I bought an HP rechargeable active pen G2 hoping to use it on my smartphone. This stylus is advertised for use on HP laptops. It doesn't seem to work on smartphones. Does anyone know why? Is it because the polarity of the stylus tip is the wrong one? Does anyone know if the HP rechargeable active pen G3 would fare better? I can't find any answer to these questions on Google.

Although you might be able to pair it with your smartphone it would not have the driver software to be able to actually use the device. I would assume it is only compatible with HP laptops.

Does your phone support a stylus?

a) unlike keyboards or mice active styli are not standardized, use proprietary protocols and work only with devices they are specifically designed for
b) vast majority of phones doesn't support active styli of any kind and even if they do, support of advanced features such as pressure sensitivity is limited to a couple of apps
c) passive styli which are just metal rods do however work on capacitive touchscreens which virtually all modern smartphones use. Take a nail.

frankbell Yes I have an old unbranded active stylus equipped with a rechargeable battery and it worked well for years until it died out.

Thanks lvm_ and michaelk. I understand that pressure sensitivity won't work but I (wrongly?) expected simple touch vs no touch at all to work. As it doesn't I wonder if HP laptops are engineered to work with an opposite electric potential compared to the electric potential provided by my old unbranded rechargeable active stylus which worked well until it died out. When you use your finger on a smartphone, the smartphone screen must be detecting a difference in electric potential between that of your body and that of the smartphone screen. I can't imagine how else it could work. It certainly does not work based on the pressure you apply to the screen because if you press a piece of plastic onto the screen, nothing happens. This is why I suspect the HP stylus tip must for example be charged negatively while my old stylus was charged positively or vice-versa. Any further comment appreciated.

As posted a typical smartphone uses a self capacitance touch screen and so a universal stylus basically electrically connects your hand through the tip to the phone.

https://www.amazon.com/StylusHome-Sc...0824Y92H5?th=1

I am not sure of the exact technology uses except I know the G3 uses bluetooth and I am guessing the HP touchscreens are something more than just self capacitance. It would be nice to know something about this unbranded stylus or maybe the model of your smartphone as to whether or not it uses an active stylus.

Thanks michaelk. My smartphone definitely worked with my old battery powered stylus. The amazon stylus has a thick tip. I was looking for a soft thin tip active stylus like the old one. I have just ordered yet another active stylus which appears to be generic and should hopefully work with any smartphone. Bluetooth can only add some extra feature like increasing the thickness of a strike when drawing something depending on how much pressure is applied to the the stylus. Bluetooth on its own cannot detect the point of contact between the tip and the screen. I bought the HP stylus because it seemed to be well built. My guess is that it may only really switch on when connected through bluetooth. If this is the case then the addition of bluetooth to HP's styli may just be some sort of commercial protectionism as it seems they only work on HP tablets and laptops, the driver that would activate them being most probably closed source.

Just receive my new generic battery powered stylus and it works on smartphones. It is sold under the name "universal stylus pen K-2260".