One of the better, more convenient inventions in lighting came with the use of the touch lamp, which eliminated the need for a switch with which to turn a light on and off. While useful in turning it off, a touch lamp is more advantageous to turning it on to eliminate the need to fumble in the dark searching for the switch.
Even a three-way lamp allows the adjustment to be made through touch lamp technology as successive touches take the touch switch through the consecutive stages of brightness. It is the change in capacity when your body comes into contact with the touch-sensitive switch built as part of the lamp that triggers the switch to open, turn off the lamp, or close, and turn it on.
There are other types of touch sensitive switches also in use such as in elevators or door operators. Temperature switches use the difference between the temperature of a human hand and the ambient temperature of a switch’s surroundings to change the circuit. Early versions of the touch lamp experimented with temperature difference switches, but a person with cold hands could not control the light.
Resistance Can Create Shocking Consequence
Another type of touch lamp switch that did not work out too well relied on resistance to complete a circuit. The body made of largely of water is a good conductor and two contacts placed close together could have the circuit completed by touching them with your finger. This, however proved unpopular as a touch lamp due to occasional circumstances, which created a small electrical shock.
If you ever used a radio with an antenna, you have probably experienced an improvement in reception when you touched the antenna, as your body serves as an antenna as well. A touch lamp using radio frequency could detect the reception improvement when touched and operate the on and off switch. However, this method is also unreliable for lamp use.
Capacitance describes the lamp’s ability to hold electrons in storage, hence the term capacity and when you touch the lamp it increase the amount, or the capacity, of electrons the lamp is capable of holding. The touch lamp circuit can detect that difference and triggers the movement of the switch. The three-way switch simply adjusts the capacity by a percentage of power applied.
Similar circuitry is used to activate switches on other devices as well, such as loud noises enabling voice commands to activate switches to turn items on and off.
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