Catching that sparkling moment: the birth of Wacom's first ever device with full-fledged portability

Searching for a portable device with Wacom's DNA

What is a portable device that nobody else but Wacom can provide to cater to the needs of professional creatives?
Here is the story of our engineers and their quest to answer this question. Actually, there had hardly been any discussions within Wacom regarding the necessity of providing portable devices for creators. Do they really want this?

“Perhaps we were caught up in preconceived images of artists who confine themselves to a studio to focus on their work. In our minds, we were automatically associating ‘professionals’ with stationary workplaces,” says Masayuki Maeda, Senior Manager of the Mechanical Engineering Division. He was in charge of the basic conceptual design of the Wacom Movink 13 and conducted technical research at the early development stage. Maeda and his team members were convinced of the growing need for portable devices in the modern world, where new technologies are freeing people from the constraints of time, place, and space in every aspect of human activity. The stereotypical image of creative work is losing its validity. Such thoughts prompted the team to begin developing a new portable device.

Ultra-slim, lightweight and robust

Osamu Nagase, head of the Mechanical Engineering Group and Maeda’s manager, described the project as "a joint undertaking that united the entire team with a common goal. ‘Taking up new challenges’ is a magic phrase that makes every engineer’s heart flutter. Our team members were extremely enthusiastic." He praises his team’s exceptional work ethic. The three characteristics of "slim", "lightweight" and "robust" were key to the design and development. These elements are inseparable and indispensable. If any of the three is missing, the portable device will fall short of Wacom’s expectations. In particular, the sleekness is much more susceptible to external factors than the others. The product specifications required a USB Type-C port to be incorporated into the display. Therefore, making the unit as thin as possible was the first objective. Maeda fondly recalled the team’s passionate quest for this goal.

“The bottleneck was the integration of a USB Type-C port while reducing the display’s thickness to its physical limit. A standard USB Type-C connector has a metal shell. We removed this shell from our product. The related parts then needed to be machine-processed and assembled with the utmost precision to compensate for the lack of the metal shell. When viewed from the side, the device is 6.6 mm thick at the top corner where the USB ports are located – this is actually the physical limit. From there downwards, the thickness is cut down to 4.0 mm. USB ports on both the left and right sides come in handy for creators. The cable is long enough to ensure effortless connectivity and is more flexible than any of Wacom’s other cables for image-signal transfer. Plus, the plug head is Wacom’s smallest. The glass panel of the device is one of the thinnest in the industry. Our efforts in pursuit of ultimate sleekness are evident throughout. Together, they all demonstrate our commitment to portability.”

Unprecedented design – EMR sensor films for the slim and lightweight device

EMR sensors also play an important role in reducing the thickness of the device. Wacom's patented EMR technology consists of a layer of hardened glass and a sensor layer that sits behind the device’s LCD screen. The sensors are precisely embedded and arranged in an alternating vertical/horizontal grid pattern and emit weak electromagnetic signals.. Together, these signals create a magnetic field having a radius extending about 5 mm above the glass surface of the device. Power can be supplied to a pen through LCD displays and protective surfaces.

The EMR sensors also needed to be downsized in order to be used in the Wacom Movink 13, the slimmest model of all time. “The development of EMR films turned out to be far more demanding than we expected,” says Kei Dobashi, who headed up the work of designing and developing EMR.

“While we did have other devices using EMR films, the Wacom Movink 13 is the first device for professional use to incorporate EMR films. However, thin EMR sensors – typically these film types – have one catch: the pens cannot reach their full performance potential with them. Using film sensors, it took great skill for us to ensure the level of performance expected by professionals. The added difficulty with this product was the need to support not only the Wacom Pro Pen 3, the pen included with Movink, but also various UD pens*. As a result, adjusting the sensors became quite a delicate job. The internal wiring was partially redone, setting it apart from other Wacom devices. The fruit of all these efforts is an EMR sensor that is thin, yet delivers the best pen experience. The new EMR sensor weighs just one tenth of conventional sensors and thus greatly contributed to the reduction in product weight.”

* UD pens: digital pens using UD pen technology that communicates information such as pen pressure directly – without digitization – through fluctuating AC magnetic fields to sensors.

