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With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv -

With. A. Passion. Other touch screens (or similar things) I dislike: - the controls on my stove top - the controls on my monitor - the controls on my tv - the controls on my thermostat - probably more All of these should have physical buttons for the limited number of functions required. Or, at a minimum, for navigation and confirmation. Touch screens there suck. My wife's car has a touch screen on the control/infotainment center whatever it's called (where the radio is), and a few physical buttons on the steering wheel. There are two clocks: one on the control center, and one in the main dashboard display. The dashboard clock is controlled by the buttons (just one for menu nav and one for confirm selection) is super simple and frustration-free to change. The touch-screen controlled one is a shitty pain the ass. By far the worst though is my touch-controlled stove top. Just give me some damned knobs.

Poppys 3y ago
How often are you changing the clock?
- dmonitor 3y ago
  at least twice a year. more often if traveling across time zones.
bjarneh 3y ago
> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can prefer these to the good old separate knobs which we used to have; which my relatively new stove still has (they still exist luckily). I'll add a link to the one I have, for others looking for stove's without the annoying touch controls. https://www.bosch-home.no/produktliste/komfyr-ovn-platetopp-og-ventilator/frittstaaende-komfyrer/komfyrer-med-keramisk-platetopp/HKA010020U#/Tabs=section-technical-overview/Togglebox=manuals/Togglebox=accessories/ https://www.bosch-home.no/produktliste/komfyr-ovn-platetopp-...
- meiuqer 3y ago
  I literally just came from Ikea for a new kitchen and asked for this feature on my stove haha. Luckily they said i could choose my own stove so i will think i will do that
- iakov 3y ago
  The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills. Otherwise I completely agree with you and GP - how annoying it is that every physical button is now a clunky touch surface!
  - rollcat 3y ago
    > The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills. Disagree. Spills can turn hobs on & off, and at best cause the entire control surface to lock up and start beeping - which can quickly turn worst, if a hob happened to turn on a split second earlier. Knobs. On the front, not on the top.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - masklinn 3y ago
      That only works for full stoves, something I don’t think I’ve seen in 15 years. How do you do knobs on the front (or side) with an embedded cooktop? Raise it by 3 inches so you have space for knobs?
      - rollcat 3y ago
        If you're embedding the hobs on the top, then embed the knobs on the front, and run a wire in between. It's not like it was meant to be portable, if you are making one cut-out, why not make two.
  - kevincox 3y ago
    I agree with this. I like physical controls in most places but purposely picked a touch-control stove because it is just so much easier to wipe down. The controls are a bit less convenient than knobs but the ease of cleaning makes up for it in my opinion.
nvilcins 3y ago
The elevator in our apartment building has a touch-button(?) panel. Guess what happens during the cold season when you you've got your gloves on? Yep, absolutely nothing! (bonus f.u. points if you are carrying stuff and cannot easily take the gloves off) Luckily have a fully analogue car so I'm maintaining my sanity somewhat.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  You guys don't have capacitive gloves so you can use your phone while wearing them?
  - ghusbands 3y ago
    Those often become sporadic or just stop working, and gloves for actually-cold weather are too thick or multi-material to have that feature. Also, the people making the warmer gloves are more interested in keeping hands warm than in adding such features.
ryan-allen 3y ago
My fridge has touch buttons, and they often go haywire and reprogram the desired temperature! They at least beep while the ghost is interacting with them, so I can go and make sure my drinks don't end up frozen.
vibragiel 3y ago
Totally agree. Lately touch switches have been riddling every electric appliance: kitchen hood, microwave, washing machine, dishwasher... I think that being easier to clean doesn't pay off for the utter loss of usability. That's why I'm very fond of Breville (Sage here in Europe) appliances: they're covered with buttons and knobs.
tsm 3y ago
Thankfully I have physical knobs on my stovetop, so my current least favorite is my dishwasher. When am I practically guaranteed to have damp hands? After doing the dishes. When do I need to start the dishwasher? After doing the dishes. Why have an interface that requires dry (but not too dry!) fingertips? The extra knife twist is that if I misjudge how wet my hands are, I get a little water on the dishwasher controls and then they don't work at all until I dry them thoroughly.
Aromasin 3y ago
I feel like industrial designers looked at Apple in the early 2000's with how well their touchscreens went, and just lost any sense of logic or sensibility. Everything had to be touchscreen, with no thought or reason put into why phones in particular needed touch screens. Buttons meant there was less space for a screen. They couldn't make the display any bigger, or the buttons any smaller, so an innovation was needed. It's a unique device; the input is as important as the output. Designers don't seem to understand that. A car has more space to put button and knobs than a mobile phone ever will. Not only that, while the output to the user required is minimal, but the input is critical. I need an input that is as easy and clear to activate as possible. All I need in response is a noise or light to tell me that the feature is active. A touch display might give me more visual feedback, but that is not the important factor! Don't even get me started on capacitive touch buttons...
- sonar_un 3y ago
  In a way though, Apple tried to solve the problem with haptic feedback. What is completely lacking in all touchscreen controls these days is any kind of feedback. So Apple actually recognized the need for a feedback with touchscreens and invented a solution. Industrial designers didn't even try to "solve" this problem.
bmacho 3y ago
Touchscreens on ticket machines. They don't work when it is sunny, cloudy, raining or snowing. And even when working, ticket machines with physical buttons are just way faster and easier.
LandR 3y ago
My new washing machine has touch buttons to start it and pause it. I normally have to push start a few times to get it to actually start, and there is no feedback that I've even pushed start at all. So I don't know if it's just not registered the push, or it has and it's just not doing anything. It's so dumb, I don't know what is wrong with a physical button.
ridgered4 3y ago
Touchscreens were always just a horrible interface. Their only advantages were portability and recently cheapness. That made them the best choice for mobile devices but due to fad chasing and cost cutting they have been bolted onto every device where they have no business being in some cases with outright dangerous results.
alliao 3y ago
have I got the knob for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4d9Yu2pvOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4d9Yu2pvOg
awritawirj 3y ago
Problem #1 is that touchscreens are difficult to operate in applications where you're supposed to keep your eyes on the road. Problem #2, which makes Problem #1 ten times worse, when when you get crap like Tesla does where the UI changes every month. They don't have any genuine functionality improvements to make, so they just move buttons around and hide or eliminate buttons "in preparation to make the car driverless". I never use Autopilot, much less Partial-Self-Driving. Give me back my UI from five years ago.

