Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls • Hacker News Board

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#231

Post by bryanmgreen » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

Great.

I think voice controls are obviously the theoretical best for automotive and I hope that in the near future every car will have built-in functionality - that will even work offline.

Obviously Siri can't control my AC right now but it infuriates me that CarPlay voice controls don't work without internet.

I have a hard time imagining it would be difficult to increase offline functionality when in my old 2010 Ford I had Microsoft Sync with the functionality to voice control an iPod offline and it worked pretty much perfectly.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#232

Post by dheera » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

d_silin wrote: post #167

hnarn wrote: post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

Too late! Boeing 777-X will have touch screen interfaces for pilots. Personally, I think information display can and should use touch interface, but actions should be tied to physical switches or buttons.

That sounds like a horrible idea.

If you're trying to say, lower the landing gear, and the button malfunctions, you can probably smack the button a few times until it works, failing that, rip the switch out and short the wires inside the switch and get the plane landed.

With a touch screen? What if the glass breaks and the capacitive layer fails? Or the software running the screen crashes? Or a bug prevents you from switching from the "Climate control" tab to the "Landing gear" tab?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#233

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #151

pdimitar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not looking to start a fight but was a touchscreen really the cheaper option? I would be strongly surprised if that was the case.

How could it not be cheaper? No molds (or just one bezel mold), far less industrial design, fewer individual wires. Not to mention the QA requirements for testing buttons vs a virtual screen.

Molds and parts are cheap at volume and I would be surprised if the costs were above a few buck in total, including setup.

That said, a huge factor is assembly, maintaince, and repair.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#234

Post by hnarn » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #215

hnarn wrote: post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

Sure, but there are still tons of touchscreens in the cabin -- controlling the climate, the lighting, and the playback of the safety video.

Yes, and I have no problem with that. I don't imagine that an imprecise control of the climate, lighting or video playback will bring the plane down. I mean, I sure hope not.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#235

Post by fma » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

I recently purchased a 2020 Honda Odyssey. I hate the touchscreen controls, and I hate the button gear shifter (i.e. press a button to reverse...)

For example, it's so difficult to change AC controls w/o looking at the screen. It's very dangerous. I don't do it unless I'm at a light, or if on the highway, no one is around me.

Toyota Sienna still has their AC controls as buttons/knobs, still has a regular shifter, and probably more traditional controls.

But the Sienna was lacking in many other areas...so we went with Odyssey. Looks like we coulda waited a few more years!

The article also refers to "voice control". No, I don't want to yell at my car to lower the AC when my baby is sleeping.

I'm all for innovation...but please leave controls as it is!

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#236

Post by president » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

rland wrote: post #199

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Touch screen controls strike me as not being about cost but being about incredibly lazy UI It's almost always about cost. Touch screens are shocking cheap thanks to smartphones driving the prices down and physical controls can be shockingly expensive per control.

Do you have an idea of why dials and buttons are so expensive? That surprises me. The components aren't particularly high tech.

I would imagine it's more the one-time cost of the R&D for developing the digital menu system vs per-unit hardware costs for the dials/buttons over time.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#237

Post by hnarn » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #158

hnarn wrote: post #138

Look at the cockpit of any modern airliner and you will see screens, but they are never interactive. There are hardware buttons, dials and lights all over the place. A tactile interface is both more obvious, sturdy and more stable, and therefore safer. The problem that touch interfaces solve, ever since the advent of the first smart phone, is that the interface is now dynamic. You can change it without having to repl…

Electronic Flight Bag is one of the biggest screens, right? And that's used for navigation, which is largely strategic, not tactical.

I'd love for someone who's in the industry or an actual pilot to comment on this because I'm frankly not sure about what common scope AFBs have on commercial airliners, and what the backup procedures are if they fail. For private pilots, I know bringing an iPad up is common these days, but I think (and sure hope) commercial flight is a lot more risk averse and slow to adopt these things without thorough procedure.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#238

Post by fitzn » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

getpolarized wrote: post #156

There is a trend to assume new technology will always replace old technology. During the Vietnam war the F4 ditched its cannons for the sidewinder air to air missile. The sidewinder is fire and forget for the most part and somewhat of a no brainer whereas cannons require more skill and training in dogfighting. It also gave the US a MAJOR advantage (in theory) vs the MiG. The problem is that the Vietnamese picked up o…

Wasn't another factor of the drop in head to head kills and then the subsequent improvement due to the energy-maneuverability of the fighter jets? John Boyd's biography (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd) talks a lot about his work while an instructor at the Air Force.

EM theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability...

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#239

Post by chc » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

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.

I like physical controls better, but I don't think that's a totally realistic contrast. Neither touchscreens nor knobs necessarily demand you look. I've known lots of people who looked while using physical buttons, and I can do my common touchscreen tasks in my car (e.g. switch to Bluetooth, hit play or pause) without looking. I suspect most people will look in both cases.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#240

Post by abruzzi » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

2bitencryption wrote: post #24

Unrelated, but this line stood out, and now I have a question: > Honda’s decision to return to physical controls will be popular with some - including, no doubt, its ageing owner base in the UK Ageing? Is there some stat showing Honda owners are older than owners of other models? Or that young people aren't buying Hondas?

I haven't seen any stats, but anecdotally, I remember watching TopGear episodes a decade ago where they would go on about how Hondas were boring "old people" cars. Its funny because in my region on the US Hondas are very popular with young people hot-rodding them up.