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The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of t

by srmarm 3y ago

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

rewmie 3y ago
> Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Also, COTS gear that's designed with a standard interface is by design trivial to replace even through hot swapping, which automatically means resilience against errors.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tredre3 3y ago
I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). You don't get that with a cheap third party. So I can understand to a degree why people are questioning the decision to not pay the extra 20 bucks and get microsoft gear.
- rarx 3y ago
  > (and it shows) bought two official xbox controllers and they both broke within six months so…
- srmarm 3y ago
  Hey at least it's not a madcatz controller!
  - Drblessing 3y ago
    Throwback! They were great for cheap controllers.
- Strom 3y ago
  Logitech has orders of magnitude more experience in manufacturing peripherals than Microsoft. That said, Logitech does make products in a wide price range and the low end isn't competitive with their own high end.
  - mh- 3y ago
    FWIW, I'd estimate that Microsoft has sold something like 200 million Xbox controllers.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      To be fair, Microsoft also sold a lot of Xboxes that were misdesigned from a thermal perspective, and thus red ringed themselves.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        The thermals weren't misdesigned exactly, but the solder was below expected performance in several key attributes. It is not the only product that got screwed by new leadfree solder being not the best at the time.
  - DanHulton 3y ago
    "Low end" and "high end" in the gaming market doesn't necessarily equate to "reliability," however. "Style" and "customizability" are very high on the differentiators between low/high for gaming peripherals, neither of which are necessary on a sub. The reviews for the controller (mentioned by name in the article, so easy to look up) are generally great (4.2/5 with thousands of reviews), and the 1/2-star reviews are as frequently about ergonomic issues as they are about reliability. Every batch of controllers is going to have some unreliable ones, so the fact that that doesn't stand out as the common complaint dragging the reviews down says something. A lot of the rest of the choices for the sub sound sus, but not bothering to splurge on a game controller that cycles RGB is not worthy of a headline, IMO.
    - Retric 3y ago
- addaon 3y ago
  > and what would that change? Suitability for purpose. Some obvious ones: Defined and validated environmentals (temperature, voltage, and in this case pressure). Qualified components — capacitors chosen for lifetime rather than shaving a cent, perhaps avoidance of MEMS oscillators with helium sensitivity. Failure analysis. Low and understood probability of fail-unsafe conditions (short circuit), mitigation for those risks, fume-proof and fire-proof PCB materials to protect the sealed environment in case of failure. Redundancy to handle failures anyway. Multiple independent strings so that single-point failure lead to partial loss of lighting, not all of it. Load ahedding, eg dropping all but one string at a known voltage above minimum voltage, to save power for other more critical loads during system failure scenarios.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Yes, if one had the budget to do all those things, from scratch, better than an existing component manufacturer. Not many companies have NASA levels of "throw money at it until it works, and every part has been signed off on five times." Absent that, I'm having trouble seeing how custom > COTS. In all probability, anything in-house would have been worse and added new failure modes. Better to buy, analyze, and adapt as needed. And if it turns out you don't need to adapt, because failure modes aren't safety-critical or components are viable in the environment, then spend your time on something more useful.
    - mcmcmc 3y ago
      They were charging a quarter million per head. Budget should not have been a concern.
      - randac 3y ago
        Also using close to $1m in fuel per trip (according to the CEO), not that it changes your point
        flir 3y ago
        Not doubting you, but how is that possible? (A quick, unverified Google throws back "A standard Panamax containership has operational costs of about $9 million per year")
- BEEdwards 3y ago
  >Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). my xbox elite controller didn't even last a year (usb port died)... now tbf the x button on the replacement razer controller i got also died in the same time frame. to be more fair though the wired xbox 360 controller i got with my original xbox back in ~2007 has never let me down.
