Touch-sensitive wall paint turns lights on, off
In the future, mothers will no longer yell at their children to "keep your grubby hands off my clean, white walls."
That's because touch-sensitive wall paint will be used to turn lights in the home on and off, at least in a future envisioned by French design firm Quarks.
With a dash of paint and a healthy dose of embedded electronics, walls are the new switches. Appropriately, it's called "ON/OFF" paint,
Once the ON/OFF paint has been applied to the wall, a simple touch detects the contact desired by the user to control an electrical appliance. This "switch" is no longer positioned at an exact location only a few square centimetres in size but on the entire surface of the wall.
The paint can be applied with a roller or a brush, on any background (plaster, wood, concrete, plastic, etc.). It may be covered in a coat of paint the colour you want, or wallpaper, without losing effectiveness.
ON/OFF may be combined with a lamp, an alarm, roller blinds or any electrically-controlled appliances. You can add another function to the unit such as a dimmer, timer or plug.
The benefits? No wires, a large "switch" area (turn the lights off from any point along the edge of the room, or isolate the signal), and convenience when your hands are full -- not unlike Delta's Touch Faucet.
Quark suggests this interactive wall paint as both a safety precaution for elderly or disabled people who need to trigger an alarm or as an activity enabler for children. Or for the rest of us, a way to turn everything off in a room before you leave -- not just whatever is controlled by the switch nearest the door.
[via PSFK]
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