TW201352106A - Electronic device having function of touch control and method of forming hard protection cover therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses an electronic device having function of touch control and a method of forming a hard protection cover therefor. The electronic device includes a host and a hard protection cover. The host has a touch screen area and a touch key area. The hard protection cover is fixedly disposed on the host and covers the touch screen area and the touch key area. The hard protection cover has an outer surface and a concave surface formed on the outer surface. The concave surface corresponds to the touch key area. The hard protection cover can be formed by a hard plate part with the concave surface formed thereon. Therefore, a user can distinguish the position of the touch key area just by the touch feeling on the concave surface so as to perform triggering correctly. Furthermore, the concave surface is fixedly disposed, so the invention can avoid a fatigue problem of a conventional mechanical switch induced by a long-term use.

Description

Electronic device with touch function and hard cover forming method thereof

The present invention relates to an electronic device and a protective cover forming method thereof, and more particularly to an electronic device with a touch function and a method for forming the same.

At present, the home/wake button of a smart phone is mostly implemented by a mechanical button or a touch virtual button. However, after the mechanical button is used for a long period of time, problems such as a decrease in the pressing feel due to elastic fatigue and a loose structure due to wear of the components are likely to occur, and the quality of the mechanical button is degraded, and even an invalid pressing may occur. In the touch virtual button design, the smart phone directly uses the touch display screen to display a button graphic for the user to touch. Based on the general touch screen design habit, the surface of the glass protection cover of the smart phone is a smooth surface for the user to touch and slide on. In use, the user must use his own visual recognition to correctly touch the button pattern. When the touch screen brightness or ambient brightness of the smart phone is insufficient, the user may not easily touch the button pattern correctly, and may be mistaken. Touching other button patterns creates unnecessary trouble. In short, the mechanical button is beneficial to the user's correct pressing operation, but has problems such as fatigue and wear; while the touch-type virtual button has no problems caused by fatigue and wear, but only enough brightness for the user to recognize the figure. Correct operation when indicated. Therefore, the current homepage/wake-up button of the smart phone cannot be designed with both long-term reliability and ease of operation.

In view of the problems in the prior art, an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device with a touch function, wherein the hard cover has a concave surface corresponding to the touch key area thereof for the user to touch Correctly implementing the triggering operation can avoid the problem that the mechanical button is reduced in pressing feel and loose structure due to fatigue and wear, and can also effectively reduce the user's accidental touch.

The electronic device with touch function of the present invention comprises a body and a hard protective cover. The body has a touch screen area and a touch keypad. The hard protection cover is fixedly disposed on the body and covers the touch screen area and the touch key area, and has an outer surface and a concave surface formed on the outer surface, the concave surface corresponding to the touch key area . In actual use, an external conductor, such as a user's finger, can contact the recessed surface to properly perform a triggering operation, such as triggering a touch switch disposed in the body and having one of the touch keypads, or triggering the display on A button icon of the touch display panel in the touch key area. Therefore, the recessed surface is fixed when the touch operation is performed. Therefore, during the user performing the triggering operation, there is no problem of wear of the part, and the fixed recessed surface does not have a long-term touch operation. The problem of fatigue. In addition, the recessed surface of the recessed surface allows the user's finger to be easily placed into the recessed surface to correctly perform the triggering operation corresponding to the touch keypad, so that no accidental touch occurs.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of forming a hard protective cover for use in an electronic device having a touch function of the present invention. The electronic device includes a body having a touch screen, the body having a touch screen area and a touch key Area. The forming method first prepares a hard plate member having an outer surface; and then forming a concave surface on the outer surface to form the hard protective cover. When the hard protection cover is fixedly disposed on the body, and the hard protection cover covers the touch screen area and the touch key area, the concave surface corresponds to the touch key area. In practice, the recessed surface can be formed by physical processing methods, such as using a computer numerical control processor.

The advantages and spirit of the present invention will be further understood from the following detailed description of the invention.

Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 . FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement of an electronic device 1 with a touch function according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is an electronic device 1 along line XX in FIG. 1 . Sectional view. The electronic device 1 includes a body 12 and a hard protective cover 14. The body 12 includes a touch display panel 122, a touch switch 124, and other electronic components (eg, control processing module 126, battery 128, etc.). The body 12 has a touch screen area 1222 and a touch key area 1242. The touch screen area 1222 is for the user to perform a general interactive touch operation, and the touch key area 1242 is used by the user to perform a virtual button trigger operation, such as a homepage/wakeup. In the present embodiment, the touch screen area 1222 is located on the touch display panel 122, and the touch key area 1242 is located in the touch key area 1242. The hard protective cover 14 has an outer surface 142 and a recessed surface 144 formed on the outer surface 142. The hard cover 14 is fixedly disposed on the body 12 and covers the touch screen area 1222 and the touch key area 1242 , and the recessed surface 144 corresponds to the touch key area 1242 . Therefore, when an external conductor, such as the user's finger 2 (shown in phantom in Figure 2), contacts the concave surface When 144 is in, the touch switch 124 can be triggered.

