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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

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Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#12
post #4
post #2

Thank you, Honda! Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad idea (unless the vehicle is stationary, and even then...)

> Touch screen controls in automotive environment is such a bad idea Touch screen controls are a bad idea in general when the form factor has space for adequate physical controls. The only time they're an acceptable compromise is for small devices like phones. Even then careful use of a small number of buttons can be a great improvement.

One of the best features of switching from Android to an iPhone is the physical mute switch. Whenever I'm going into a meeting, I can mute my phone without taking it out of my pocket. With Androids (At least, version 6 from when I left) you have to take it out and go through all the separate volume menus. It was so refreshing to have the confidence that my phone wouldn't vibrate or disturb others during a meeting.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#13
What if--and stay with me for a moment--what if it's good for different manufacturers to have different approaches to the problem, giving people the option to choose Honda for buttons or Tesla for touchscreens?

What if there are legitimate arguments for both and it's good that there's both options available?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#14
I do hope other automakers follow, because why should a head-unit should be considered safe to operate while driving, while touching a smartphone display isn't.

Both lacks the tactile feedback buttons are offering, both don't work with gloves and both requires you to look at the display (and stop looking at the road) to know what action you're making.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#15
I will never understand how this trend started in the first place. If you look at e.g. digital cameras, they all have touch screens these days, but they also still have buttons and dials everywhere. The one in front of me has eight physical buttons, seven dials and a power switch. The reason is obvious: when you're taking photos, you don't want to be looking down at a screen; you want to be focused on the task at hand and aware of what is happening around you. If camera designers know this, why don't automotive designers, where the task at hand is a matter of life and death?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#17
post #8

Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-effective.

My car has onboard voice controls, but, unlike Siri via the car's audio system, they suck. Recognition is slow and unreliable enough that I never bother, and if I did, the cognitive overhead would be unacceptably high anyway. They'd have done better not to bother implementing them at all and instead just offload that work to the driver's paired smartphone, which for a sedan that listed $32k new, it's very reasonable to assume will be present.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#18
post #8

Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-effective.

Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better?

Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel without removing either hand. Or, as you say, voice controls.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#19
post #8

Eminently sensible call by Honda. Knobs, dials and switches work well and do not demand that a driver takes their eyes off the road. I suppose that voice controls would be a reasonably safe tech option, but probably not cost-effective.

I'm hoping they take up some kind of googles or periscope like interface.
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