Unresponsive screen when in car dock?

[igl007]

Basically, the phone screen is unresponsive when your not holding it or any time it's not grounded. If I put it in the car holder and then touch the screen, its very sporadic. I have compared it with the droid eris and the Moto Droid under the same conditions at the same time, and it performs flawlessly. I have tried the incredible with the screen protector and without. If I take it out of the dock and hold the phone in my hand, it works great again. It's not just the car dock either. If I set it on certain surfaces and just touch it with one finger it does the same thing.
The car dock itself has nothing to do with it. I've narrowed it down to a grounding issue. I've also tested 3 Incredibles and ALL of them do it. I am going to post another video showing it on top of a piece of styrofoam which also creates the problem. It's definitely more widespread then just a few phones. Basically, If the phone has very little ground it is unresponsive. If you ground it, either by holding it or placing it on a surface that is grounded then it solves the problem. If you plug anything into it that is grounded it solves the problem.

Here is a new video on different surfaces. It's not a car dock issue. If it is some static issue as some are saying, it works great on a eris, or a moto droid so it's not capacitive screen in general.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL6sLW7Ll0E

The Car Dock one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKc1_wG0zg

My goal for this thread, (now that I see it is happening to a lot of phones) is too get enough info out there so that other people can effectively recreate this problem on their phones. With enough people, I am hoping HTC or Verizon can offer a fix not just a work around.

UPDATE 5-17-10
I received 2 replacement Incredibles from Verizon. Both phones respond in the same way as the original. I called verizon, and they said "they are compiling a list of problems to send to HTC and they will add this one to the list". Hopefully the rep that I spoke with wasn't just trying to shut me up. I don't know... Anyway, Here is the last video I am going to do on the topic. In this I wanted to clearly show the following:
- It is not a "Capacitive" screen issue in general (MOTO Droid, and Eris are fine)
- It is a MASS DEFECT of this phone. (I am not saying ALL phones)
I am going to forward this message and the video to HTC. I will post the response. Here is the link to the new video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQRgT3gtmsI

 

[hoop762]

not the same as yours but i have a similar issue. i ordered a few usb wall plugs from monoprice. whenever i use one of the usb wall plugs to charge, the touch screen is unresponsive. The volume rocker and power buttons, but the screen and bottom row of buttons dont work. Using the factory usb wall plugs everything works fine.

 

[aol8mydog]

I have searched for someone having this problem and haven't found anything yet. So I apologize if I missed it somewhere. It's one of those problems that is difficult to recreate ALL the time so that's not making it any easier.
Basically, the phone screen is unresponsive when your not holding it. If I put it in the car holder and then touch the screen, its very sporadic. I have compared it with the droid eris under the same conditions at the same time, and it performs flawlessly. I have tried the incredible with the screen protector and without. If I take it out of the dock and hold the phone in my hand, it works great again. It's not just the car dock either. If I set it on the table and just touch it with one finger it does the same thing, However when it's on the table it's much less consistent to create the problem. Has anyone heard of this? My wife has the incredible also, and it's doing the same thing in her car. Did we just get a bad batch of phones? Is this screen just crappy under those conditions? It would make this a totally useless phone if i can't use it in the car.

I've never had a capacitive touchscreen phone, so I don't know for sure; but maybe it has something to do with the relative capacitance. When you have one hand on the back and then touch the screen, maybe it senses a greater variance in the capacitance. If it's on the table or in your car cradle, maybe the variance in capacitance isn't great enough to register a touch. I'm not familiar with Android either, but maybe you can adjust the sensitivity? Just like those touch lamps, capacitive sensors are triggered by a relative change in capacitance and if it's not greater than the preset threshold, it doesn't register that you touched it.

Just an idea... again, I'm not really sure. I'm only lurking around in these forums because I have an Incredible on order. I'm just throwing some odd ideas out there. Good luck!

 

[mcwoods]

It is the type of charger/how you are using it! I had this issue. I could plug in via the provided charger and it would work. But I went on a trip and hadn't purchased a car charger yet so I grabbed my laptop ac/dc converter and plugged in the provided charger through it and my phone became unresponsive. If I plug it in the wall presto it works. The new car charger works as well!

I am sure it has something to do with the voltage being released through the charger.

 

[igl007]

Here are a couple of video's I did on the topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKc1_wG0zg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXB1MjYM5Ks

 

[jakewill]

Me too

I'm also having the same issue and I am using the Verizon OEM Holster Mount Combo (Perfect fit for Incredible, no power).

I'll post over at PPCGeeks, and AndroidForums to see if we can find a fix.

jakewill

 

[raydm]

You have to use original charger ... it has voltage regulator and earth pin on the other end ... static should not travel on the screen otherwise it will do the same ..

 

[jakewill]

Workarounds

I did find out that it is pretty easy to do the following:

1. Plug in either the charger or headphone jack. Either of those seems to ground it out enough... I also tried just clipping the headphone jack (metal part) into the clip part of the belt clip, and that worked, so there just needs to be SOMETHING else attached to the phone or mount that gives it more of a ground.

2. Just hold the sides (or just one side) with your thumb and ring finger while navigating with your index finger. That seems to do the trick.

Hope it helps.

jakewill

 

[syntrix]

I'm not seeing this issue, but this can't be the real dock for the incr... which one are you using?

Capacitive screens become less responsive in the cold.... if it's in front of an A/C vent with it blaring, that could be the root cause.

 

[igl007]

I'm not seeing this issue, but this can't be the real dock for the incr... which one are you using?

Capacitive screens become less responsive in the cold.... if it's in front of an A/C vent with it blaring, that could be the root cause.

