Why won't my phone work with gloves on?

Just under the phone's glass, electrodes too thin to see are laid out like a grid, and a weak electric field spreads over them all the time. Our bodies hold a lot of water and conduct electricity well, so when a finger touches the glass, the electricity at that spot shifts slightly. The phone works out which cell of the grid changed and finds where your finger is.

That's why the screen responds to the lightest brush, and pressing down hard doesn't make it work any better. It's also why a fingernail tip or a pen cap won't work. Neither conducts much electricity, so the screen acts as if nothing touched it.

Ordinary wool, leather, or thick cotton gloves don't conduct electricity well. On top of that, the glove's thickness keeps your finger farther from the glass, so the change the screen can sense becomes too small. Pressing again and again with a gloved hand doesn't help, not because you lack force but because the electricity doesn't get through.

Older car navigation units and some machines used screens that read pressure. Those screens respond to a gloved finger or a stick, which may be where the memory of "just press harder" comes from. There was once a story about people tapping phones with sausages in winter; it works a little because a sausage's moisture and salt let some electricity through.

Touchscreen gloves, with electrically conductive thread woven into the fingertips, let the screen respond even while you keep them on. Many have fingertips in a different color or with shiny thread you can see. With long use, that thread can wear down and the response gets weaker.

Some phone models can recognize thin gloves if you turn on a setting that raises touch sensitivity. On the other hand, water drops on the screen also conduct electricity, so spots you never touched can get pressed. When your phone acts on its own with wet hands or a rain-soaked screen, wipe off the water first.