Customer:
Using the official Arduino Studio sample, the first pad constantly reads 1, the other 2 constantly read 0, with no reaction to touch. Is the Inkplate broken?
Originally submitted via email support on 3 October 2025. Migrated to the forum for community visibility.
Soldered Support:
You have an older Inkplate model - we don’t have touchpads on newer models. If you’re using this example: https://github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library/blob/master/examples/Inkplate6COLOR/Basic/Inkplate6COLOR_Read_Touchpads/Inkplate6COLOR_Read_Touchpads.ino and it’s not working, please take a detailed photo of your Inkplate PCB near the touchpads to help diagnose any issue.
This could also be due to electrostatic noise, as the pads are sensitive to it. Try it with a different environment and different power supply as well.
Customer:
I have a very fresh Inkplate 6COLOR, just bought. So you’re saying it doesn’t have touchpads anymore? It’s just for viewing with no user interaction possible, only using the WAKE button?
Soldered Support:
If it has touchpads, it’s an older version that was stored away for a while. The latest Inkplate models we have in our webstore do not have them. This leaves you with the WAKE button to interact with. You could use the GPIO expander to connect your own buttons to the header pins to increase the amount of interaction.
One of the reasons we removed the touchpads was the mixed reliability - they are sensitive. Could you please take a photo of the back of your board so we can inspect it?
Customer:
I don’t see any physical touchpads - I thought the touchable areas would be at the bottom of the display like a classic notebook touchpad, with resolution limited to 3 touchable areas. The display came initialized with a picture containing 3 button-like pictures at the bottom. So I’ll use it as a switchable display. Do you have other interactive low-power e-ink hardware recommendations that can wake from deep sleep by touches? Even monochrome would be useful.
Soldered Support:
That explains it - your Inkplate 6COLOR has no touchpads at all. The pads in the image are symbolic and just serve as backgrounds for the QR codes.
Inkplate 6FLICK can wake on touchscreen - see this Arduino example: https://github.com/SolderedElectronics/Inkplate-Arduino-library/blob/master/examples/Inkplate6FLICK/Basic/Inkplate6FLICK_Read_Touchscreen/Inkplate6FLICK_Read_Touchscreen.ino
For info on Inkplate features, see the updated documentation: Inkplate Documentation | Soldered Documentation and the feature comparisons page.