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Honda Bucks Industry Trend by Removing Touchscreen Controls

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:47AM   
from the inappropriate-touching dept.

DannyB writes:

Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls:

Honda has done what no other car maker is doing, and returned to analogue controls for some functions on the new Honda Jazz.

While most manufacturers are moving to touchscreen controls, identifying smartphone use as their inspiration - most recently seen in Audi's latest A3 - Honda has decided to reintroduce heating and air conditioning controls via a dial rather than touchscreen, as in the previous-generation Jazz.

Jazz project leader Takeki Tanaka explained: "The reason is quite simple - we wanted to minimise driver disruption for operation, in particular, for the heater and air conditioning.

^<no-sarcasm>
It seems to me that neither physical controls nor voice controlled operation are fundamentally incompatible with cars being both smart and connected.
_{</no-sarcasm>}

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Original Submission

• "glow bright then dim" (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:44PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:44PM (#978016)

  i suppose it's a bit like writing with a pencil: writing with a touchscreen is like writing with a pencil but without your hand or side of your palm allowed to rest on the table, hovering. nothing good comes from it.
  on the other hand :) allowing to rest the mass of your hand "somewhere" and then writing mostly yields something more admirable. this is comparable with a "non-touch screen interface", yes?
  with a button or knob or switch one can "hold on" or "rest on" the input device before interacting with it.
  -
  on a "money-for-construction-went-under-the-table" road (bumpy), a touchscreen selection/input it totally a "eyes-off-road" and hunt-and-peck game.
  also, driving (still) requires visual input (looking) and then manual output (steering) 99% of time, so feed-back of any change should not require to identify if a tiny icon on the display has activated or not; the time for the eyes to refocus from short distance (screen, touchscreen) to long distance (driving) is bad.
  the "indicator" doesn't have to be a pretty icon. if it can be identified just by color (on-or-off) and location then peripheral vision is enough to acknowledge it (without having to refocus).
  however this "engineering" might be for nought since everything with 4 wheels is gonna drive itself and we can dedicate ourselfs 100% to deciphering tiny icon on a small handheld device ...
  the best switch and its "indicator" is still the amount of force your bum registered if you press that go-pedal ^_^

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