Why do touch screen materials have to be black?

August 10, 2021 1 min read

Graphite.

Graphite is a good conductor of electricity, its cheap and widely available. Manufacturers coat or impregnate surfaces with graphite fibers to create conductivity in them. But graphite is black, and its impossible to replicate graphite's performance with other colors.

Graphite image Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Some glove manufacturers use polyester (plastic) woven fabrics with a copper-nickel film, which has a gold-silver color. This material is commonly found in inexpensive gloves as while it is cheap to add on to gloves, it is not durable at all.

GloveTacts relies on graphite to achieve conductivity, but because GloveTacts is not woven we are able to achieve much higher conductivity than traditional glove materials. Find out how GloveTacts is made and why it is a great way to achieve touch.