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Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

popularmechanics.com

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Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#81

Post by NikolaNovak »

tuatoru wrote: post #16

> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.

I guess I don't have big-picture number. I have literally not had anybody replace a knob, ever. My car is 18yo and knobs are working fine.

Whereas, number of people in my immediate friends & family who had to replace $2500 touchscreens... I mean, I'm astonished that given temperature variations and sun and elements, touchscreens survive AT ALL.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#83

Post by SavantIdiot »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #80
SyzygistSix wrote: post #30

Seriously. Without a dedicated on/off/volume knob for the soundsystem, the driving experience is diminished drastically, no matter how nice the car. And of course touch is way better than eyesight when you are supposed to be paying attention to the road. As someone else said, rough motor skills are safer and more appropriate in a car then controls needing fine motor skills.

I know this makes me a clueless annoying boring techie nerd :), but I still cannot properly fathom how this is a minority opinion. NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely. I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything? Honestly, eve…

I agree with this, I've seen it repeatedly. There has got to be a term for people who aren't aware of how they are suffering yet still say everything is fine. The only term I can come up with is "complicit in their own oppression." :)

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#84

Post by SavantIdiot »

tuatoru wrote: post #16

> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.

100+ years of knobs and the argument is "we still can't get it right"? I don't believe that.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#85

Post by stemlord »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #80
SyzygistSix wrote: post #30

Seriously. Without a dedicated on/off/volume knob for the soundsystem, the driving experience is diminished drastically, no matter how nice the car. And of course touch is way better than eyesight when you are supposed to be paying attention to the road. As someone else said, rough motor skills are safer and more appropriate in a car then controls needing fine motor skills.

I know this makes me a clueless annoying boring techie nerd :), but I still cannot properly fathom how this is a minority opinion. NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely. I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything? Honestly, eve…

I feel like people don't care because they expect the experts in that domain to care for them... that's us, probably.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#86

Post by jedimastert »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #76
jedimastert wrote: post #67

Not a car, but my main gigging keyboard for as long as I've been gigging has been the Korg SV-1, and a big part of the reason is that there's no screens, only knobs. It's a pretty great interface, all in all. 90% of the time I use the presets I made for myself the first week I got it, but whenever I need something else I have no trouble doing it within seconds. It's fairly limited, in terms of features and sound bank…

I got the SV-1 specifically because of the limited interface. Not a big fan of the organs, but the other stuff all has worked great for me. It's paid for itself several times over. My usual live keyboard setup is the SV-1 under an ASM hydrasynth.

Yeah, I think the organ is a pretty big missed opportunity, and it wouldn't have been so bad but the rotary simulator is really not great.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#87

Post by Kye »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #84
tuatoru wrote: post #16

> So what do product designers have against knobs? Several things. ... Then the piece omits the two overwhelmingly important reasons: cost and reliability. Knobs definitely are much better to use, but things with moving parts that stick out from the surface are not as reliable in population terms. Most people never have trouble, but that quintile that gives their stuff a hard time costs manufacturers a lot.

100+ years of knobs and the argument is "we still can't get it right"? I don't believe that.

A 100 year old knob is not a 50 or 25 year old knob. They're as different as the wheels on a horse carriage and the wheels on a Model T. They're not working from the same 100 year old design with the same expectations. Ford likely expected the crank handle knob to take some abuse.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#88

Post by macNchz »

finnh wrote: post #33
Wistar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-end ovens, such as those above, say, $5k, almost always have knobs. I sure appreciate tuning knobs on car audio systems but almost no one besides Toyota and Lexus offer them any more.

Huh. When remodeling my kitchen in 2016 the highest priced ovens all had crappy touchscreens. I had to "downgrade" from Miele to Bosch to get knobs.

Yeah I have a relative who renovated their kitchen recently and got a fairly high end induction range with touch controls...it was quite expensive and has possibly the worst user experience of any appliance I've ever used.