Since the triggering of the touch switch 124 does not need to physically touch the touch switch 124, during the triggering process of the touch switch 124, the recessed surface 144 (or the portion of the hard protective cover 14 corresponding to the touch switch 124) can be relatively touched. The control switch 124 remains stationary, and there is no problem that the parts rub each other, and the fixed concave surface 144 does not have fatigue problem after long-term touch operation, and effectively solves the fatigue and wear problems of the conventional mechanical buttons. In addition, the recessed surface of the recessed surface 144 allows the user's finger to be easily and correctly placed into the recessed surface 144, so that the touch operation can be accurately performed corresponding to the touch switch 124, thereby effectively avoiding the conventional touch virtual button error. Touch the problem.

In addition, in the embodiment, the hard protective cover 14 is made of a transparent material, such as glass (ie, a glass protective cover) or other material that can form a transparent hard plate, and a cover layer 146 is formed under the cover. The implementation can be directly applied to the inner surface 148 of the hard cover 14 to expose only the touch screen area 1222 and the touch key area 1242 , and the touch screen area 1222 , that is, the image display area of the touch display panel 122 . In Fig. 1, the coating range of the masking layer 146 is indicated by hatching. In addition, the touch switch 124 can be a capacitive or optical touch switch, or other types of trigger switches.

In the foregoing embodiment, the touch switch 124 is disposed independently of the touch display panel 122. The touch display panel 122 and the touch switch 124 respectively have a touch screen area 1222 and a touch key area 1242, but the present invention does not This is limited. Please refer to FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 , FIG. 3 is an electronic device with touch function according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. Figure 3 is a schematic view, and Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view of the electronic device 3 along line Y-Y in Figure 3. The electronic device 3 is substantially identical in structure to the electronic device 1 , and the main difference is that the touch display panel 322 of the body 32 of the electronic device 3 has a touch function, so the touch screen area of the body 32 of the electronic device 3 The 3222 and the touch keypad 3242 are both located on the touch display panel 322. In other words, in the present embodiment, the touch unit of the touch display panel 322 corresponding to the recessed surface 144 is used as the touch switch 324, that is, the touch display panel 322 includes the touch switch 324. It is indicated by a dashed box. In practice, when the function of the touch switch 324 needs to be activated, the touch display panel 322 can display a button icon (but not limited thereto) corresponding to the recessed surface 144 to indicate the user touch switch 324. The function is activated; at this time, the user's finger 2 can contact the concave surface 144 to trigger the touch switch 324.

It is to be noted that, in the embodiment, the image display area of the touch display panel 322 includes the touch screen area 3222 and the touch key area 3242, and the touch key area 3242 is located in the touch screen area 3222. In other words, the touch switch 324 (or the touch keypad 3242) can be activated or deactivated by the application. Therefore, when the touch switch 324 is turned off, the touch display panel 322 can omit the display of the corresponding button graphic. Other images are displayed for other purposes, but the invention is not limited thereto. It is to be noted that, in the foregoing embodiments, the touch switches 124 and 324 are disposed in one side of the body 12, that is, adjacent to the edge of the body 12, but the invention is not limited thereto. Moreover, in the foregoing embodiments, the hard protective cover 14 covers almost the entire upper surface of the electronic device 1 or 3, so that the corresponding recessed surface 144 is also disposed adjacent to the edge of the hard protective cover 14. In addition, in the foregoing embodiments, the touch switches 124 and 324 are taken as the homepage/wake button as an example, so the corresponding recesses The face 144 also forms only a recessed structure that substantially fits the contour of the finger 2, but the invention is not limited thereto. For example, when the touch-open relationship is triggered by a sliding touch, the touch key area is a rectangular area and the concave surface 144 is correspondingly a long groove structure for the user's finger 2 to correctly perform the sliding touch therein.

