Smart surfaces
IMSE Days 2022 has just concluded. The marquee smart surfaces event ran from 5th to 7th October 2022 at Oulu, Finland. In-Mold Structural Electronics (IMSE) is an intelligent printed electronics manufacturing technique pioneered by TactoTek Oy. This technology enables the addition of electronic components into plastics and molding them into free-form shapes, providing design freedom and bringing sustainable benefits (supply chain optimization, variant management, etc.,) to the entire electronics and smart surfaces manufacturing process.
IMSE Days is a smart surface event that started in 2018, and just concluded its 4th edition, focused on market trends and adopting IMSE technology to key market challenges. Apart from a keynote, the technology tracks included “Innovation with Design,” “Sustainability as a business driver,” and “Delivering cutting edge products with IMSE Eco-system” and featured talks from over 14 external companies.
The participation was global, with over 115 attendees from Singapore, Brazil, China, Japan, India, Europe, and North America. The program had an engaging mix of panels, Q&A sessions, and several off-site discussions to foster networking and eco-system building. The participation list included several industries, notably automotive OEMs, automotive tiers, technology, and material suppliers, eco-system partners, standardization experts, and educational/research institutes.
The maturity and the applicability of the technology were highlighted by the external speakers. Key messages include:
It also showcased several innovations under the “Let Light Live” and “Let Smart Surface” themes. Let Light Live highlighted several new light concepts, including – The icon light family, Surface light family, and Composite light guides under a new molding technique. Let Smart Surface also featured an innovative Human Machine Interface (HMI) concept showcasing “digitized interfaces” in plastics – a world’s first. With a digital interface, the HMI design can be adapted to several applications, including smart home control, automotive HMI with Haptics, and advanced UI control, all of which were showcased. Under the theme “Let Applications Evolve,” partner-developed applications like Nighthawk – a home control panel – developed by Covestro AG, and a Haptic control developed by Kyocera were demonstrated.
TactoTek also announced new products, TactoTek Online – a new product and delivery platform, and IMSE Trainer, a self-served training module for learning about IMSE technology. All these products will be available to our licensees shortly. Coming soon is also a reference design concept built on the HMI interface to enable our licenses to build based on the design.
IMSE Days 4.0 comes after we transitioned to a new subscription-based business model. The license “Design and Innovate” enables companies to subscribe to our technology, get periodic updates, and use them to design innovative products. We also are bringing forward several engineering partner collaborations. We introduced our first engineering partner – csi Entwicklungstechnik GmbH, a Germany-based services provider to the automotive industry, to the IMSE family and eco-system
To conclude, the event provided a unique experience for people. The market provided the message of the maturity of TactoTek’s IMSE technology, while the participants saw unique applications built with IMSE technology. It was an event that enabled interaction and networking, and we are sure the ecosystem has grown – one company at a time.
Welcome back to next year's event – IMSE Days 5.0 Scale Up. To ensure you stay in the know and receive the invitation timely, we recommend signing up for our newsletter.
If you want to learn more about the themes and speakers you can download the agenda of IMSE Days 4.0.