  - pdntspa 3y ago
    I've lost two 360 controllers, one started freaking out on the inputs and the other one's right analog stick just chipped off one day
- twbarr 3y ago
  There's a middle ground between "hardware store crap" and "custom." The aviation industry has plenty of standard interior lighting and environmental control system that's known not to light people on fire or short out or otherwise fail and kill somebody. https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/business-aviation/cabin/lighting https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/busin... These are still COTS products.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - karmelapple 3y ago
    Absolutely. Former avionics company employee here - not only do companies like Collins have COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) products to buy, but they themselves are frequently made of at least some COTS components. So each of those components have been tested and put into production by a company who's laser focused on the safety and reliability of that part. You only need to spend a little time with a reliability engineer and see some of the calculations they do to start realizing how when even one or two components in a system have little corners cut, how it can drastically impact the overall safety of the system. With the amount of corners cut on this submarine, I am unfortunately less than surprised at both the failure in the article and the crisis happening to it right now. I hope all the souls aboard can somehow get home safe, and I hope the people who put them into this seemingly corners-cut vessel do not get to float any more craft, and that they didn't undersell the riskiness of this venture... although I'm unfortunately not optimistic about any of that.
  - finitemonkey 3y ago
    Apollo 1 has been too long ago. Collective memory fades. Each generation seems to need its own disasters to keep its safety standards up.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      The general public does, for those in the respective fields those safety lessons are ingrained in proper procedures and constititional knowledge. That's why start-ups in those fields are risky, usually their founders have never witnessed said procedures and knowledge at work, never worked under those procedures. Employees, especially early on, tend to be young an inexperienced as well. As a result, those companies neither have the constitiational knowledge nor the processes of their more mature counter part. Some try up make for this with "hacker" culture... Those things are valid for everything from med tech to aerospace and, yes, cars. The dangerous thing so, and I saw that in real life, is when that culture spreads. Usually through juniors who gained their first experience in said start-ups, and not one of those legacy shops. Edit: None of what I wrote prevents legacy giants from cutting corners themselves, the B737 MAX showed us as much.
- jki275 3y ago
  Logitech is a "cheap third party"? I like MS hardware, but my goodness, calling Logitech that is clearly missing something in the accuracy department. Logitech is way more experienced at making and selling input devices than MS.
  - SllX 3y ago
    I agree with you in principle on your defense of Logitech, but if there’s a company that can give Logitech a run for their money in terms of designing and selling input peripherals, it probably is Microsoft. There are very few extant input peripheral manufacturers that have been doing it as long or longer than Microsoft has, so it would be an overstatement to say they’re way more experienced”. Logitech has released to market more peripherals overall though since that’s pretty much their entire business.
  - rjsw 3y ago
    I thought both companies started making mice at about the same time.
  - aktuel 3y ago
    Logitech is more experienced in making money by selling crappy devices that fail on you right after the warranty expired.
- Clamchop 3y ago
  I mostly agree but my knee-jerk concern is mostly what's not the controller. The USB port, the driver, the operating system, and the computer. All of that worries me at a glance, but I absolutely have no awareness of the options in this space or what can be done to mitigate risks re: reliability.
- jsnell 3y ago
  The Xbox Elite 2 controller costs $150 and is a reliability nightmare. It has the look and feel of a premium product, but there are at least three components that are commonly reported breaking after fairly light use (like, after 100 hours of gaming). Analog stick drift, shoulder buttons that register duplicate presses, and face buttons (usually the A) that stop registering presses. All of these issues are still unfixed years after release. Given that's what their flagship controller is like, they either don't do a lot of reliability testing or are ignoring the results.
- onetimeuse92304 3y ago
  As an amateur EE, using mass market is a braindead idea in this case. The controller is not built to deal with high humidity which I assume is a given in this kind of sub. Another reason is that these devices are built out of very cheap components and are not at all designed to be reliable. You can easily design a controller that is much more reliable. Having your multi million dollar sub grounded because you allowed a cheap component on board is pretty stupid imo.
- hobbescotch 3y ago
  You would think that but the Nintendo Switch controller still has analog stick drift many years after being discovered.
- kolinko 3y ago
  Logitech has even more experience than Microsoft in doing controllers
- Ratiofarmings 3y ago
  Also assuming that weight isn't an issue, the controller being $30 makes redundancy easy. Just like every other kid playing video games, simply have a second one in case the first one fails. It's small, cheap and replaced in seconds.