Poppys 3y ago

How often are you changing the clock?

dmonitor 3y ago
at least twice a year. more often if traveling across time zones.

bjarneh 3y ago

> - the controls on my stove top How were these stove-top touch-buttons ever considered an upgrade to their predecessor? They always have no feedback, or that annoyingly high "beep" feedback. They are always slow to respond. They typically use only two or three buttons to control the actual temperature, forcing you to select location first, which is typically slow and terrible as well. Nobody in their right mind can prefer these to the good old separate knobs which we used to have; which my relatively new stove still has (they still exist luckily). I'll add a link to the one I have, for others looking for stove's without the annoying touch controls. https://www.bosch-home.no/produktliste/komfyr-ovn-platetopp-og-ventilator/frittstaaende-komfyrer/komfyrer-med-keramisk-platetopp/HKA010020U#/Tabs=section-technical-overview/Togglebox=manuals/Togglebox=accessories/ https://www.bosch-home.no/produktliste/komfyr-ovn-platetopp-...

meiuqer 3y ago
I literally just came from Ikea for a new kitchen and asked for this feature on my stove haha. Luckily they said i could choose my own stove so i will think i will do that
iakov 3y ago
The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills. Otherwise I completely agree with you and GP - how annoying it is that every physical button is now a clunky touch surface!
- rollcat 3y ago
  > The only saving grace of those is the ease of cleaning spills. Disagree. Spills can turn hobs on & off, and at best cause the entire control surface to lock up and start beeping - which can quickly turn worst, if a hob happened to turn on a split second earlier. Knobs. On the front, not on the top.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - masklinn 3y ago
    That only works for full stoves, something I don’t think I’ve seen in 15 years. How do you do knobs on the front (or side) with an embedded cooktop? Raise it by 3 inches so you have space for knobs?
    - rollcat 3y ago
      If you're embedding the hobs on the top, then embed the knobs on the front, and run a wire in between. It's not like it was meant to be portable, if you are making one cut-out, why not make two.
- kevincox 3y ago
  I agree with this. I like physical controls in most places but purposely picked a touch-control stove because it is just so much easier to wipe down. The controls are a bit less convenient than knobs but the ease of cleaning makes up for it in my opinion.

