NKK SmartSwitch with LCD display, where can I buy them?

[William At MyBlueRoom]

I recall seeing this in Circuit Cellar in 1991, $50 or so back then.
I saw them again in a recent Circuit Cellar and would love to play with one. Have any of you actually used one? Where have you seen them for sale. I'm sure I'm pressing my luck by asking in Canada...

https://www.nkksmartswitch.com/

 

[justDIY]

what you've got pictured there is the eval kit - you can try Mouser or Newark In One, but my guess is, they're only available from NKK

$90 to $425 right here:

https://www.nkksmartswitch.com/partselector.asp?S2=5

Looks like the "big cheese" of distributors is one of the wholesale / retail sources...

www.futureelectronics.com
**broken link removed**

as far as I know, future doesn't have a printed catalog or much of an online store, so you'll have to phone your order in.

 

[DirtyLude]

I saw these a while back too. $40.00 was the cheapest one at future electronics. Real bling, but too rich for my blood. You also need a microntroller to refresh the display, there's no control circuitry in it.

 

[William At MyBlueRoom]

I saw these a while back too. $40.00 was the cheapest one at future electronics. Real bling, but too rich for my blood. You also need a microntroller to refresh the display, there's no control circuitry in it.

Ahh there's the rub, I don't want to be refreshing an LCD display. I thought it would make an interesting thermostat display with button. The price isn't too bad though. And I'm sure it gets lower with quantity.

 

[justDIY]

if they've been around since 1991 and aren't yet in every gizmo imaginable, then there must be something wrong with them, and that's why the price hasn't come down

imho that switch looks huge - despite the novelity of having a minature lcd display with a custom color backlight, why would anyone make a design using a huge button like that. I wonder how the glass in the LCD holds up to the rigors of being poked day in and day out

I'm not sure you need to be refreshing the LCD, I think they use some sort of serial interface, so you send it new data when needed, and the onboard circuits handle the bare glass interface.

I think these switches are made largely obsolete by resistive / capacitve graphical touchscreen LCDs