  - aembleton 3y ago
    It's also wireless. Do they have an easy way of pairing a new controller?
- thrashh 3y ago
  I don’t trust playing games with third party controllers and to control a submarine with a 3rd-party control blows my mind. Third party controllers never work quite as well.
- davewritescode 3y ago
  > I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). Using something off the shelf is completely fine, but it doesn't get you off the hook from doing the work of certifying that it's safe and fit for purpose. If you've ever used a modern game controller (even ones made by Microsoft), many of them are prone to issues with the potentiometer which causes the joysticks to drift subtly in one or more directions. Not ideal for controlling life critical systems.
- otikik 3y ago
  > Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers I don't think they tested them 2.5 miles underwater though. Even if the cabin is pressurized, electronics can behave differently there.
- taskforcegemini 3y ago
  the logitech controller has a switch to change between direct input / x-input
soared 3y ago
The issue most people on Reddit were discussing is that it’s a cheap off brand controller, rather than a higher quality name brand controller (from Sony or Microsoft)
- leipert 3y ago
  How is Logitech “off brand”. They are well known for input devices.
  - yenda 3y ago
    It's Reddit
  - danudey 3y ago
    I've been using Logitech input devices since before Sony or Microsoft ever made one.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - KerrAvon 3y ago
      You had a P4 mouse in 1982? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Logitech_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Logitech_products
    - tokai 3y ago
      Microsoft's first controller is much older than Logitech'.
  - dmonitor 3y ago
    Their controllers are well known for being garbage. People that take video games seriously can tell you all of the different reasons why they "feel worse" or are just less reliable than OEM. It's a $30 controller where the "standard" option is around $60. The "premium" market where they are custom made for important use cases (ie, competitive Melee tournament) can easily reach into multiple hundreds of dollars, using components like hall effect sensors instead of resistive potentiometers that will lose accuracy over time. Most people would refuse to play a video game with this controller, let alone use it as a critical component in a vehicle. Joystick drift in a videogame is frustrating. Joystick drift in a fucking submarine is a disaster waiting to happen.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
Worth noting they use the controller to steer the periscope, not the sub. A component failure there has a significantly smaller risk to human life.
- srmarm 3y ago
  Oh absolutely and probably with a manual backup too.
  - Frost1x 3y ago
    Or you know, another $30 controller or two. I know space is limited but it shouldn't be too much to have a little redundancy on controller systems.
cm2187 3y ago
The controller itself is probably reliable enough, like any cheap keyboard on amazon. I wouldn't want my life to rely on bluetooth though.
- donkey_oaty 3y ago
  Absolutely. The fella in the article is going wired though by the look of it.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    They have a couple of pretty good shots of the controller, and I don't see a wire. Also, the marketing image they include for the controller is clearly labeled as wireless.
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      I have the controller itself and as far as I know there's no way to use it wired. It doesn't even have a port, batteries are replaceable double As.
    - zerocrates 3y ago
      I think by "the article" they mean the one linked at the top of this subthread, which is about the Navy and shows a sailor using a wired Xbox 360 controller. The one used on the missing submersible does use Bluetooth.
- rwmj 3y ago
  I don't even want my music listening to depend on bluetooth.
- kiririn 3y ago
  If there’s one place I’d bet my life on Bluetooth it’s at the bottom of the ocean with absolutely no other signals of any kind
  - 3y ago
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
> Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers We all know how the military ends up using these consumer grade products; lobbying, aka deep state corruption "if that happens in a foreign country" Hololens didn't find commercial success, yet ended up with the military, soldiers weren't happy when it was time to use the actual consumer grade product ;) > 'The devices would have gotten us killed.' https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/13/23402195/microsoft-us-army-hololens-ar-goggles-internal-reports-failings-nausea-headaches https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/13/23402195/microsoft-us-ar...
