A Touchscreen uConsole?
If so I could almost see it making quite a impact on the Blackberry and Android Unihertz users who are left looking for some kind of a replacement, as well as plenty of contributors to android ports.
I’d most definitely be interested in a uConsole if it had touchscreen capabilities as well as a physical keyboard removable batteries, upgradable interchangeable hardware.open source and microsd support as well as 4G/LTE
Having used my uConsole for a couple months, I don’t think a touch screen would be helpful on it. The front face is twice as large as a smartphone and it’s four times as thick. Reaching from the keyboard to the recessed screen wouldn’t be comfortable or accurate for the screen size and resolution. The ergonomics are just wrong for it.
Call me crazy but what the uConsole 2.0 really needs is a ThinkPad style trackpoint. Faster and more accurate than a trackball, and could pull double duty as an analog game input.
Actually, if you want a touchscreen, you can swap it for one. Or a track-pad, or anything you want you can add/remove basically. Hacking it’s really encouraged in a device like this.
Interesting what’s the model of the touchscreen, so it fits decently in the gap as a replacement?
Color me intrigued now.
In theory, sure. You’d need a touch screen that fits the case, uses the same interface that the uConsole uses for the display, has a USB connector for the touch input, and you’d need to buy something like the uHub for an internal USB port to solder those contacts to.
In practice, I think you’re going to have difficulty finding that. And the uConsole’s screen is recessed 3mm into the case.
What about the other ribbon connector, its a 40 pin gpio connector, maybe that could be used instead of getting a uhub.
Well, I don’t have “mine” yet, so I cannot make a “step by step” or anything yet, but;
You don’t need to use the same interface as the current display. This interface is the one chosen and used, it doesn’t mean you can’t change it for another.
The touch connection, quite of “ditto”. You should have several ways this could be implemented.
The case can be easily modified. If you don’t want to modify the original one, you can always download all the 3D files in the web and print it yourself another one or have it made printed / CNC.
Actually, as I mentioned, mine (it’s not for me tho), didn’t arrive yet. Still I was thinking already to swap the screen for a touch one. Didn’t investigate a lot yet, specially because I’m not really into screen interfaces and such, but in the back of my head I have what will probably will try first; MIPI SPI.
I do plan on making some “expansion / conversion” boards for my own, but I could always share the schematics / PCB’s / kernels, etc…
Once I have it, I do will try to take a look into this. I’ll keep updating when I know more.
EDIT: I just had a look, just because honestly, never had in my own hands a RPI. The CM4 module comes with (not only), these:
• 28 × GPIO supporting either 1.8V or 3.3V signalling and peripheral options:
◦ Up to 5 × UART
◦ Up to 5 × I2C
◦ Up to 5 × SPI
◦ 1 × SDIO interface
◦ 1 × DPI (parallel RGB display)
◦ 1 × PCM
◦ Up to 2× PWM channels
◦ Up to 3× GPCLK outputs
• 2 × HDMI 2.0 ports (up to 4Kp60 supported)
• MIPI DSI:
◦ 1 × 2-lane MIPI DSI display port
◦ 1 × 4-lane MIPI DSI display port
• MIPI CSI-2:
◦ 1 × 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port
◦ 1 × 4-lane MIPI CSI camera port
I don’t exactly know what is used by the uConsole (I will take a look), but still, there’s plenty of options. I mean you can even probably connect a few touch-screens.
That port doesn’t contain a USB connection unfortunately…
Well maybe itll work if you used the tx/rx pins and write up a little script
I would just suggest that, at a certain point, you might be better off designing your own device from scratch instead of modifying the uConsole. I don’t think that installing a touch screen or a trackpad would be easy or trivial, and I wouldn’t want to set someone up for disappointment by suggesting that there are drop-in modifications of that kind available.
But hey, good luck! Hoping you prove me wrong.
Hey Mike, thanks for the suggestion and the luck! but I actually already do. Been like an “enthusiast engineer” for around 18 years now, basically designing all sorts of synthesizers, eurorack modules, little embedded machines, etc.
I do not really think to heavily mod this uConsole, as I already mentioned (I actually quite repeat myself at some point), the one I bought, it’s not for me. I do plan to make some modules and little intrusive modifications to it, because it won’t be mine, but still will be around me all the time so… One of this modules was, if required of course, was intended as any sort of interface or such for a touchscreen LCD/OLED/whatever.
Usually, when I do this kind of things, I share them on internet for other people to enjoy as well if they like. I do make some PCB’s too, normally around 5 or 10 (depending on the provider, small things work like this), keep a couple and give the others away. I wouldn’t mind giving one away for you, but you would need to buy the rest of course, hope you understand.
Either way, until I don’t have the ability to have it in my hands for some hours, this is just rumbling around.
A Steam Deck style track pad would be perfect imo
Honestly no idea what does it have. Is it a touch trackpad I guess, like the PS4/5 controller right?
No, far more accurate. They feel amazing. A million times better than a track pad. Prefer them to analogs, especially for a cursor.
You might be crazy 
Those trackpoint style things are very polarising, people either love them or hate them. Personally I like the idea of a trackball but a possible alternative could be like the optical sensor button you used to get on blackberries and some HTC android phones, basically the sensor out of a laser mouse but looking out of the middle of a little nub button so you can click by pressing down and also move the cursor by stroking your fingertip in whatever direction over the button. I bet it wouldn’t be very hard to write a driver for that to make it behave like a trackpoint, if you used the direction of the last move to determine how much “torque” that would have put onto the trackpoint and then a counter-move back to the neutral position could be read the same way, lose the image of a fingertip and you know they’ve lifted their finger off.
I don’t think the touch-screen would be that useful, unless you got android running on it. Your average linux desktop software just won’t be touch-aware enough, and you’ll be frustrated with it. That was my experience with the PocketCHIP, whose resistive touch screen enabled accurate pointing with the use of a stylus. You are better off with the track ball, TBH. It’s much better at coping with the situation where some GUI app you started presents you with an annoying dialog you need to click on, or a microscopic icon.
Learn to embrace keyboard shortcuts and keyboard-driven interaction, and the uConsole really starts to make a lot more sense.
I could get behind the trackpoint, maybe. I like them. But tbh, the track ball works well enough for me. The trouble with those track points is that only the older lenovo / IBM ones were any good. There are some bad ones out there on newer machines, and they don’t work so well for me any more.