2 photos. 1 photo of a man working at a desk. The other photo of is of a person working on a tablet.

Matching accessories to support maximum portability

Magnesium alloy is used for the housing of the Wacom Movink 13 to achieve its required “lightweight” and “robust” features. This is a material that Wacom has never used before for a device’s body. Magnesium alloy, a high-grade metal, helped to achieve a quality feel and calm, sophisticated look for the product’s exterior. Its fingerprint-proof finish is another example of its carefully considered design, which has been worked out down to the smallest detail. Why fingerprint-proof? Because portable models are often in and out of people’s hands as users carry them around. The exterior is an example of how Wacom achieved the very best of every component by clearing one hurdle after another. The exceptionally slim, lightweight, and robust device was made possible through the accumulation of these small steps.

Special care was also taken with the accessories, ensuring that they are reliable companions for the portable device. Newly developed accessories include a foldable stand that allows users to set their desired work angle, a sleeve for protecting the display’s glass surface, and a protective case for digital pens. Accessories dedicated to the portable use of the Wacom Movink 13 were designed from scratch.

“Please take a look at this roll-up pen case. Nibs for digital pens like the included Wacom Pro Pen 3 are sensitive to external shocks. Users carrying this portable device may accidentally damage the pen nibs in their bags. Nib protection is a new perspective that comes into play, especially in the development of portable devices,” says Maeda.

A foldable stand is particularly important as an accessory to provide creators with the best performance in any location. Thus, a great deal of R&D effort was put into its development. The stand supports the Wacom Movink 13 at a 20-degree angle to the working surface. When you place the device on this stand, it is instantly set up for the optimal creative condition – anytime and anywhere. When developing this stand, some issues that would have normally been discovered in the planning stage went undetected until the production stage due to the extremely limited lead time. What matters most for creators is the stand’s rattle-free stability in use. To this end, its components and parts need to be machine-processed and assembled with the highest precision.

Nagase explains, "Its structure looks quite simple. But, it incorporates a whole lot of our technology." The difficult part was to ensure the required material strength while reducing its weight for portable use. The stand’s width can be easily adjusted by stretching it out or pressing it together, using pressure which is optimized for comfortable handling. The level of tension needs to be just right – not too quick, not too slow. It should allow users to stop stretching out the stand when it reaches the desired position. Thinking back to those days of the challenging development work, Maeda also comments, "Every detail of the product is thoroughly examined and optimized. The more you use it, the more you love it. It is designed to provide creatives with exactly what they need. We put ourselves in creatives' shoes in our design work and took every aspect of creators’ needs into account – albeit with very little time to do so. I could go on talking about this stand all day long as we faced endless challenges.”

Wacom's first ever portable device. Positively received by users. What’s next?

“All engineers at Wacom are driven by the same aspiration to deliver products that would amaze professional creatives,” Nagase continues. “The Wacom Movink 13 was entirely new ground for Wacom. Initially, we were not aware of how difficult the project was going to be. However, we never gave up trying until we accomplished the mission. Our common goal was to deliver the best pen experience to professional creatives.” His eyes sparkle with pride as he speaks.

“Our goal for this project was to create an ultra-slim, lightweight, and robust device. Previously, Wacom may possibly have shied away from such uncompromising objectives. But now, Wacom has stepped up. It is fun to embark on new challenges. This can also be said for the development of our flagship pen, the Wacom Pro Pen 3. I am convinced of the solid quality of the Wacom Movink 13 as a portable device. You can take it with you wherever you go and enjoy creating in any environment. You’ll always have the right tool on hand when inspiration strikes,” says Maeda, seemingly very content with the outcome.

Wacom has launched its first full-fledged portable device. What will be its next step? Nagase says, “We are definitely proud of this product and what we achieved with it. At the same time, we should keep asking if this is the right and only answer for all creators. By attentively listening to feedback from professional creatives, we would like to keep developing new products.” Without reveling in his success, he is already prepared to set off on another journey. The Wacom Movink 13 was borne out of a new focus on portability. We can hardly wait to see what will follow the Wacom Movink 13. The new chapter in our engineers’ journey into the unknown is waiting to be written.