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers Video game gamepads are probably some of the most well designed pieces of equipment I know of, with each part having a guaranteed lifetime of clicks and/or swipes, and other such details. Video gamers are really obsessive over these details. It wouldn't be surprising to me if the latest hall-effect sensor joypads are the best durability in the world for thumbpads. That being said: a cheap Logitech controller would be an old potentiometer-based controller with far less durability. I'm sure if I asked around, someone out there knows the specifications and would know when to regularly replace that gamepad after X-hours of use (and I'd expect X-hours to be in excess of 1000 hours, maybe even 10,000+ hours, even for a gamepad like that) ---------- I think where video gamers are getting wow'd is that... they weren't using like a brand-name controller here. $30 Logitech is low-end. Video gamers know which controllers to rely upon. Bottom of the barrel $30 Logitech is barely something I feel good about giving to a friend during a gaming session, let alone a life-or-death equipment choice for steering a submarine. You get far more reliable, higher-quality gamepads at the $50 or even $80 levels. I don't think video gamers would be hating on these guys if they used... I dunno... an 8bitdo + GuliKit Hall Effect controller. We'd all be like "Oh yeah, that's quality stuff" (the Bluetooth is unreliable but I assume some kind of wired version is available somewhere...) The top end joysticks used in video game tournaments for maximum reliability are easily $200+.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service To control periscopes (“photonics masts”), and some other equipment, not for primary control of manned vehicles, that I can find any indication of.
- dataviz1000 3y ago
  The YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay was invited to film on an Ohio class nuclear submarine training in the Arctic. [0] You can see how many of the system are mechanical and not electronic in the demonstration especially the ballast controls. Most if not all boats and ships can control the throttle mechanically so if the boat loses its electronics such as a wave smashing the windshield in, it is still possible to control the rudder and throttles. I was very surprised at the lack if mechanical controls on the recreational submarine. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJnWp1tAdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJnWp1tAdU
_ea1k 3y ago
Yeah, I'm not convinced this is in any way related to the issues. I'm far more concerned with the system that such a controller was plugged into than the controller itself. Commercial off the shelf pc? What kind of redundancy? How was power and power backup managed?
- liminalsunset 3y ago
  The guidance and control system seems to run on a GTK (?) app running on what looks like Ubuntu 10.04. An HDMI cable can be seen running to the monitor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkytJa0ghc&t=33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkytJa0ghc&t=33s If I had to take a random guess, this system is probably some form of an embedded Atom/Geode type device (if not just a notebook PC) with some CAN or RS485/422/232 interfaces attached via USB.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    Trusting your life to Bluetooth on Linux. Ouch.
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      Yeah, I had the same thought. I really hope they had more of a safety plan than that.
      - IshKebab 3y ago
        It turns out it wasn't Bluetooth - it was one of those proprietary radios with a USB dongle which should be a lot more reliable. But still... it doesn't sound like they had any kind of backup at all. Maybe they just didn't talk about the backups?
        sumo89 3y ago
        wifi dongles aren't exactly bullet proof. For example if you use a cycling turbo trainer with a power meter, a macbook and an ANT+ (2.4ghz) dongle there's a good chance you've had to buy a 6 foot extender cable so get the dongle far enough away from the macbook because something about the macbook itself interferes with the signal. It's a known thing among home training cyclists.
cpleppert 3y ago
The Xbox controllers are used to control the periscope which is not a safety critical device. Regardless, the navy uses wired controllers and did extensive testing and verification. This outfit didn't do anything like that; in one video with a journalist the bluetooth controller was a 'feature' because they could pass it around the sub.
- EddieJLSH 3y ago
  US UAV/Drones use xbox controllers too
  - mey 3y ago
    There was video floating around of a machine gun turret being remote controlled using the Valve Steamdeck in Ukraine. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-deck-controls-a-real-ukrainian-army-machine-gun-turret-report https://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-deck-controls-a-real... Edit: consumer joysticks normally use potentiometers, which aren't great for deadzones/drift. For things like dust incursion reasons along it would make sense for any industrial/military device to be using hall effect based joysticks.
    - Accujack 3y ago
      The more modern ones use hall sensor based sticks. Most new RC transmitter designs have 'em.
    - numpad0 3y ago
      Valve donated few of those for kids. Most likely one of those units, than purposefully chosen.
