Contrary to "popular" belief, I have a working prototype.
My primary coffee table is a Samsung SUR40, aka the Microsoft Surfacae 2.0/Pixelsense table:
I have had it for over 6 years.
Ergo, I am pretty sure I know the ergonomics and limitations of touchscreen coffee tables.
'Just sayin'....
I will offer one news article, there are a lot more like it, however this was just a quick search
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9079334/iPads-carry-RSI-risk.htmlAs I said previously I have three touch screen monitors, so I have spoken from my experience of using them.
When you go to the pub and use a touch screen jukebox, which is what started my journey of seeing my first touch screen jukebox. It is great and fun to use it the first time, you scroll around and are amazed by a new toy.
However, when you next go into the pub, you spend about five minutes selecting tracks, and then you sit down, and you might not put any more music on. However, constant use of a touch screen gets very boring after a while and also as I have previously said, that it can cause more RSI than using a keyboard and mouse.
Constant use of touchscreen can be very bad for the person involved, once it starts hurting, then you use less and less. I have actually thought about a touch screen coffee table ages ago but it would have been a table, a monitor a lot of sticky tape and a bodge job.
It was a novelty idea, but everything that I could do on that idea, I can do on my nexus 7 tablet, e.g I can use it for kodi navigation or to stream a movie or youtube to the TV.
I would recommend getting if you have not already Simple Touch FE it is great for touch screen, and something I was playing around with for my touch screen quiz machine.
It would be perfect for your project especially if you do a custom design on it. If you loaded the table or whatever you are going to do with a lot of software then yeah people will go wow look at all what it can do.
The main thing that I can suggest is before you even start the project, work out how much you think that you want to sell the table for, and then ask other people what they think about the price.
To give an example, if you said I am going to charge £50,000 $50,000 for the table once it is complete, I am pretty sure you will have people say you will not get that for it.
Do your costing first, and work out if this is really worth your time and effort. If you go to the hassle of building it, if you over price yourself, then it might never sell and it might just have been a wasted project.
As I say if Arcade 1 up are doing a cocktail cabinet for $500 are you going to be able to compete with the fact that a lot of people will be buying these units, and might not have extra funds or room, to buy your table.
Regards
Mark