Touchscreen failures

[Leobee]

Is it just me, or maybe my boat, but all the touchscreens which come aboard fairly quickly (less than a year) develop 'ghost touch' and start ('ahem') touching themselves. In other words, jumping around in unpredictable manner as if being randomly pressed. I believe this is a fault with the touch Digitiser. .

I buy ruggedised phones, keep them clean, treat them kind, but it is after all a marine environment and accidents, bumps and splashes occur. If the symptoms were different for different devices I would say what the heck, it's just short-life on a boat, but the having the same failure on now five different devices, three phones and two tablets, is getting weird.

Anyone experiencing this same issue? Any tips on how to avoid this?

Thanks to all

Leon
SV Rolling Stone

[SailingHarmonie]

I have lived on bots for 25 years. Never had a touchscreen die a premature death. I do absolutely nothing special. Standard iPhones. Nothing special or “ruggedized” about any of my consumer devices and standard marine instruments.

[George_SD]

Nope, works fine for us. Sometimes I can glitch if you have water on the screen as it confuses it with the skin, but a quick wipe takes care of that.

[Leobee]

Originally Posted by SailingHarmonie

I have lived on bots for 25 years. Never had a touchscreen die a premature death. I do absolutely nothing special. Standard iPhones. Nothing special or “ruggedized” about any of my consumer devices and standard marine instruments.

I'm pretty sure that all Marine gear is by definition ruggedised. Protected against corrosion, water ingress and so on. I have found conventional phones tend to get easily broken in the rough and tumble of marine life! They only need one drenching or heavy fall to knock them out forever. But IP68 or not, drop-protected or not, that is not really what I am asking. Just trying to get a handle on my rash of digitiser failures. Perhaps I just expect too much from these devices. I have been using the glass screen protectors, and suspect that may have something to do with it.

[phorvati]

Capacitive touch and moisture dont mix. I dont care how much you marinize or ruggedized it, water(vapor or liquid) will introduce stray capacitance and mess it all up. If you think touch screens work in marine environment, you havent really been in one.

[fourlyons]

Originally Posted by phorvati

Capacitive touch and moisture dont mix. I dont care how much you marinize or ruggedized it, water(vapor or liquid) will introduce stray capacitance and mess it all up. If you think touch screens work in marine environment, you havent really been in one.

I've been using the same stock Samsung tablet for 9 years now. In the cockpit, under a dodger, back and forth from the Florida Keys to Nova Scotia, on the ocean, multiple times. It sure felt like a pretty "marine" environment to me.

[SailingHarmonie]

Originally Posted by phorvati

Capacitive touch and moisture dont mix. I dont care how much you marinize or ruggedized it, water(vapor or liquid) will introduce stray capacitance and mess it all up. If you think touch screens work in marine environment, you havent really been in one.

This is a statement that to me is silly on its face.

I have lived on a boat for decades. I have crossedoceans and sailed tens of thousands of open ocean miles. There are very few people who spend more time more intimately in a marine environment than I do.

I have never had a touch screen failure on my boat.

[Sailorman97]

I have had boats where electronics did not seem to live long. Was it the boat and its wiring I never figured out.