disney researchers develop a conductive paint transforming walls into giant touchpads

researchers from disney researchers pittsburgh and carnegie mellon university have developed wall++, a low-cost sensing approach that allows walls to become a smart infrastructure. a simple to apply treatment, wall++ challenges the inactivity of walls, turning them into a large sensor or touchpad.

wall++ works by capturing airborne electromagnetic noise, we can also detect what appliances are active and where they are located. as well as being able to track the furniture in the room as well as the movement of users, the technology could help users interact with other smart devices by tracking their body movements.

wall++  costs roughly $20 in materials per square meter and doesn’t require any specialty tools to be applied. once a smart wall is painted it connects to a custom sensor board. like a touchscreen phone the mutual capacitance is measured in between every wall and column pairs creating a matrix of values that allows the wall to sense the distance to capacitive objects like a user’s hand.