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Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

autocar.co.uk

441–450 of 770 posts

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not true. In cruise, stabilized, especially with AP - the margins are MUCH MUCH higher. Pilots have fallen asleep (two of them) - overflown airports still landed etc.

I think major difference is commercial airliner vs say fighter jet. As a layman it still seems pretty wrong to make most of the screen highly dynamic. Maybe designated one on the side. Back to the topic - in car, unless specifically intended for other passengers, driver should never stare on some stupid screen in a place way off the line of sight for driving. Whenever I do that even for a split second in my 15-year o…

Fighter jets are starting to use touchscreens, too.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touch screens add multiple points of failure to a device that, if properly built, would last decades. A single glitch in a software driving a screen could render useless all touch inputs displayed on it, information loss aside. I'm all for mechanical switches everywhere. As for potentiometers, sliders etc, we already have optical and mechanical encoders that hardly fail, or if/when they do, it happens gracefully leav…

Multiple physical knobs and buttons add multiple points of failure: moving parts fail and even worse, they often fail intermittently. We all have that experience. Even optical encoders fail (I’ve had one fail on an engine, and obviously consumer mice, or the connectors fail). A modern touch screen is superbly reliable because it has no moving parts, and it can be tested. The (consumer grade) iPad touchscreen is very…

A mechanical switch is easy and cheap to fix or replace. A touch screen is the opposite. It cannot be repaired, only replaced. A switch can usually be cleaned easily, to restore its function. And proper quality switches can be actuated millions of times before failure.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#443
post #27

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.

This is a great example of when "perfect is the enemy of good". Humans have pretty good spatial reasoning (proprioception); the notion that touch controls should replace tactile well-spaced controls is dependent on the fact that both senses (sight, spatial awareness) are uncontested. I would argue the point that sight is already in-use and must not be interfered with, if there's an alternative that does not use the s…

Or you could go for Tesla's strategy, which is try to get self-driving ASAP so you don't have the problem anymore.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#444

If Honda is "bucking a trend" here it just shows how much professionals, experts and decision-makers can be fooled by trends. I speculate that Tesla made it something other luxury brands wanted too, and then those brands went bezerk: E.g. the newest Range Rover models feature multiple touch screens, they turned your AC-control-knobs into touch-screens as well, and even the once-handy controls on your steering wheel.…

I thought TSLA was doing it because they want self-driving now and this makes it easier.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#445
Did you know that in a car you can change the climate control temperate for when the system is "off"?

Try it today. In an old car, set the fan speed to off. Then adjust the temperature. Switch it back and forth a few times and test it.

In a new car you need to turn the fan on, then change the temperature and then turn it off again, in order to change the "off" temperature.

On a touch screen this task requires many seconds of eyes-off-the-road-time to accomplish.

But hey, designers need flexibility because changing temperature is a new concept and they couldn't possibly handle a deadline to work with component selection and other parts of the product team.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#446
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…

Didn't the US Navy try this and end up crashing a destroyer or something?

You are correct.

> The US Navy is replacing touch screen controls on destroyers, after the displays were implicated in collisions.

Unfamiliarity with the touch screens contributed to two accidents that caused the deaths of 17 sailors, said incident reports.

Poor training meant sailors did not know how to use the complex systems in emergencies, they said.

Sailors "overwhelmingly" preferred to control ships with wheels and throttles, surveys of crew found.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49319450

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#447
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under VFR sure, obviously under IFR they are looking at the instruments as much as 100% of the time, including the instruments which inform them if planes are nearby, and instruments which inform them of their location, direction, and all of the variables therein. It would be madness if pilots had to rely solely on their eyes to locate other planes nearby. There is thankfully instruments which do this as well.

In VMC you still have a responsibility to see and avoid, regardless of whether you're on an instrument flight plan or not. (Ref: Regulation 14 CFR Part 91.113 (b)) Radar coverage has become ubiquitous in most places, but there's not universal coverage. Heads-up time is very important unless you're flying in actual IMC.

Can't find equivalent rule from ICAO, is this regulation US only?

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appeal to authority is an informal fallacy of logic. It can/should never be used to prove an argument.

Sure, if everyone is an expert on the subject, or is willing to spend the time to become one, you should never appeal to authority. That's not most people on most subjects. If someone appeals to authority and says "climate change is real, here's 100 scientists with PhDs who agree" I accept that. I am not willing to become an expert on the subject to be able to spend the time to review the facts for myself. Citing sou…

For what it's worth, for a specialist in a field, they'll have already read most of the papers that are cited and will be looking for new or missing ones to find gems or flaws in the argumentation.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#449
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…

I work for an avionics manufacturer and I can assure you most of our upcoming comercial systems (and even a healthy portion of government ones) feature touch screen inputs.

Adding "touch screen calibration failure" to the list of things that can kill you.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#450
I've always been very happy with Honda's car interfaces. Everything from basic driving stuff to climate control and the radio seem... well, not great, but simply, fine. Most other manufacturers seem to have some trick up their sleeve, with crazy turn signal mechanisms or some other nonsense. I think they have relatively sensible people working in that department.
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