4 ms·

Nah, sometimes I just want to check the current temperature. A persistent problem with LCD-powered devices is that because of power consumption or general visua

Nah, sometimes I just want to check the current temperature. A persistent problem with LCD-powered devices is that because of power consumption or general visual obnoxiousness their screens need to be kept off until use, but there's always a time lag. One of the more glaring problems with smart devices - smart watches especially - is that they have have a slight pause before they realize they're being used and activates. An always-on device doesn't have this problem and can be immediately used without delay. By themselves they're not huge issues, but as you own more and more such devices it becomes really annoying to be surrounded by "smart" inanimate objects that constantly make you wait - even for a brief moment - before they are usable, and in that way they seem much less pleasant than the dumb objects they replaced. Imagine having to rest a pen on paper for 500ms before you can begin writing, every time.

icebraining 11y ago
I'd say that lag only exists because the UI is running on a full multi-task OS. My microwave display doesn't take any noticeable time to wake up when I rotate or press a button, and neither did my radio or my VCR. Smart but task-dedicated devices should probably run the display/buttons on a dedicated chip that talks to the CPU asynchronously, to avoid this problem.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  The lag isn't UI-related or related to the specific software stack IMO. We've had to technology to build extremely lag-free devices for years now, the lag is more fundamental than that. Your microwave and VCR are always on - their displays are also always on, so they don't need to be woken up before being used, they are already awake. A thermostat with an always-on screen is the same, they're already displaying information and the touch screen can be immediately used without delay - but we don't want the display to be always on, because in general LCDs look awful in their environments. In general people prefer their homes to not look like server rooms with blinking lights and garish panels everywhere. So there is a non-technological need to keep the screen off, and this presents a fundamental problem - before anything can be done, the screen must first be woken up. No matter how fast you make this process, at the end of the day is one extra step that the user must do before the device can be used. Apple Watch detects when your wrist is held in a certain position to activate - but sensing this gesture itself introduces lag. Hell, even a simplistic "on" button on the device itself - even if the response is perfectly immediately - necessarily requires the time for the user to trigger the action itself. You can't work around this with better software, because at the end of the day "activate device" is step 1, whereas with dumb technology step 1 is "use device". The only real solution is for your devices to be always-on in a much more fundamental way - like your VCR or microwave - and that in some cases means e-ink screens.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    No, the display of my microwave isn't always on, it automatically shuts off after a few minutes; yet, it's still fast enough that I can't perceive any delay. Another example, look at this handheld game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1naGfmzkh9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1naGfmzkh9w Is there any perceived delay when the On button is pressed? I frankly can't see it. EDIT: This one even has full color and movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4DDewpOF8&feature=youtu.be&t=1m17s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4DDewpOF8&feature=youtu.be... It goes from complete shut-off of the entire device to moving animation in less time, from what I can tell, than it takes for him to move the button until the end. EDIT2: I measured it frame-by-frame, it takes 5 frames from the moment the button starts to move until the screen is completely functional, showing the proper image. The video is at 25 fps, so that's 200ms, for the whole device to go from non-powered to fully working animation.
    - potatolicious 11y ago
      > "so that's 200ms, for the whole device to go from non-powered to fully working animation." That's 200ms more than 0ms, which is the status quo for dumb devices. > "yet, it's still fast enough that I can't perceive any delay." Right, because the inputs aren't on-screen. Touchscreen devices inject more delay because you have to: - wake the device - read the output - decide on input - press the input With a device like your microwave (or your arcade game) steps 1 and 2 don't exist, because the inputs are visible even when the screen is off. With your microwave you just walk up and start punching your desired buttons right away, the screen will catch up to you quickly. And this is also why this is fundamentally a product design problem that isn't fixable via simply faster software - a non-primed human will take 500ms+ at each of these steps just in reaction time, the 200ms wake-time and whatnot is minor in comparison to the delay caused by having the human take multiple steps to do something. This is fundamentally about modes of interaction and not really about software performance. We are at a stage in tech development where human delays vastly overwhelm purely machine-caused lag time. This is why compressing multi-step processes into a single step (or eliminating them altogether) is so valuable in terms of improving usability. Conversely - and this is something a lot of futurists just don't get - injecting additional steps into the use of something, even with very high performance software, results in disproportionate delays, and makes the product overall more annoying and cumbersome to use. This is the heart of why nearly all smarthome devices have been utter failures so far - despite doing something useful, they dramatically increase the human load on their usage.

