An improvement in the use of a touch-screen?

[Shorty]

Somewhere out there https://www.sparkfun.com/ one might find a reference to conductive thread to sew on the tips of your gloves (for riders of course and those hoity-toity glove-wearing cage drivers of course)

[cliddell]

Hi John,

Is that for capacitive touch screens? My Z660 works even better with 'gloved' fingers than bare hands. As far as I know it is contact pressure screen but, using gloves, I seem to need less pressure so maybe there is something clever they have incorporated?

[Shorty]

That could be Clive. There was just a passing mention of this with the website given, from the Long Distance Riders List and the subject of the discussion was specifically the use of a Zumo with gloved hands. Many of us ride with 2 GPSr's and the Americans preference is for the (old) 478C model and the Zumo in that order. Some said their glove tips were too mushy, others spoke about the nature of (their) winter riding pairs. I haven't added my log yet - I use a thimble at the tip of my gloves' first finger, and that allows me to press buttons when necessary. One has to search quite hard for a thimble that fits; having found some I added a semi-sharp tip of Pratley's Putty. I have also found that on some occasions the thimble-trick doesn't work all that well (especially off-road and pot-holed tar) so have asked SWAMBO to stitch the pointy side of a clothes clip to a suitable place on the thumb of my gloves because perforce I had to hold the GPSr with my left hand and do the pressing with my thumb of that hand - worked very well indeed.

I have VERY little expertise in the use of these '"other thingies". Perhaps your screen is more sensitive than most can set theirs so to be. I didn't have the time to pursue the link given and hoped someone else would

[dasilvarsa]

The only thing that works on the 3490 is bare skin.
Fingernails cannot be used. A biker is now forced to buy a Zumo.
Manufacturers are doing away with the pressure sensitive resistive touch screens for the new ipad style screens.

Having said that the 3490 is one kick ass GPS (boot up is immediate if you use the mount all the time, never switches totally off, battery lasts for months in this mode)
Satellite acquisition time of about 2 seconds, traffic in about 30 seconds.
Map redraw is almost instant, you can scroll the map using your finger at unbelievable speeds, zoom in and out using pinch technique.
And all the fuss about trip planner versus routes. Trip planner is actually better than routes.
If you need to make 5 stops at 5 clients you can set it up in literally seconds, and it will actually calculate the most efficient trip for you - if you ask it to do so -
Shaping points are also achievable by placing them ,not at the intersection but along the road.
It helps you choose the correct lane long before you reach the intersection, built in DEM so you can see where the goats walk, Garmap and t4a compatible (they say)
Global Fast Search function (very cool) Searches Map,Map POI,Cities,Favourites,Custom POI all in one step.
blah blah blah, I could write another 2 pages.
In Short (no pun intended) this is the best GPS I've ever held in my hands, but it's not suitable for gloved hands unfortunately.
And no more of that nagging "recalculating"