nvilcins 3y ago

The elevator in our apartment building has a touch-button(?) panel. Guess what happens during the cold season when you you've got your gloves on? Yep, absolutely nothing! (bonus f.u. points if you are carrying stuff and cannot easily take the gloves off) Luckily have a fully analogue car so I'm maintaining my sanity somewhat.

moffkalast 3y ago
You guys don't have capacitive gloves so you can use your phone while wearing them?
- ghusbands 3y ago
  Those often become sporadic or just stop working, and gloves for actually-cold weather are too thick or multi-material to have that feature. Also, the people making the warmer gloves are more interested in keeping hands warm than in adding such features.

ryan-allen 3y ago

My fridge has touch buttons, and they often go haywire and reprogram the desired temperature! They at least beep while the ghost is interacting with them, so I can go and make sure my drinks don't end up frozen.

vibragiel 3y ago

Totally agree. Lately touch switches have been riddling every electric appliance: kitchen hood, microwave, washing machine, dishwasher... I think that being easier to clean doesn't pay off for the utter loss of usability. That's why I'm very fond of Breville (Sage here in Europe) appliances: they're covered with buttons and knobs.

tsm 3y ago

Thankfully I have physical knobs on my stovetop, so my current least favorite is my dishwasher. When am I practically guaranteed to have damp hands? After doing the dishes. When do I need to start the dishwasher? After doing the dishes. Why have an interface that requires dry (but not too dry!) fingertips? The extra knife twist is that if I misjudge how wet my hands are, I get a little water on the dishwasher controls and then they don't work at all until I dry them thoroughly.

Aromasin 3y ago

I feel like industrial designers looked at Apple in the early 2000's with how well their touchscreens went, and just lost any sense of logic or sensibility. Everything had to be touchscreen, with no thought or reason put into why phones in particular needed touch screens. Buttons meant there was less space for a screen. They couldn't make the display any bigger, or the buttons any smaller, so an innovation was needed. It's a unique device; the input is as important as the output. Designers don't seem to understand that. A car has more space to put button and knobs than a mobile phone ever will. Not only that, while the output to the user required is minimal, but the input is critical. I need an input that is as easy and clear to activate as possible. All I need in response is a noise or light to tell me that the feature is active. A touch display might give me more visual feedback, but that is not the important factor! Don't even get me started on capacitive touch buttons...

sonar_un 3y ago
In a way though, Apple tried to solve the problem with haptic feedback. What is completely lacking in all touchscreen controls these days is any kind of feedback. So Apple actually recognized the need for a feedback with touchscreens and invented a solution. Industrial designers didn't even try to "solve" this problem.

bmacho 3y ago

Touchscreens on ticket machines. They don't work when it is sunny, cloudy, raining or snowing. And even when working, ticket machines with physical buttons are just way faster and easier.

LandR 3y ago

My new washing machine has touch buttons to start it and pause it. I normally have to push start a few times to get it to actually start, and there is no feedback that I've even pushed start at all. So I don't know if it's just not registered the push, or it has and it's just not doing anything. It's so dumb, I don't know what is wrong with a physical button.

ridgered4 3y ago

Touchscreens were always just a horrible interface. Their only advantages were portability and recently cheapness. That made them the best choice for mobile devices but due to fad chasing and cost cutting they have been bolted onto every device where they have no business being in some cases with outright dangerous results.

alliao 3y ago

have I got the knob for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4d9Yu2pvOg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4d9Yu2pvOg

awritawirj 3y ago

Problem #1 is that touchscreens are difficult to operate in applications where you're supposed to keep your eyes on the road. Problem #2, which makes Problem #1 ten times worse, when when you get crap like Tesla does where the UI changes every month. They don't have any genuine functionality improvements to make, so they just move buttons around and hide or eliminate buttons "in preparation to make the car driverless". I never use Autopilot, much less Partial-Self-Driving. Give me back my UI from five years ago.