5 ms·
I think this is neat, but only in a Rube Goldberg machine sort of way. The instructions are: 1. Open the scale 2. Rest your finger on the trackpad 3. While m
by hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
I think this is neat, but only in a Rube Goldberg machine sort of way. The instructions are:
1. Open the scale
2. Rest your finger on the trackpad
3. While mainting finger contact, put your object on the trackpad
4. Try and put as little pressure on the trackpad while still maintaining contact. This is the weight of your object
That is, the pressure sensors only work if it detects capacitance, so you need to be touching the track pad (but not too much!!) while weighing something.
- whycome 1y agoCan’t you get capacitance with a wet sponge? Like your typical dish cellulose sponge. You could make a small platform?
- asimovDev 1y agoI remember drawing on my old iPad back in the day by shoving a wet q-tip into a BIC pen and using it as a stylus. I am sure something similar could be rigged here
- dotancohen 1y agoI've used carrots and cucumbers as a capacitive stylus while wearing gloves. It's the reason why I love Note and S Ultra phones - the stylus. I'm using it now.
- doubled112 1y agoThe recipe was on your phone/tablet and there was no way you were taking your gloves off?
- dotancohen 1y agoNice. No, I preemptively armed myself with a carrot before taking the dog for a walk in cold weather. I only had a non-stylus smartphone for a year and a half before whimpering back to the Note series. It's what keeps me in the Samsung sphere of influence.
- mietek 1y agoI used my nose.
- doubled112 1y agoI've done that many times while working on something and my hands are filthy. My nose-eye coordination leaves something to be desired.
- throwanem 1y agoEver try putting gloves back on when your hands and the gloves are both wet? This is why I print recipes on the laser, and just take the paper version downstairs.
- Y_Y 1y agoI use this to avoid touching the stupid self-checkout machines when buying groceries
- mh- 1y agoWhat do you use to avoid touching the carrots and cucumbers?
- saaspirant 1y agoI use a similar approach to weigh objects using gym weighing machine. It doesn't trigger unless there's skin touch.
- linux2647 1y agoSometimes you can get capacitance to be detected if you hover your finger just millimeters over the trackpad
- namdnay 1y agoCould a small piece of conductive foam or some cleverly layered tin foil+paper work? So put the object on the shim (which has a known or even negligeable weight)
- acct-litter-al 1y agoI once put some aluminum duct tape completely over the touch pad of an old laptop to see what would happen. Turns out it induced enough "eddy currents" to make the mouse move around the screen without me touching it--in a way, visualizing the currents! I connected the foil to ground using a small strip of the tape to the ground metal of a USB port on the side and it disabled the touch pad.
- acct-litter-al 1y agoLooking back, it would have been interesting to code up a program to record the movement of the mouse as a trail of pixels...
- KeplerBoy 1y agoIf you ever want to do this keep in mind to reconfigure the mouse as a digital pointing device (tablet like), otherwise the mouse acceleration will mess up your position measurement.
- 83 1y agoCould probably make a small stand with nubbins from touch screen pens as the feet.
- svnt 1y agoNo, you need roughly a small human's worth of ground mass for most capacitive touch sensors to register a touch.
- bigyikes 1y agoTape a wire to the trackpad and hold the wire?
- ashertrockman 1y agoOn iPhones at least a hack was to rest a metal spoon on the screen and weigh something in the spoon...
- jihadjihad 1y agoCould you accurately weigh a hot dog?
- dtgriscom 1y agoNo, only cool ones.
- wanderingstan 1y agoThis is a very clever hack, exactly the sort of thing that belongs on Hacker News.