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    Unmanned, if anything a controller failing will save some lives.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Unmanned, and they have logic to autopilot in most cases.
modeless 3y ago
I trust an Xbox 360 controller a whole lot more than I trust a Logitech controller. First party game console controllers are generally very robust and the 360 one is a classic. Third party are hit or miss but usually miss.
iepathos 3y ago
xbox 360 controllers last only 6 months to a couple years with various failures that don't matter when you're playing a video game with them but can actually get you killed if they fail when you're in deep ocean. These are not ok for controls in vehicles where failure can mean everyone onboard dies. The navy does not use these for critical system controls. They were never built or tested for that.
- holoduke 3y ago
  They do for drones. But plenty of spares available.
- dharmab 3y ago
  How are you treating your controllers? I still have working PS2 and 360 controllers from back in the day.
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  I have thousands of hours of playtime on CoD4, MW2, and countless PC games over the course of about 15 years on my 360 controller I've had since I was a teenager. I've had to replace the joysticks a couple of times, and opened it up to clean it a few more times than that. wth are you doing to your controllers that they die in 6 months?
TX81Z 3y ago
Fun fact: DOD likes game pads because soldiers all play videos game since birth and it requires the least training.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Not just video games, video games that intentionally mimic the job they're performing. The only real difference is that you don't get achievement pop-ups or announcements. And, of course, that you kill or maim human beings in the process, but that is intentional.
babypuncher 3y ago
I doubt anyone thinks this is why the sub went missing. It's just funny that the submarine, which went missing, and is now notorious for skimping on safety, went with a generic "third party" controller instead of something higher quality, like a genuine Xbox controller from Microsoft.
- saberience 3y ago
  You think it’s funny that these people are most likely dying or dead right now?
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
Military loves COTS. You've also got a user interface that many in the service would already be familiar with.
fastball 3y ago
Yes but that is the Xbox 360 controller, the greatest controller of all time. This is... logitech.
iancmceachern 3y ago
Yes, but interesting they don't use it to drive the sub, or for other mission or life critical tasks... in this sub they did seemingly
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers; I'm sure a contractor could do "better" for whatever meaning of the word better for specialist cases like the military, but... why? If an xbox controller breaks, they can just pull out a new one. War is as much about cost as it is about effective means of killing others. I can't say how much it's used because of a confirmation / media bias, but cheap drones are used effectively in Ukraine, plain commercial off the shelf drones (with matching controllers) with a bomb strapped to them taking out tanks and crews (who often leave their hatch open in the clips I've seen). A few hundred bucks to take out a multi million tank sounds like a really good exchange.
- calpaterson 3y ago
  > I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers In point of fact they are not. The PS5 controller has poor battery life and both have stick drift issues because they use cheap analogue sensors. The current generation of Nintendo controllers are similar: stick drift and battery issues are common. And then there are issues with wireless interference which can be a serious problem and, when it is, difficult to diagnose and fix. I don't think the Logitech controller in question even has wired as an option though of course I have no idea if that's relevant to the incident at all.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
I once spole to a team thay used a wireless controller to control a robot. If that particular wireless controller ran out of battery or lost sognal for any reason, the dongle in the PC kept the command, i.e. move forward, forever. You'd have to chase the robot around. Thats thw kind of thing you have to test for
13th_yc_acct 3y ago
Logitech F710 has been the least reliable controller I have ever used. Connectivity and driver issues all over the place across all Windows OS's I have ever had the displeasure of using it with. Once I switched to Xbox controllers on my Win machine those issues were a thing of the past.

by srmarm 3y ago

rewmie 3y ago

> Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Also, COTS gear that's designed with a standard interface is by design trivial to replace even through hot swapping, which automatically means resilience against errors.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tredre3 3y ago

I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). You don't get that with a cheap third party. So I can understand to a degree why people are questioning the decision to not pay the extra 20 bucks and get microsoft gear.

rarx 3y ago
> (and it shows) bought two official xbox controllers and they both broke within six months so…
srmarm 3y ago
Hey at least it's not a madcatz controller!
- Drblessing 3y ago
  Throwback! They were great for cheap controllers.
Strom 3y ago
Logitech has orders of magnitude more experience in manufacturing peripherals than Microsoft. That said, Logitech does make products in a wide price range and the low end isn't competitive with their own high end.