icebraining 11y ago

I'd say that lag only exists because the UI is running on a full multi-task OS. My microwave display doesn't take any noticeable time to wake up when I rotate or press a button, and neither did my radio or my VCR. Smart but task-dedicated devices should probably run the display/buttons on a dedicated chip that talks to the CPU asynchronously, to avoid this problem.

potatolicious 11y ago
The lag isn't UI-related or related to the specific software stack IMO. We've had to technology to build extremely lag-free devices for years now, the lag is more fundamental than that. Your microwave and VCR are always on - their displays are also always on, so they don't need to be woken up before being used, they are already awake. A thermostat with an always-on screen is the same, they're already displaying information and the touch screen can be immediately used without delay - but we don't want the display to be always on, because in general LCDs look awful in their environments. In general people prefer their homes to not look like server rooms with blinking lights and garish panels everywhere. So there is a non-technological need to keep the screen off, and this presents a fundamental problem - before anything can be done, the screen must first be woken up. No matter how fast you make this process, at the end of the day is one extra step that the user must do before the device can be used. Apple Watch detects when your wrist is held in a certain position to activate - but sensing this gesture itself introduces lag. Hell, even a simplistic "on" button on the device itself - even if the response is perfectly immediately - necessarily requires the time for the user to trigger the action itself. You can't work around this with better software, because at the end of the day "activate device" is step 1, whereas with dumb technology step 1 is "use device". The only real solution is for your devices to be always-on in a much more fundamental way - like your VCR or microwave - and that in some cases means e-ink screens.
- icebraining 11y ago
  No, the display of my microwave isn't always on, it automatically shuts off after a few minutes; yet, it's still fast enough that I can't perceive any delay. Another example, look at this handheld game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1naGfmzkh9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1naGfmzkh9w Is there any perceived delay when the On button is pressed? I frankly can't see it. EDIT: This one even has full color and movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4DDewpOF8&feature=youtu.be&t=1m17s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4DDewpOF8&feature=youtu.be... It goes from complete shut-off of the entire device to moving animation in less time, from what I can tell, than it takes for him to move the button until the end. EDIT2: I measured it frame-by-frame, it takes 5 frames from the moment the button starts to move until the screen is completely functional, showing the proper image. The video is at 25 fps, so that's 200ms, for the whole device to go from non-powered to fully working animation.
  - potatolicious 11y ago
    > "so that's 200ms, for the whole device to go from non-powered to fully working animation." That's 200ms more than 0ms, which is the status quo for dumb devices. > "yet, it's still fast enough that I can't perceive any delay." Right, because the inputs aren't on-screen. Touchscreen devices inject more delay because you have to: - wake the device - read the output - decide on input - press the input With a device like your microwave (or your arcade game) steps 1 and 2 don't exist, because the inputs are visible even when the screen is off. With your microwave you just walk up and start punching your desired buttons right away, the screen will catch up to you quickly. And this is also why this is fundamentally a product design problem that isn't fixable via simply faster software - a non-primed human will take 500ms+ at each of these steps just in reaction time, the 200ms wake-time and whatnot is minor in comparison to the delay caused by having the human take multiple steps to do something. This is fundamentally about modes of interaction and not really about software performance. We are at a stage in tech development where human delays vastly overwhelm purely machine-caused lag time. This is why compressing multi-step processes into a single step (or eliminating them altogether) is so valuable in terms of improving usability. Conversely - and this is something a lot of futurists just don't get - injecting additional steps into the use of something, even with very high performance software, results in disproportionate delays, and makes the product overall more annoying and cumbersome to use. This is the heart of why nearly all smarthome devices have been utter failures so far - despite doing something useful, they dramatically increase the human load on their usage.