Data911 introduces in-vehicle touchscreen display that includes safety features, works with gloved hands

Data911 Systems recently introduced the M7+ Multi-Touch Display, an in-vehicle display designed specifically for the needs of fire, EMS and law-enforcement personnel that has multiple safety features and is the first multi-touch display for emergency vehicles—a function that works even when users wear thick gloves, according to company officials.

“The development of this new display has been based on customer feedback,” Data911 Systems CEO Abigail Baker said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “The customer can be the fleet manager, the officer in the field, or the risk manager in the city, because we’ve done a lot with our ergonomics and also some other technical features that ensure that the officer is not staring at the screen while he may be chasing after someone at 70 miles per hour.”

Indeed, the new M7+ Multi-Touch Display includes a feature called “blank on motion,” which can be configured to turn off the display when the vehicle is moving—based on readings from accelerometers—so the driver is not distracted by the screen while driving, according to Jason Wise, product manager for Data911’s mobile-data-terminal division.

 “It’s something that some of our customers were very interested in, in regards to their risk management,” Wise said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Other customer are not [worried about the display being on from a risk-management standpoint], so we made it configurable. They can incorporate that into their policy of not using the display while they are driving or allowing them to do so.”

The new display’s other safety features include airbag-compliant mounting—even in smaller vehicles, such as a Ford sedan—and a rubber crash-pad sensor on top of the display, Wise said.

Like other Data911 displays, the M7+ Multi-Touch Display can produce a very bright display that can be viewed even when exposed to bright sunlight. However, the new display features an improved capability to dim the display in the dark or quickly turn off all illumination to enter “stealth mode,” Wise said.