Please refer to FIGS. 5-7, FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a method for forming a hard protective cover according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 6 and 7 are diagrams for manufacturing according to the flow chart of FIG. Schematic diagram of the process. For convenience of explanation, the hard protective cover is exemplified by the aforementioned hard protective cover 14 for the electronic device 1 or 3 having a touch function. The method first prepares a hard plate member 15, as shown in steps S100 and 6; in the embodiment, the hard plate member 15 is a glass plate member, and is actually cut from a large glass plate. The glass sheet member is formed to a desired size, but the invention is not limited thereto. For example, a transparent plate member made of a high molecular polymer can also be used as the above-mentioned hard plate member 15.

The method then forms a recessed surface 154 on one surface 152 of the hard plate member 15, as shown in steps S120 and 7. In practice, the recessed surface 154 can be directly formed by a computer numerical control machine, or formed by other physical processing methods, but the invention is not limited thereto. It should be noted that the position of the recessed surface 154 should be such that when the hard cover 14 is completed and fixed on the body 12, the hard cover 14 covers the touch screen area 1222 or 3222 and the touch keypad 1242 or 3242. The position of the keypad 1242 or 3242 (or the touch switch 124 or 324) relative to the hard cover 14 is such that the recessed surface 144 corresponds to the touch keypad 1242 or 3242. In principle, when the hard protective cover 14 formed from the hard plate member 15 is fixed to the machine When the body 12 is on, the touch keypad 1242 or 3242 is located directly below the recessed surface 144 (ie, the recessed surface 154).

After the other desired size trimming process of the hard plate member 15 is completed, the method can then proceed to strengthen the hard plate member 15, as shown in step S140. In practice, the glass enhanced ion exchange technology can be implemented, but the invention is not limited thereto. After that, the hardened plate member 15 can be further subjected to other processes such as cleaning, coating, and the like, and will not be described again. After the method is completed, the hard plate member 15 forms a hard protective cover 14 having a recessed surface 144.

The above are only the preferred embodiments of the present invention, and all changes and modifications made to the scope of the present invention should be within the scope of the present invention.

1, 3‧‧‧ electronic devices

2‧‧‧ fingers

12, 32‧‧‧ body

15‧‧‧Hard plate

122, 322‧‧‧ display panel

124, 324‧‧‧ touch switch

126‧‧‧Control Processing Module

128‧‧‧Battery

142‧‧‧ outer surface

144‧‧‧ recessed surface

146‧‧ ‧ cover layer

148‧‧‧ inner surface

152‧‧‧ surface

154‧‧‧ recessed surface

1222, 3222‧‧‧ touch screen area

1242, 3242‧‧‧ touch keypad

S100~S140‧‧‧ implementation steps

1 is a schematic view showing the arrangement of an electronic device having a touch function according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 2 is a cross-sectional view of the electronic device taken along line X-X in Figure 1.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement of an electronic device with a touch function according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view of the electronic device along line Y-Y in Figure 3.

Figure 5 is a flow chart of a method of forming a hard protective cover in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 are schematic views showing the manufacturing flow according to the flow chart of Fig. 5.

1‧‧‧Electronic device

2‧‧‧ fingers

12‧‧‧ body

14‧‧‧Hard protective cover

122‧‧‧ display panel

124‧‧‧Touch switch

126‧‧‧Control Processing Module

128‧‧‧Battery

142‧‧‧ outer surface

144‧‧‧ recessed surface

146‧‧ ‧ cover layer

148‧‧‧ inner surface

1222‧‧‧Touch screen area

1242‧‧‧ touch keypad

Claims (10)

An electronic device with a touch function includes: a body having a touch screen area and a touch key area; and a hard cover fixedly disposed on the body and covering the touch screen area and the touch key And having an outer surface and a recessed surface formed on the outer surface, the recessed surface corresponding to the touch keypad. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the body comprises a touch display panel, the touch display panel having the touch screen area and the touch keypad. The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the touch keypad is located in the touch screen area. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the rigid protective cover is a glass protective cover. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the body comprises a touch switch, and the touch switch has the touch keypad. The electronic device of claim 5, wherein the touch switch is disposed in a side portion of the body. A method for forming a hard protective cover for an electronic device having a touch function, the electronic device comprising a body having a touch screen area and a touch a key area, the method comprising the steps of: preparing a hard plate member; and forming a concave surface on a surface of the hard plate member to form the hard protective cover, wherein when the hard protective cover is fixedly disposed on the body, The hard cover covers the touch screen area and the touch keypad and the recessed surface corresponds to the touch keypad. The method of claim 7, wherein the recessed surface is formed by a physical processing method. The method of claim 7, wherein the recessed surface is formed by a computer numerically controlled processing machine. The method of claim 7, wherein the rigid plate member is a glass plate member, and the method further comprises reinforcing the rigid plate member after the concave surface is formed.