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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

#71

Post by at-fates-hands »

throwanem wrote: post #17
samizdis wrote: 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…

It's interesting, when I had my Windows phone and linked it with my 2014 Ford Fiesta which had Microsoft Sync, it was incredibly fast, responsive and a joy to use. Once you got the format of your queries down, it was super easy to use. They had a button on the wiper knob. Press it, wait for the beep and your're off and running. It synced up instantly. As soon as your phone was connected via bluetooth, you were good to go.

I had a text conversation with my GF back and forth for almost two hours, just by using the speech to text recognition capability of the Sync in my Fiesa, it was really amazing to me how well it worked.

My 2016 Toyota Corolla has something similar and pairs with my iphone and its a total nightmare. it takes literally ten minutes for it to sync up. That's after the phone has already been connected via Bluetooth. The command queries don't often work, you have to repeat them several times, and then after three of four times of saying the same thing over and over, you finally just give up. I'm not sure if its just with the iphone, but it really does suck.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#73

Post by Noumenon72 »

agumonkey wrote: post #63
woozyolliew wrote: post #23

Always seemed like a cargo cult: iphone good; touch good; buttons bad (steve said). Let’s hope it’s a new trend! I love that my Audi still has tactile buttons and wheels, and was a big factor in choosing it. My previous car had a touch screen and it was so dangerous having to brace my hand for accuracy and stare at my fingers while driving.

even on phones it's "bad", it requires high focus.. it's was only good in the theory that smartphones would be used for prolonged dedicated tasks. how i miss blind use of buttons on old dumbphones

I've been hanging onto my Galaxy S7 just because it has actual home and back buttons. Don't know if anyone else still does that.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#74

Post by quietbritishjim »

cletus wrote: post #66

Any monitor manufacturers want to follow suit? What I'd give for hardware input source buttons. This is a ridiculous UX: 1. Touch button to open menu 2. Select "Input Source" 3. Click up/down (possibly multiple times) to find your source 4. Click OK ...when your monitor has TWO sources. Just give me 2 buttons: HDMI and DisplayPort. I don't care that this would be marginally more expensive. I'd pay it. Touch screen co…

Since DisplayPort can normally be passively converted to HDMI, your easiest option is probably to get a convertor and also an HDMI switch box. It'll be external to the monitor but there are plenty to choose from that have physical buttons. There are even some with remote controls!

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#75

Post by winkeltripel »

donaltroddyn wrote: post #35
Robotbeat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not at all convinced that voice recognition are better or safer than well designed physical controls.

I'm certain that it'll be worse. Consider spending 15 seconds to change a single setting.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#77

Post by fenwick67 »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #25
dron57 wrote: post #7

Funny coming from Honda. My parents own a 2017 (I think) Civic and the only way to adjust volume is by tapping +/- on the touchscreen. It's the most unusable volume adjustment I've ever experienced. It was completely unusable with a glove in the winter. So while most other companies only implemented touchscreen controls for secondary features Honda did it for the most widely used one. Now they are backtracking 100%,…

I have a 2015 Fit (Jazz in the not US), and it has the +/- on the touch screen, but also physical buttons on the steering wheel. I guess the compromise is that the driver doesn't need to use the touch buttons because they have the ones on the wheel, and the passenger can take their eyes off the road.

I'm curious to know if the buttons are in the base model or are an upgrade.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#78

Post by outworlder »

thedance wrote: post #68
sneak wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only conclude from the situation you describe, as well as the fact that most cameras (as cameras, not phones) still lack GPS and sometimes Wi-Fi, that a great many industrial designers are trend-following, uncreative bores. Most modern car interior controls are horrible (Tesla’s giant laggy touchscreen included).

Why do I need my camera to have GPS? In what situation would I be equipped with a camera and not my phone, which certainly has a GPS? This seems like the same instinct that makes OEMs put mobile modems in laptops, as if I would ever have my laptop but not my phone to which to tether it.

EXIF tagging.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#79

Post by mushufasa »

samizdis wrote: 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.

hondas have had voice controls for ~20 years. they're in e.g. the 2004 acura tl. simple voice controls are cost effective and already implemented.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#80

Post by nickpinkston »

Robotbeat wrote: post #18
samizdis wrote: 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.

That's actually the approach Ferrari uses:

https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28

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