Skywriter XL range

Hi all,

I’ve set up my skywriter XL on a Raspberry Pi 3 and it seems to work fine. What I have noticed, however, is that I can’t get anywhere near the 15cm maximum range that is advertised. The best I can get is around 5cm, anything beyond that it doesn’t seem to detect. Where’s the switch to get the advertised range? Should I be supplying it with 5v instead of 3.3v?

Cheers,
Alex

ping @jon, @gadgetoid?

Apologies, not sure how we missed this thread! Let us hook up a test here and see what we can find out. :-)

Hi @jon, any updates on this?

I’ve just tested this and measured the maximum range at somewhere between 9cm and 10cm (using a plastic ruler and a pointed finger) . I think the range from the datasheet (requiring an ideal sensor design and larger Skywriter) crept onto our product page. Sorry about that.

I’m not even getting that kind of range, I’m getting around 5cm! And this is with nothing mounted in front of the sensor, in the finished product it is supposed to go behind a pane of one-way mirror. I’m wondering now if it will work at all without requiring the user to touch the mirror.

I must say, I’m not happy at all with this false advertising optimistic product description.

Is this for gesture recognition or finger position?

It should be possible to read gestures and position without contacting the surface. You would have to be pretty close, though. I’d be interested to know how it pans out. I suspect the effect you were going for was a more natural “wave your hand in front of the mirror to switch between screens” than it would be able to muster.

I’ve updated the product description to be less optimistic. Let us know if you find it doesn’t work in your project, and we’ll see what we can do.

I don’t know if it would work through a mirror surface, but this might be an option: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/zx-distance-and-gesture-sensor