As the touch areas get wet or oily they start to act weird, and they're right next to the cooking surfaces so they always get wet and oily if you're actually cooking anything. You have to lock the touch controls after using it because even a single drip of water can make it think you're doing some kind of invalid input and it'll start beeping loudly in the middle of dinner. Sometimes if you don't lock it it will start beeping endlessly in the middle of the night. After lots of back and forth it doesn't seem that this particular unit is defective, just the product itself is badly designed.

I love cooking on it when it works properly–the induction technology is amazing, but I will absolutely never buy one with out real knobs.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#89

Post by fishtacos »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #80
SyzygistSix wrote: post #30

Seriously. Without a dedicated on/off/volume knob for the soundsystem, the driving experience is diminished drastically, no matter how nice the car. And of course touch is way better than eyesight when you are supposed to be paying attention to the road. As someone else said, rough motor skills are safer and more appropriate in a car then controls needing fine motor skills.

I know this makes me a clueless annoying boring techie nerd :), but I still cannot properly fathom how this is a minority opinion. NOBODY in my non-techie group of friends or family cares. Not.even.remotely. I watch them struggle with their touch screens, I even listen to them rant, but when asked about it afterwards, it's fine. Just fine. Sexy. Sleek. Desirable. Why do I have to go and ruin everything? Honestly, eve…

The problem you're describing (Auto AC) isn't that automatic ac doesn't work, but that it's working within a small, very confined space and those differences in temperature are felt immediately.

From a personal perspective, I'd rather set it and forget it. It's why when I rarely use the car AC, one button is all it takes and it adjusts to something between 70 and 73, which is about the same it would be at home. When it's cold, you know the heater will be turning on automatically and I don't have to worry about waiting for the car to warm up for heat to work - the auto AC knows when it's hot enough and blasts it full strength at the right time, instead of me having to fiddle with manual controls to get the right timing, for example. Ditto for hot weather - blasts cool air with the push of a button.

The beauty is that you can have both, and knobs and auto AC aren't mutually exclusive, although that's gonna be up to the manufacturer and their market research.

Re: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital (2009)

#90

Post by romwell »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #60
romwell wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad example. Look at musical instruments, particularly synthesizers. This world went from menu-diving and screens to a full-blown knobfest (for digitally-controlled equipment, mind you). Specifically, no gear has ever not had the volume knob/slider; but now, there's a knob for everything else . Also go figure, my $200 Sonicware digital synth made in 2021 can have 15 reliable , precise knobs that will last decades, as…

Presumably your car will be in places with more demanding climate conditions than your knob-filled synth. And areas of high humidity or with lots of dust/gunk are the places that break down knobs the most. But I agree that I think it's probably largely a UX/aesthetics choice. Low cost touch screens are usually pretty terrible at handling varying climate conditions, especially compared to some decent knobs/encoders. I…

>Presumably your car will be in places with more demanding climate conditions than your knob-filled synth. And areas of high humidity or with lots of dust/gunk are the places that break down knobs the most.

Yeah, you wish. Have you ever been to a music studio, or a live show? You'd be lucky if nobody spills beer on your gear :)

Dust, gunk, smoke, humidity, and temperature are usually way worse than in the interior of a car.

Not to mention, I've never had an issue with knobs in any of my cars (particularly, the 2000 Honda Civic that I drove until 2017, or the 2010 Honda Fit that I'm driving now, or my partner's Toyota's from the same years).

Knobs breaking down is a hypothetical problem. The knobs are fine.

>I also wonder if the fear stemmed from back when knobs and buttons required extra wiring instead of using buses like most cars do now.

The fear comes from the need to sell "modern"-looking interfaces. If the new car looks like the old one, why buy it? Yet another good UX killed in the name of marketing.

Again, synthesizers went through the same cycle: knobs -> buttons and menus -> touch screens -> KNOBS. There was never a good reason to not have any knobs, especially on high-end gear. It was all about style.

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