There exist artificial fingers to tap smartphones, sold in cold climates, so you don't need to take off gloves. Regular sausages in their packaging work great.

Carrots and cucumbers work as well. I suppose it's the high moisture content.

I used to have some woollen winter gloves with built in touch-screen fingertips. They worked well, but also made things quite slippery when holding a phone. This once resulted in a shattered screen when the phone slipped out of my gloved hand and flew onto a cold, hard, London pavement…

How cold does it get with you? I have tried all sorts of touch-screen gloves and they all stop working below -5 C. The cheap touch-pencils still work though so carry one of those around my neck if I need the phone outdoors.

You can effectively get these surfaces built into the glove, a number of companies sell such things.

Why they don't need to be wet?

To activate a touchscreen they simply need to have capacitive properties.

Interesting, it sounds like they should try to invent something that works in similar way to nerves on the skin as you can feel slightest touch regardless of moisture.

Maybe multiple accelerometers plus machines learning could improve tao detection?

I remember one elevator button was a large metal bulge, that didn't get pushed, but instead did a little electric jolt to my finger (at a very small distance between finger and the button).

Here you can see it on 0:23 of video tour: https://marketplace.vts.com/building/400-capitol-mall-sacram...