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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

#731

Post by neuralRiot »

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…

I see many people comparing automotive electronics to avionics, but there’s a big difference, in flight you can take your eyes off the “road” and in some situations even fly with 0 visibility, whereas in a car your next obstacle is only milliseconds away from you.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#732

Post by robocat »

JensRex wrote: post #710
robocat wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A mechanical switch is easy and cheap to fix or replace. Not if it is in an airplane. Think of all the QC steps required to track the production, storage, shipping, installation, testing, etcetera for the replacement of a single switch. If a switch has failed it needs to be inspected to understand the reason for failure (no switch should fail; tracked to understand if it is a batch failure, plus other steps). I am…

>Not if it is in an airplane. Even less so if it's on the space station. Or on a Mars rover. But we're talking about cars. Something a lot of people like to mend for themselves.

OP context of this thread is touch panels in aeroplanes, not cars.

I can say that an intermittent switch failure is hard to diagnose and potentially costly. The dash on a 2007 Ford I got cheaply had an intermittent fault where the whole dash would shutdown, and headlights would go off, while driving. Switching ignition off and on would fix it, so I presumed it just needed a reset. It was actually the barrel switch of the key - intermittent enough to cause a lot of dangerous trouble but hard to diagnose.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#733

Post by dzhiurgis »

dkersten wrote: post #675
TylerE wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, why do you know that? I would expect a car to have tons of code. Think of all the functions... Engine management, Engine monitoring, Powertrain control, Emissions, Diagnostics, Infotainment, Satnav, Climate Control, Traction Control, ABS, Anti-collision radar, Cruise control, Lane keeping, Backup camera, Parking sensors... Now keep in mind that these hundreds of components exist in many many possible configur…

Perhaps because cars ran just fine (albeit with fewer features) for a long time with zero lines of code.

So did horses without any gasoline

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#734

Post by 6nf »

TylerE wrote: post #622
6nf wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean ... we all know a car does not need that much code

Really, why do you know that? I would expect a car to have tons of code. Think of all the functions... Engine management, Engine monitoring, Powertrain control, Emissions, Diagnostics, Infotainment, Satnav, Climate Control, Traction Control, ABS, Anti-collision radar, Cruise control, Lane keeping, Backup camera, Parking sensors... Now keep in mind that these hundreds of components exist in many many possible configur…

Because my car has exactly zero lines of code and it runs just fine.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#735

Post by mattr47 »

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…

Nope, not anymore. Honeywell is making the new Gulfstream’s Symmetry Flight Deck for the G700 and it is touchscreen enabled.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#736

Post by davidhariri »

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…

All the latest Garmin avionics include touch screens. Airplane cockpits aren't the right metaphor because they are largely driven automatically.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#737

Post by Wistar »

stevehawk wrote: post #680
t0mas88 wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That keys-with-steel-cable thing car rental companies do is terrible. And there is absolutely no point in doing so. Either give me two separate keys so two drivers can use them, or just give me one key.

The honest truth to why they do it is because they don't want to be in a situation where they're shipping keys around between locations (or even pretending to inventory/store them) because people keep forgetting to bring back both or lose one and the other one is in an office in another state. You're far less likely to lose both keys than just one because of how obnoxious it is. And having 2 keys is actually a reason…

I suspect you are correct. I looked it up and, on the 2020 Q7, the fob itself is ~$350 and the Audi-dealer required re-programming is $150, so, at least $450 to replace a fob.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#738

Post by p_l »

TylerE wrote: post #624
FriendlyNormie wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like trying to flip just the right toggle. You’ve flipped it thousands of times and memorized its exact location through haptic memory. You gently feel the surroundings to ensure your hand is in the right location and then you make the decisive motion with your fingers. You don’t need to look while doing this. This is how hands work. This is how you type. I wish people would stop pretending they don’t unders…

BS. Imagine trying to find the right switch on this by feel, without hitting the wrong one by accident. https://live.staticflickr.com/6150/5990351987_fb9c159ea5_b.j...

Easy mode, given the variety of orientation points in form of switches you can gently touch with fingers to recognize position.

That said, usually you make a short look at the panel to benefit from that hardcoded visual-motion coordination hw in your head.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#739

Post by p_l »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #712
joshvm wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well keyboards are an interesting one. Airliners have space to install hardware keyboards, light aircraft don't so they have touch displays. You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface. Where do accidents happen? It's fairly rare for a plane to just break. And even then, if your electronics fail there are usuall…

> You could argue that an onscreen keyboard is significantly less mental load for the pilot than having to scroll letter by letter on a "dumb" interface. I don't buy that argument. What kind of keyboard? QWERTY or something else? What language? English is the language of aviation, but if you're not a native speaker who uses keyboards all the time then chances are you're going to have a LOT of mental load using a keyb…

Airbus (A380 and A350) mounts both full size QWERTY on retractable "desk", and A-Z on the center console.

The keyboard is mainly used for planning ahead where you have more data to input. Both are equipped with mouse as well.

Re: Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls

#740

Post by brokenmachine »

im3w1l wrote: post #530
vel0city wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many of the newer systems, all those physical dials and switches are just inputs to the computer system which ultimately decides to do what the user is requesting. A bug which would prevent inputs from working right on a touchscreen could also happen on reading inputs on other systems. Not that I'm arguing for touchscreen controls, just that these days having a physical knob does not mean you're directly manipulat…

> In many of the newer systems, all those physical dials and switches are just inputs to the computer system which ultimately decides to do what the user is requesting. Even so, a program for processing a switch or dial can be really short and simple. You can print it out on a sheet and check and double check every line of code for to make sure it's correct and all possibilities are accounted for. A program handling…

Mechanical switches and rotary controls require debouncing which is no picnic.

I can 100% tell from your comment that you've never had to work with one.

It's less science than black magic to avoid double presses or missed presses.

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