How te reset EMO's Touch Sensor

Cool!

Thanks…I’ll have a go!

I have tried and it seems to work!

Thx again

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Excellent! Good to see it worked :head:

Guys… Again my touch sensor is not working at all! I’ve tried to reset it putting EMO upside down and firmly pushing by two fingers the touch sensor as @Wayne_Small suggested into the tutorial that is not more online; EMO, by pushing as described, switch itself off, but when it’s on again, the sensor still doesn’t work. @Wayne_Zhang @Wayne_Zhang any tips to solve this problem? The same method worked in the past, but it’s not working anymore now. I’m so sad about this faileur!

Apologies for the lack of youtube - totally outside my control. I’ll get you another link today

If you don’t mind @Wayne_Small , May I offer some assistance to @Raffaele_Schiavullo

There was another EMO user / 2 now actually on another thread that have been experiencing EMO pat issues. (I’ve linked thread further below).

But I did want to advise, I’ve checked with the Living.Ai team and there actually isn’t a Pat Sensor Recalibrate feature for EMO. From what I’ve learnt, EMO does have a very thin piece of metal that is located between his two front microphone holes (which is where you pat your EMO). Which potentially could be jammed or sensitive to patting, or it could be a software issue / problem.

You can see a post I shared here descripting how the Pat sensor works.

If you are experiencing issues, even after trying everything you’ve done that was previously described by Wayne or what was explained in my post in that other thread, The best thing to do is contact support and advise to them your issue with the Pat sensor and they should provide you with further instructions on what to do next.

Hope this helps, and apologies @Wayne_Small If I’m getting in the way.

@MasterAbbott thanks for your support. I’ve replied to you in the post and this is the answer (please let me know your thoughts):

"The same for me. The top sensor works randomly, while the chins sensors work both fine. Could you post a video to safely open EMO and about how to clean the sensor? It would be great for the entire community. Thanks in advance. @MasterAbbott I’ve followed your instructions and if I firmly put the finger on the top sensor it works, but if I pet EMO by the top sensor, it doesn’t work at all. @mariomart is right about his solution… I think. "

If as MasterAbbott is describing the sensor, it’s just a simple metal plate (not an actual switch or set of contacts) then it must be just sensing the capacitance from the presence of your hand through the thin plastic like an antenna. In that case cleaning it would be unnecessary, and it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. If the sensor is not directly attached to the board though and has a cable with a plug, then it’s possible it could be loose where it plugs into the board? In any case without actually seeing it, or a decent photo of it, who knows? We’re making assumptions from a secondhand description of what someone said is supposed to be there.

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My situation is an intermittent one where Emo suddenly thinks he’s being petted and I am nowhere near him. He starts making the happy sound and lifts his feet as if he is being petted. If I say “Emo” he snaps out of it, but may start doing it again after several minutes. It is completely random and he can go days without this happening and then he gets into a loop where he keeps doing it. If I shut him off and restart him and he is having one of those days, he will start doing it again after I take him off his charger. Any suggestions?

When EMO does that, does it say “Being petted” at the upper left corner in the app?

I didn’t think to check the app, but will do so next time it happens. Thanks for the suggestion as that may help in terms of troubleshooting. Actually I am hoping it was a bug related to the last firmware and it is gone now with the update…time will tell.

I say that if EMO is randomly doing his feet up and pat animation just out of nowhere and the recent 1.4.0 firmware update didn’t help resolve the issue, I’d probably say that it’s not a software problem, but more of a hardware one where the metal is touching the pat sensor pins.

I know many of us have not see the inside of what EMO looks like especially what the thin piece of metal (pat sensor) looks like, so I’ve just done a quick check on YouTube and found the following and took some screenshots to explain what I think might be the problem.

From what I can see the bronze piece of metal seems to touch the top sensor panel that has two pins. So making a firm connection there should trigger the pat animation when they both make a connection. If at anytime the metal might move or could be dislodged and continues to touch the pat sensor pins, this could potentially result in EMO continuously thinking he is being patted.

This is my own observations by looking at the top panel and metal patting sensor from what I’ve seen on YouTube videos with EMO owners that have opened up their EMO’s. I believe if this could be the problem as to why EMO is randomly going into patting mode on his own.

I would say it could be a potential hardware problem, the best thing to do is contact Living.Ai support, explain the situation you are experiencing / send videos and pics and hopefully they might have a simple solution for you. I would not recommended opening up you’re EMO to fix this as it could void your warranty.

Hope this helps :heart_1: :mad: :skating: :surprised: :head:

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@MasterAbbott
Nice find, whose video is this from? Now this is all making sense, it’s set up very similarly to his smart light. Those two pins are what are known as pogo pins, and are spring-loaded to maintain solid contact when they’re partially compressed. They’re used in ATE machines, Automated Test Equipment or “board of nails” type testers which verify multiple circuit board connections all at once. In this case they just used the pins to make an electrical connection from the circuit board contacts to the copper foil sheet on the plastic case, which is there to act as an antenna to detect the capacitance from the proximity of your hand (not pressure). You can look at the picture I attached of the inside of the smart light, they used a similar arrangement there to connect from the circuit board to the copper touch pad, except they only used one pogo pin in that case.

