Pressure-Sensitive Bluetooth 4.0 Stylus Coming to iPad

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Digital artists can now capture line weights and angles on iPad drawings thanks to this Bluetooth stylus.

Here's a cool gadget for the artist who owns an iPad: Ten One Design's Pogo Connect, the world's first pressure-sensitive Bluetooth 4.0 stylus. It features new patent pending technology the company calls Crescendo Sensor, making the tip highly responsive to pressure and recognizing even the slightest touch. Now users can control line width and opacity of a drawn line based on the amount of pressure they apply to the stylus.

"With zero grams of activation force, Crescendo Sensor works at all angles and requires absolutely no calibration, providing hundreds of levels of pressure," the company said on Wednesday. "Plus, the solid state design means no moving parts, making the stylus incredibly reliable."

This method of artistic input has been around for years thanks to Wacom (Intuos, Cintiq etc), but Pogo Connect is reportedly the first to arrive in Bluetooth form that doesn't require a separate tablet or "paper" app. Six iOS apps already support the pen-shaped gadget – Brushes, Zen Brush, PDFpen for iPAd, Procreate, Flipbook HD and Sketch Club – with six more supporting apps on the way like SketchBook Pro and NotePad Pro.

"The intelligent stylus also features a special LED light that app developers can utilize for various applications," the company said on Wednesday. "For instance, the LED light can change colors to indicate at a glance the color with which the user is sketching and it can also notify users when they are close to end of life when playing a gaming app. Most simply, the LED light also lets the user know when the device has been successfully paired with iPad."

The smart pen is powered by one AAA battery, and comes with a built-in radio transmitter so that users can easily find their lost tablet peripheral. Simply use an iPhone or iPad to track the signal and display the estimated distance to the pen, which is displayed intuitively in a radar-style view.

Pogo Connect can be pre-ordered starting Oct. 1, 2012 for $79.95. The first 2,000 buyers will receive a special edition version with a laser-engraved tiger graphic reminiscent of the product’s previous name, Blue Tiger.

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Kevin Parrish
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • EldritchOnRye
    I was going to point to Wacoms iPad stylus but apparently it's not pressure sensitive which is just mind boggling.
    Reply
  • house70
    Lame attempt to copy Samsung's Note series.
    Reply
  • wemakeourfuture
    house70Lame attempt to copy Samsung's Note series.
    Galaxy 1 and Galaxy tab were lame attempts to copy the iPhone and iPad, guess you forgot to mention that.
    Reply
  • cycletronic
    This is far far inferior to Wacom tech. Wacom uses no battery (read: light weight)... it does require the screen to have a special grid under it, and it requires you to license their patents, which is exactly why Apple didn't do it.
    Wacom will give you more than just pressure too... tilt sensing and even roll/twist sensing. You can even have multiple pens that perform different functions, like an airbrush pen, paint pen, pencil pen, etc. These features are actually pretty important if you want to do digital art... pressure sensitivity is much less useful than tilt and rotation.
    I'm not sure what features are available on the Note devices, but the technology supports it. This bluetooth thing is just a cheap hack by comparison. A heavy cheap hack.
    Reply
  • kenyee
    ditto Wacom technology is totally different...if you've ever used a real Wacom graphics tablet, you'd know there's no comparison.

    I don't see how this gizmo can get location accurately. Touch screens have some crazy big minimum spot size of 10mm or something like that. That's why the other touch styluses always have a big fat tip on the end...
    Reply
  • cycletronic
    @JacekRing - I'm not sure there's enough sarcasm sauce dripping from your post for people to recognize it...
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    The tip of this stylus is way too thick. Plus, a battery is required inside the stylus making it heavy and unwieldy. I'm already quite happy with my Wacom tablet PC and Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. This iPad stylus just isn't good enough.
    Reply
  • thinbear
    would like to know (doubt how good will) the level of pressure and the lpi of this product;
    if the pointer (nib) is too sharp, it will scratch the surface; otherwise, looks like it will be hard to control (imagine using an eraser to erase an "i" among "//////i///////"). A typical wacom user change their pen nibs once in a while jus FYI

    Guess this will be a fun toy to have, for at most for drafting purpose. Or they have a method to work around it (which I look forward)
    - Bamboo connect user
    Reply
  • reprotected
    JacekRing@cycletronic - I'm sure the Android fan boys will get it, but I'm not so sure about the Apple fan boys. We'll wait to see what kind of +/- rating it will get (- meaning that Apple fanboys got it, and + meaning that Android fanboys got it, if it stays 0 that means you're all stupid....j/k)This comment is the best case example of ignorance. You might as well say Android fanboys vote up anything that disses Apple, and that Apple fanboys don't come to Tom's Hardware and leave comments, because that comment even though is probably not truthful, is more than likely more accurate than what you have said, and ironically less ignorant. Glad to see logical people like cycletronic and bigdragon who didn't leave a comment about Apple fanboys and talked about the product themselves and compared it to others.
    Reply