I would like to use a Surface Pro 3 pen with another tablet.

Anonymous
2014-06-26T02:23:55+00:00

Hi everyone!

I'm going to try out the Surface Pro 3 soon, but I think that N-trig pen is cool, especially the click the top to open One Note feature I saw when it was introduced.

I've done a bit of research and found out the reason the Surface Pro 3 switched from Wacom to N-trig technology was to make the device thinner as the Bluetooth technology used by the pen eliminated the need for a special digitizing layer on the screen. This led me to believe that the pen would be compatible with any Bluetooth supported Windows tablet. Can anyone confirm this is true and whether purchasing the new Surface Pen is worth my money?

I'm asking this because I'm a little annoyed with the performance of the Wacom digitizer on my own tablet (which is not a Surface) and was thinking that a Bluetooth operated pen, which does not require this special internal hardware to be fitted into the device, would make an appropriate replacement and/or backup in case the Wacom fails to work at all. Better still, I'd love to see the click to open One Note feature functional on my unit as well. What do you say?

Appreciate your advice, as always!

CSD Surface Tester.

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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Anonymous
2014-06-26T05:38:09+00:00

That is the reason why to check the specs on the pen.  The particular pen for the Surface Pro 3 only.  The pen itself functions in a dual mode capability but still needs power to do it.  It is classed as a "mechanical" pen because it has electronic components.

The two button batteries pre-installed in the top of the pen functions the Bluetooth connection.  The main battery actually communicates with the pen's driver installed in the tablet to work with the touchscreen.  No digitizer is needed.

If it was a generic pen, you would have an installation disk to install a driver for the pen and that drivers mates with the touchscreen along with adding it as a Bluetooth 4.0 device.

Now, if the Bluetooth connection fails, the pen will still function similar to a stylus where the driver will use the touchscreen like a digitizer surface.  The Bluetooth connection is for software control mainly.

It is a little complex but is a great concept in my thought.  You eliminate hardware (digitizer) and emulate that hardware with software (driver).  Believe it or not, a network adapter and a dial-up modem have been working in that fashion for years; where the driver was actually the modem (simulated hardware) and the hardware (interface card) was just a circuit and connection point.

Right now, you can get Bluetooth and WiFi adapters just slightly bigger than a USB plug.  There is only a very small chip in those and rely on the driver to do the rest.

This pen operates in the same fashion.  Since the driver for it is built in, it cannot be used with any other tablet and this particular model was designed solely for the Surface Pro 3.

Now, like I said, you can get a generic pen (probably from N-Trig) from their web site.  That one will include an installation disk and will work with any tablet that has a touchscreen and Bluetooth 4.0 adapter.  You can't with this particular model.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T23:37:49+00:00

    Yea, I should have one in hand sometime next week.  They are new and are going to cause some confusion as to how they work.  Right now, these pens are custom built for use only with these tablets because no matter how they work, they always require a driver to function.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-06-26T23:46:14+00:00

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but to sum everything up:

    The Surface Pen consists of two components, an active N-trig receiver built into the pen tip along with right click and erase buttons and a Bluetooth powered top button.

    The N-trig pen emits EMF signals using its 4A battery power. When the tip comes into contact with the passive digitizer layer on the Surface Pro 3's screen, an electrical circuit is completed and the driver interprets it appropriately, whether a click, right click, ink stroke, or eraser stroke. This passive layer on the screen (although it is thinner than the Wacom because it is not active, it is still necessary hardware to make the pen functional) is what makes N-trig pens incompatible with Wacom or other tablets regardless of what software they have installed.

    Separately, the pen contains a top button, powered by two button cell batteries, which when pressed sends a signal to Surface Pro 3 via Bluetooth to perform One Note related functions. It functions independently of the N-trig digitizer. If Bluetooth is off or malfunctioning on SP3, only the top button does not work; the inking itself is unaffected as it does not use Bluetooth at all.

    In brief: I cannot use the Surface Pro 3 pen with another tablet unless it supports N-trig's Duo Sense technology. And that does not include Surface Pro 1 or 2 because they use Wacom. The top button is also unusable because only SP3 has the necessary software to support it.

    And lastly, at this time there is no active stylus technology that would universally work with any Windows device.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-06-27T00:08:34+00:00

    Just to add something; I checked with IFIXIT.COM which had the link to N-Trig regarding the DuoSense and it turns out that there is hardware in the tablet.  In fact, the DuoSense not only controls the pen, it is also the touchscreen controller to boot.

    Whatever device that uses that pen MUST have the N-Trig touchscreen controller chip.  In the case of the Surface Pro 3, that would be the N-trig DS-P4196 touch controller.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-27T00:13:04+00:00

    You are correct in you summation....

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