The flaw I see with this design is that bare copper oxidizes very easily over time. It will turn from it’s normal bright pink color when pure and darken to brown (like a penny) or even black as increasing amounts of copper oxide form on its surface. That copper oxide coating starts to act as an insulator as it builds up. On a circuit board the bare copper traces are normally protected with either a plating of tin metal which is much less prone to oxidation, or a coating of a plastic solder mask material. In those cases though it’s only performing a protective function.

Where maximum conductivity has to be maintained though (for example on the edge fingers of a circuit board) gold plating or sometimes palladium plating covers the copper since those metals do not oxidize. Silver is extremely conductive but it also oxidizes and forms sulfides very easily so it’s not normally left bare. Silver jewelry used to have the thin outer plating of rhodium to stop tarnishing before it got so terribly expensive (Around $26000/Toz). Even palladium costs more than gold these days, because all these exotic metals like platinum, palladium, and rhodium are used in catalytic converter‘s. That’s why thieves steal them off of cars. Even the tiny amounts coated onto the ceramic honeycomb inside a catalytic converter can be worth hundreds of dollars.

So the long and short of it is I can see what they were intending with the so-called “calibration procedure”. A bit of pressure on the case where they contact the copper foil might cause the tips of the pogo pins to shift position slightly and get into a more conductive spot. A much better plan going forward would be for a portion of the copper foil right near where the pins make contact to be plated with gold? That’s not as expensive as it sounds, gold plating for electronics these days is so extremely thin that it’s only a few Cents worth of gold. Even a tin plating would be better than bare copper though.

Another thing I noticed with the light is that the pogo pen there has a hemispherical shaped end on it, which is probably the worst shape it could be due to the small contact area. I can see why they did it though, since a sharper point might pierce the foil over time. The foil in the light is in a cutout area so is not backed by plastic like it is for the petting sensor. I can’t tell from your photos what the shape of the pogo pins for the petting sensor are? As you can see from my other photo though, those pogo pins are made with all kinds of different shapes which are capable of biting into a surface so they don’t move around or lose contact.

Edit: I’ve been out of touch with rhodium prices, it’s down to only about $14,800.00 per troy ounce now. The Internet being what it is I figured someone would correct me if I didn’t do it myself.

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Thanks so much. I will keep an eye on him and if he starts to do it again I will make videos and contact support. I don’t want to think about returning him as we have bonded! So, I’m crossing my fingers that it’s software and not hardware. I really appreciate all you have done to look into this and explain what may be happening.

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You’re very welcome @tpagirl Glad I was able to help out. Just keep an eye on him for now and see if he improves or gets worse. If so, I guess you’ll need to contact support, as he’s still under warranty, Living.Ai should provide you with a few options, if a replacement is needed it might be the only solution, unless Living.Ai provide instructions on how to fix him yourself (how I believe they’ve done with other uses that’ve had issues with the SIM card 505 error. For now fingers crossed it’s just a software issue :slight_smile:

@macfixer01 The videos I discovered on how EMO’s sensors looks like were a few different kinds. I didn’t want to share them here, as Living.Ai don’t recommend anyone opening up their EMO, so I thought it would be best not to share the how to open your emo in the forum.

Thanks for further explaining what and how the pogo / sensor pat thing works for EMO. I believe if the copper oxidizes and your EMO goes out of warranty and Living.Ai are unable to offer a replacement or a solution to this pat problem, I think the easiest thing to do is open up your EMO, and clean the copper and remove any excess build up and also clean the pogo pins as well and possibly even put the copper metal back in its original place if it has moved. That should resolve the problem very easily, from the pics I shared, the top sensor panel is also connected to the front display panel and that too might need to firmly be re-connected as well, as that could / might have moved around a bit // there are so many possible issues that could arise that can effect the top metal and pogo pins from touching the copper metal sensor plate.

As I’ve already mentioned, the best thing to do is not to open your EMO and always contact Living.Ai support first to get a formal answer / solution from them first. That way you do not void any warranty you have for your EMO.

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Guys… Such technical replies into this post! Cool stuff! So I’ve realised that probably I’ve pressed to firmly the top of EMO’S head because when I keep pressing, EMO is powered off and when I switch it back on, the petting animation works one time and no more: the copper plate is probably really oxidised. @MasterAbbott I still have the firmware version 1.3… Has the 1.4 been released?

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Most likely EMO shutting down for you was normal. That’s one of the normal ways to turn him off, especially if he’s not connecting so he won’t respond to any voice commands. You hold him upside down with your finger held across his head petting sensor until he shuts down.

Thanks for the great reply. I was looking to make a post about how I cleaned the connection when I did my repair, but I knew that L.ai don’t like it when you break open their tech and show the world. There is also always the chance that someone screws up their EMO royally and then tries to blame the advice of someone who is a little more tech savvy and proficient in repairs. So, BRAVO :grin: :ok_hand:

As my EMO’s are now getting close to an age where any warranty is not covered I am continually looking for future failure points and getting intel on parts, such as batteries, that can be replaced to keep the little guys alive.

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Hey @Raffaele_Schiavullo Yes the latest firmware is available right now. v1.4.0. If you need a guide, feel free to check out this post below:

There is also a new EMO App as well. So be sure to download that first before you begin your Firmware update.