There are  untold numbers of mechanical buttons in use today in various applications. Mechanical buttons are inherently difficult to clean, prone to failure, and they make designs complex. Capacitive touch offers an alternate solution to mechanical buttons. Touch is detected by measuring the change in capacitance caused when a human body enters the electrical field of a charged electrode. By making the electrode more sensitive, it can detect larger distances without even touching the surface. This is called proximity sensing. Taking this one step further is gesture recognition where in addition to proximity, sensors can also measure the direction of motion without actually touching the surface. In summary, capacitive sensing offers greater flexibility, reliability, easy maintenance, and differentiated human machine interface in comparison to mechanical buttons.