Detection and tracking of a totem by a touchscreen touch controller mitigates false touches and false inputs by adapting capacitance at the totem feet. Totem feet have a capacitance that falls between a noise threshold and a finger touch threshold so that a pattern of the totem feet is detected separate from finger touches. Active capacitance is applied to one or more of the totem feet to enhance totem detection, such as by highlighting totem contact points of interest to an end user for a rotational versus linear input.