The Common Stylus Initiative (USI) introduced this week that it’s established a brand new USI 2.0 open stylus commonplace, which incorporates new options that may make means for higher writing experiences on Chromebooks.
A giant new function for USI 2.0 is wi-fi charging that’s suitable with the most recent NFC spec, able to 1-watt charging from suitable smartphones and different units. “The simplicity and ease of use of wi-fi charging signifies that client adoption shall be speedy,” stated Mike McCamon, govt director of NFC Discussion board. NFC charging throughout the USI 2.0 commonplace means extra units can host wi-fi charging for connected styli, like how the Apple Pencil 2 fees towards an iPad.
USI expertise is on the market on many Chromebook units from Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and extra. The usual gained important traction amongst producers after Google joined the initiative in 2018 however has not been broadly carried out on units aside from Chromebooks.
The expertise has not been broadly carried out on units aside from Chromebooks
The USI commonplace permits for stylus interoperability between completely different screens and units, a key profit over proprietary applied sciences like Samsung’s S Pen, Apple’s Pencil, and Microsoft’s Floor Pen, all of which may’t be used interchangeably between the units. USI styli additionally don’t require a pairing course of and might retain settings throughout the stylus itself. Producers can join so as to add help for brand new or current USI suitable styli just like the Logitech Pen to units.
Now with the brand new USI 2.0 commonplace, the sorts of screens the expertise works with have expanded to incorporate in-cell screens — extra superior shows that mix the panel and the digitizer into one skinny layer. There’s additionally an expanded shade palette that USI styli can help: going from 256 to over 16 million colours. Future styli may have extra tilt / shading performance for higher drawing help.
