking LCD monitor. If you get one please report back.

The other problem is when you want to wall mount because the VGA cable is very bulky and difficult to hide (then you have USB and power to think about). I've had alternative connection methods suggested (e.g. Cat5) but have yet to find an affordable solution to this.

From the installation methods it's possible to take the bezel off the monitor, fit the touch screen and then re-affix the bezel. This must mean they are REALLY slim.


Touch Panel : Installation Option 1
Open the front bezel of your Monitor carefully, place the touch panel on top of your LCD screen panel ( a tape / silicon adhesive may be required ). Then connect the adapter to the touch screen connector and pull out the cable from the back of your LCD screen panel, and close the front bezel. Finally, connect the USB adapter to your computer via USB and load the driver. Within a few minutes, your regular & boring monitor will be turned into a wonderful & useful touch screen monitor.

[Barf]

There are some people around who swear on the Siemens Simpad. This device offers a 800x600 touchscreen, approximately 1kg. It was discontinued some years ago. It can be had, used or refurbished, from ebay (.de, possibly also .co.uk?). I bought mine (a SL4) a year ago for slightly less than 200 €. It only runs Windows CE <= 4.2, which means that the current NR wont run (see http://www.promixis.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16612&page=7) (but, who knows, there may come a day when Promixis fixes it).

[NeoMorph]

OK got my new 17" touch screen kit today and here are a few of my first impressions.

1. The packaging was good. Lots of packing to protect the new touch screen.

2. The touch screen membrane is mounted on a thin glass panel which is about 1.5mm thick. This protects the LCD as well as making it into a touch screen (have you ever seen The Matrix where the operator presses his supposedly touch screens and you see the liquid in the screen flare around the finger... not happening here!). Due to the sensor membrane the screen is slightly dulled but turning up the brightness slightly fixed that.

3. Software installation was ok but the supplied drivers leave a huge onscreen mouse. Luckily the software has a link on the about page and I was able to get the latest drivers easily and that removed the on-screen mouse.

4. Callibration was simple. Four X's appear on the screen and you press and hold each in turn. Accuracy after this seems pretty darned good and within a few minutes of doing a test setup on my laptop I found it excellent to work with NetRemote. One thing I haven't tried is a multi monitor setup as I only have a single touch screen at the moment. Can you just imagine a giant sized Nintendo DS heh.

5. One niggle is that every touch activated the mouse pointer to the place where you pressed your finger. To fix this I downloaded a shareware program called Cursor Hider which enabled me to turn of the mouse pointer.

All in all I can honestly say I WILL be buying more of these.

So far I'd rate this 9.5/10 - lost 0.5 for the supplied drivers having an ugly simulated mouse on screen. I'll update further when I have this fitted into my monitor.

[NeoMorph]

Err... board admins I just noticed the hardware forum... I suppose this thread should be in there but it doesn't seem to get much action.

Should I post about touch screens and stuff like that in there in future?

[quixote]

Can you give us a link to Cursor hider please? Is there no freeware alternative? Thanks for the info on the screen overlay. I'll be purchasing one when I can work it into my budget, but paying my Girder 5 license takes priority.

[NeoMorph]

Can you give us a link to Cursor hider please? Is there no freeware alternative? Thanks for the info on the screen overlay. I'll be purchasing one when I can work it into my budget, but paying my Girder 5 license takes priority.

There has to be a free one out there somewhere... but until I find it this one will have to do...

http://www.softexe.com/cursorhider.html

[quixote]

I think that there is also a command built into NR to do that as well, if I recall correctly. Maybe Rob can set the record straight.

[theguywiththefunnyhair]

I think that there is also a command built into NR to do that as well, if I recall correctly.
If you stick
NetRemote.GetScreen().ShowCursor(false) into your Lua file the cursor will not be seen over the NR window.

Toggle the 'false' to reverse the effect

Cheers

Dan

[NeoMorph]

Even better... and cheaper too ;)

[NeoMorph]

Here is a furthur update on my first attempt at fitting the Touch Screen.

Result... Failure lol.

Basically even with the screen being 1mm thick it is impossible to re-assemble my LCD monitor without modification to the bezel. Lucky for me though I'm building a custom wall housing for my touch screen.

I'm not saying it's impossible to fit these screens in all monitors but the Benq monitor I'm using is so tight that even 0.2mm would be too thick for it.

One nice thing that I found out when doing the test fitting was that the filter effect of the screen actually has a nice bonus. My test monitor has a few scratches on the screen (not too bad but show up when the monitor is off). When the touch screen is fitted over the screen the scratches appear to vanish. Cool eh? I was going to buy a brand new screen for the finished article but now I don't think I'll need to.

It's a downside to the kit naturally but if you are making your own housing anyway it's still excellent value for money. Personally I'm going to make mine look like a picture frame. ;)