The car dock has nothing to do with it actually. I've narrowed it down to a grounding issue. I've also tested 3 Incredibles and ALL of them do it. I am going to post another video showing it on top of a piece of styrofoam which also creates the problem. It's definitely more widespread then just a few phones. Basically, If the phone has very little ground it is unresponsive. If you ground it, either by holding it or placing it on a surface that is grounded then it solves the problem. If you plug anything into it that is grounded it solves the problem.

 

[igl007]

Updated the 1st post with a new video.

 

[bpaskie]

Same issues plus some new ones

I seem to have the same issues that were reported in the youtube videos because I have a similar car dock. I am also having the same issues as hoop762 as I also purchased the wall charger from monoprice. When I have it plugged in the touch screen does not work, the OEM charger works perfect. I also purchased the car charger from monoprice but that does not cause the same issues.

I have had another similar issue when I have it plugged into my car stereo via the audio jack and a male to male 3.5 cable. When it is plugged in and I try to listen to music withe the stock audio player it starts fast forwarding and skipping songs. If I pause the music then start it again it sometimes plays for a while but will then act a fool again. I had the same issue using pandora when it skipped songs until it I ran out of skips but i have not seen the issue in other programs. I have had this issue in and out of the car dock. I will add a video later if I can.

 

[Hooya]

I replied to one of your videos (as tjowatonna)
"I have never noticed this issue on my Incredible and I just tested on a variety of surfaces using the Etherial Dialpad app (it's neat, check it out if you're a music nerd) to test and had no issues regardless of if it was placed on glass, plastic, cardboard, pillows. I didn't have any styrofoam to test."

Have you had anyone else try these tests on your phone? I'm just wondering if it's not something about your body that it doesn't like as much or that it likes more for people like me that can't reproduce this.

 

[syntrix]

Again, there is no car dock specifically for the DI yet.

It looks like the edges of that generic dock have a big foamy area that might be very close to the screen.

It also looks like the phone/dock is touching the dash in the video.

I put mine on an anti-static bag on my workstation and tried to only use a finger. Everything worked just fine. I know you said you tried other areas with the same result. Do you have a screen protector on?

I'm just scratching my head here.

 

[askwhy]

I can confirm this issue on my Incredible as well. For what it's worth, I have a Zagg shield on the screen, and I did *not* peel it off for testing.

In *any* situation where the phone is completely isolated from ground it seems to happen. I can reproduce the symptoms by setting the phone on a huge variety of surfaces or by placing it in my (plastic) car mount, and then trying to use it with just a single finger.

As has already been posted, touching the phone body even lightly with an additional finger while it is in this state (even one from same hand) will allow full responsiveness, as will any other sort of ground such as many cable connections. Also, the silicone case from Verizon can be installed or removed, and there is no difference either way.

I also just booted my old Hero (also has Zagg shield) to check its behavior and was unable to reproduce this, even with it sitting on a double folded rubber mat on top of a big pillow. It is 100% reproducible on my Incredible though.

So be it.

EDIT: In addition to the role that grounding clearly plays, static might be a factor too (as others have mentioned).

 

[theoneownz]

I tried my hardest to reproduce this affect and i was unable to. I have a new zagg screen protector i have not yet put on. I will add it and re-test again and post my results

** Update
I added on the Zagg Screen Protector and tested it again. I lost some responsiveness in general nothing still like has been demonstrated.

 

[igl007]

I can confirm this issue on my Incredible as well. For what it's worth, I have a Zagg shield on the screen, and I did *not* peel it off for testing.

In *any* situation where the phone is completely isolated from ground it seems to happen. I can reproduce the symptoms by setting the phone on a huge variety of surfaces or by placing it in my (plastic) car mount, and then trying to use it with just a single finger.

As has already been posted, touching the phone body even lightly with an additional finger while it is in this state (even one from same hand) will allow full responsiveness, as will any other sort of ground such as many cable connections. Also, the silicone case from Verizon can be installed or removed, and there is no difference either way.

I also just booted my old Hero (also has Zagg shield) to check its behavior and was unable to reproduce this, even with it sitting on a double folded rubber mat on top of a big pillow. It is 100% reproducible on my Incredible though.

So be it.

EDIT: In addition to the role that grounding clearly plays, static might be a factor too (as others have mentioned).

Thanks for testing your phone and also trying it against another capacitive screen phone.
I talked to Verizon and they are sending 2 new Incredibles as both my phone and my wife's phone have the problem. I will report my results on tuesday...

 

[aol8mydog]

I've never had a capacitive touchscreen phone, so I don't know for sure; but maybe it has something to do with the relative capacitance. When you have one hand on the back and then touch the screen, maybe it senses a greater variance in the capacitance. If it's on the table or in your car cradle, maybe the variance in capacitance isn't great enough to register a touch. I'm not familiar with Android either, but maybe you can adjust the sensitivity? Just like those touch lamps, capacitive sensors are triggered by a relative change in capacitance and if it's not greater than the preset threshold, it doesn't register that you touched it.

Just an idea... again, I'm not really sure. I'm only lurking around in these forums because I have an Incredible on order. I'm just throwing some odd ideas out there. Good luck!

Now that I have my Incredible, I have the same issues. Fortunately, I don't use it in a car-dock very often but I do plan on occasionally using it that way. If Verizon or HTC doesn't come out with a fix, I may just see if I could find a soft rubber-like material that also conducts electricity to make a grounding pad with a wire connected to the vehicle's ground on the cradle/dock so the phone's back can make contact when docked.

 

[igl007]

Update in first post...

 

[the tree]

I ordered my device on launch day, and this thing has had none of the issues you have shown, I even put it on styrofoam just to try it all out, works flawlessly.

sorry for your bad luck.