iGesture seizing up

[Excellency]

I got the iGesture w/o numbers a few weeks ago and it worked pretty well at first (win2002 system). I like it a lot better than a mouse! After a couple days I noticed that if I left the computer for a few hours and returned, the pad would be unresponsive. So far I've been waking it up by rubbing the side of my hand over it in large circles. But the longer it's on the system, the more often it goes dead (every ten minutes or so now, even when I'm still working, not just when it's left alone) and the longer it takes to wake up. What's going on and how do I make it stop?

[RJ Wiese]

I have the numeric igesture and have had it for about 3 weeks also. I am having the same type of problem. I use the Igesture with my powerbook and if I leave it alone for a period of time i have the same problem that it does not respond. I try the flat hand process and the slap but the best thing is unpluging and repluging the unit.
I also hope there is an easy fix for this situation I really like the igesture and am watching the progress of the mac keyboard .

[John Meacham]

I have noticed something somewhat similar with my touchstream keyboard. it seems to become unresponsive to everything except the hand-slap gesture, which does nothing but dance the mouse. doing it 5 times doesn't help but physically un/replugging it does. it only happened twice so far, i assumed it was something funky about my OS's usb driver. as far as i can tell this seems to be unrelated to letting it sit alone for a while and happened both times during normal use.

what would be a useful custom field to add to peoples personal profile on this discussion forum is what type of fingerworks products people have and what platform they use them on. just a thought...

[nomaded]

From what I've seen, it's a static electricity problem. When you get up from your computer, walk away, and then walk back, your static charge is different than what it was, so the pad had problems detecting electrical differences on the surface where you touch. The flat palm slap (more like a tap and hold, in my experience) is supposed to reset the pad to your current electrical potential, so it'll work again. The 5 palm slaps, in rapid succession is supposed to reset the USB chip in the pad, as if you unplugged the pad and then replugged it in - this will also fix the static electricity problem.

That's all the info I have to offer.

[fingerworks]

In this case, nomaded's anaylsis sounds right. Checkout the troubleshooting page:

http://www.fingerworks.com/troubleshooting.html#static

for detailed instructions on the flathand reset gesture.

The guitar-cleaner with anti-static additives mentioned on the 'sticky fingers' thread may help prevent this too--been too humid in Delaware to have any static troubles this spring, so we haven't had a chance to test whether an anti-static cleaner can help.

The phenomenon John Meacham refers to, where an iGesture or TouchStream occasionally gets in a state where the flathand causes the diamond cursor trace but does not unseize gesturing, was a bug fixed in firmware v1.28, just posted on the downloads page.

A couple other notes: none of our products can wake a Mac or PC out of sleep yet. You'll need to hit another key or the sleep/power button on your case to wake up your systems. We may eventually be able to fix this with a firmware upgrade, but it's very tricky.

If the pad seizes up VERY frequently, like every minute or so even after flathand slaps, not just after you've walked up to it across the carpet, that likely indicates sensor array failure. Then you should run diagnostics and contact support for more guidance, possibly for a repair.