Can I use my Smartphone with Gloves?

First of all, we highly discourage you to handle your smartphone while riding. Also handling a phone while riding is forbidden in most countries, therefore we recommend to stop at a safe spot before touching your phone. Luckily the Kurviger App is designed that you don't need to touch your phone once the navigation started.

Most typical smartphones today use a technology called capacitive touchscreen, which are not sensitive to physical pressure, but use an electrical field to sense your finger. You should be able to perform basic screen presses and maybe even pinch gestures when wearing thin gloves. As a rule of thumb a thinner glove will work better than a thicker glove. Some Android devices allow to increase the sensitivity of the display, this setting can be found in the Android display settings. Smartphone manufacturers are trying to improve the handling of their phones with gloves, so in general the handling with gloves of a newer phone might work better compared to an older phone.

If this is not sufficient for you there are still other alternatives. You could use a stylus, that is fixed to your phone mount, so you can use the stylus with your phone, like this one or this one. Some brands also offer capacitive gloves, which might be another option.

Last but not least, you could convert your regular gloves to capacitive gloves. For example there are Nanotips, which seems to work for thinner gloves. If you are a handyman or like a DIY approach, you can also convert any glove into a capacitive glove by weaving conductive thread into the tips of your glove. You can buy conductive thread at different electronic stores, like Sparkfun. Here is video that describes the process:

One cheap and easy trick to convert your gloves to capacitive is to apply a small amount of cpu thermal paste into the tips of your gloves. Source

  • app/faq/use_with_gloves.txt
  • Last modified: 2023/05/17 18:08
  • by admin