Inventors Plan To Turn Old Monitors Into Touch Screens

One of the downsides of rapidly developing technology is that perfectly good pieces of equipment can get tossed on the junk heap. That leads to a lot of waste and electronic waste can be especially dangerous because of the chemicals found in the electronic components.

Some young inventors are taking “waste not, want not” to heart and launching a crowd-funding campaign through IndieGoGo for their project called the Zmartframe. Their plan is to give old flat screen monitors new life as touch screen  devices and even to turn them into functioning big-screen Android tablets by adding a frame.

According to their website, the frame just needs to be plugged in to your old Windows computer and calibrated. Then you’ll have multi-touch capability.

If all goes to plan, Zmartframe will have Android embedded into the frame. The frame can then function as an Android device. Users could switch between modes, enjoying a PC and an Android device on the same equipment.

Of course, manufacturing a device like this doesn’t come cheap and the developers are trying to raise $200,000 to move forward with mass production. This product is still in the development stage and I would certainly never advise anyone to put money into a crowdfunding campaign. It can be fun to get the perks like one of the first models to be manufactured, but it’s not the same as making an investment and there are much wiser things to do with your money, unless you really are just interested in offering up a contribution because you like the idea. 

~ Cynthia