Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggg9990 | Hacker News Reader

Touchscreens are for UI that needs to reconfigure constantly -- i.e., for multiple-purpose devices. Smartphones are great examples. One minute it's a restaurant review guide, then it's a messaging device, then it's a compass, then it's a camera. When you need more buttons, they appear, when you need fewer buttons, they disappear.

A car is largely a single purpose device. You always have the same few set of things you want to do in the car. Climate, Radio, Maps, etc. A touchscreen is a boneheaded interface for this device.

Imagine if your on-off lightswitches were touchscreens. If your stovetop interface was a touchscreen. If your refrigerator ice dispenser was a touchscreen (I've seen this). Completely moronic, every single one of them.

View on HN

>If your stovetop interface was a touchscreen

Mine have capacitive (or IR ?) buttons (similar to [1]). Easier to clean, inconvenient to use. I miss the knobs in my old place.

[1] https://www.pulsat.fr/media/catalog/product/cache/8/image/9d...

I think that's mostly an issue of haptics (and the lack thereof). My stovetop also uses capacitive buttons but the buttons themselves don't change, the biggest issue is the lack of feedback and eyes-free operation.

Many have some irritating multi-step process: select the zone, then select the power or use up/down buttons instead of direct power level selection.

Those I've used had 2~3 buttons (3 if they support a timer) for each zone, so a 4-zone stovetop would have 4 pairs of buttons. The non-timer buttons would still just be +/- though, no direct power selection/

Some cookers do have.. well not touchscreens but they use capacitative buttons. They are even worse than you imagine.

Stovetops with capacitive buttons are much nicer than the cheaper resistive buttons. Never had any problems with the two inductive stovetops I have owned, but vacation homes with cheaper electric stovetops with resistive buttons is more hassle. The flat surface of both variants makes them easy to keep clean and child lock.

Both my parents and my in-laws have ceramic electric stoves with capacitative buttons (or resistive, not sure) that stop working when your fingers are wet or greasy or the stovetop is too hot. It's horrible.

Ah, my oven uses a touch screen. It’s a mess for some things, but it does allow for very sophistication menu systems, with creating custom programs and whatnot.

Unless the touchscreen is fully redundant, I cannot imagine it being worth the loss of physical buttons for the 99% of times you are warming up a pizza slice for 5 minutes.

Well, yes. Mostly true, and it has brought much annoyance :-)

Of course, The pizza setting is two pushes away: first “my programs”, then “Single pizza slice”, and it remembers to run hot air all the time and then the grill for the last minute.

What’s the model?

I actually have two... One is a Miele H 6860 BP, while the other is a H 6800 BP.

(Entirely unrelated: Does anybody know how to check the software version on these ovens?)

OK, if you cook enough to use two ovens maybe the programmable oven is suitable for you.

Well touchscreens will show you new, better organized or painted buttons (with the power of FOSS of course). Surely you don't wanna swap half of your dash every time someone comes up with something better?

How much is my car UI really going to improve over 10 years? Without some kind of revenue model, the manufacturer wants you to upgrade, and there isn't really anything that's actually useful that can ship post-build without installed hardware (eg blindspot warning, rearview camera)

For those who don't believe in improving UI, there still exists a possibility of tweaking the stock to suit one's needs.

Car UIs get worse over time, not better.

On my dodge, if I want AC, I just roll down the window. It never goes on the fritz.

> Car UIs get worse over time, not better.

Unsubstantiated claim of the year. "Everything there was to be discovered is already discovered".

I don't need a 150 page manual to operate the older ones. The new ones all have these stupid icons that I have no idea what they mean. If only there was a method for putting text, like "defroster", on buttons!

"Better" for whom? This is how we got Windows putting adverts in the start menu. Someone's going to start putting unskippable adverts in car AC controls next.

Nope, you got windows putting adverts in the start menu because of weak-willed 'consumers' tolerating oppressive crap that is win10. There is nothing wrong with using Linux or Win7 on desktop right now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com