- mh- 3y ago
  FWIW, I'd estimate that Microsoft has sold something like 200 million Xbox controllers.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    To be fair, Microsoft also sold a lot of Xboxes that were misdesigned from a thermal perspective, and thus red ringed themselves.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      The thermals weren't misdesigned exactly, but the solder was below expected performance in several key attributes. It is not the only product that got screwed by new leadfree solder being not the best at the time.
- DanHulton 3y ago
  "Low end" and "high end" in the gaming market doesn't necessarily equate to "reliability," however. "Style" and "customizability" are very high on the differentiators between low/high for gaming peripherals, neither of which are necessary on a sub. The reviews for the controller (mentioned by name in the article, so easy to look up) are generally great (4.2/5 with thousands of reviews), and the 1/2-star reviews are as frequently about ergonomic issues as they are about reliability. Every batch of controllers is going to have some unreliable ones, so the fact that that doesn't stand out as the common complaint dragging the reviews down says something. A lot of the rest of the choices for the sub sound sus, but not bothering to splurge on a game controller that cycles RGB is not worthy of a headline, IMO.
  - Retric 3y ago
addaon 3y ago
> and what would that change? Suitability for purpose. Some obvious ones: Defined and validated environmentals (temperature, voltage, and in this case pressure). Qualified components — capacitors chosen for lifetime rather than shaving a cent, perhaps avoidance of MEMS oscillators with helium sensitivity. Failure analysis. Low and understood probability of fail-unsafe conditions (short circuit), mitigation for those risks, fume-proof and fire-proof PCB materials to protect the sealed environment in case of failure. Redundancy to handle failures anyway. Multiple independent strings so that single-point failure lead to partial loss of lighting, not all of it. Load ahedding, eg dropping all but one string at a known voltage above minimum voltage, to save power for other more critical loads during system failure scenarios.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Yes, if one had the budget to do all those things, from scratch, better than an existing component manufacturer. Not many companies have NASA levels of "throw money at it until it works, and every part has been signed off on five times." Absent that, I'm having trouble seeing how custom > COTS. In all probability, anything in-house would have been worse and added new failure modes. Better to buy, analyze, and adapt as needed. And if it turns out you don't need to adapt, because failure modes aren't safety-critical or components are viable in the environment, then spend your time on something more useful.
  - mcmcmc 3y ago
    They were charging a quarter million per head. Budget should not have been a concern.
    - randac 3y ago
      Also using close to $1m in fuel per trip (according to the CEO), not that it changes your point
      - flir 3y ago
        Not doubting you, but how is that possible? (A quick, unverified Google throws back "A standard Panamax containership has operational costs of about $9 million per year")
BEEdwards 3y ago
>Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). my xbox elite controller didn't even last a year (usb port died)... now tbf the x button on the replacement razer controller i got also died in the same time frame. to be more fair though the wired xbox 360 controller i got with my original xbox back in ~2007 has never let me down.
- pdntspa 3y ago
  I've lost two 360 controllers, one started freaking out on the inputs and the other one's right analog stick just chipped off one day
twbarr 3y ago
There's a middle ground between "hardware store crap" and "custom." The aviation industry has plenty of standard interior lighting and environmental control system that's known not to light people on fire or short out or otherwise fail and kill somebody. https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/business-aviation/cabin/lighting https://www.collinsaerospace.com/what-we-do/industries/busin... These are still COTS products.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- karmelapple 3y ago
  Absolutely. Former avionics company employee here - not only do companies like Collins have COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) products to buy, but they themselves are frequently made of at least some COTS components. So each of those components have been tested and put into production by a company who's laser focused on the safety and reliability of that part. You only need to spend a little time with a reliability engineer and see some of the calculations they do to start realizing how when even one or two components in a system have little corners cut, how it can drastically impact the overall safety of the system. With the amount of corners cut on this submarine, I am unfortunately less than surprised at both the failure in the article and the crisis happening to it right now. I hope all the souls aboard can somehow get home safe, and I hope the people who put them into this seemingly corners-cut vessel do not get to float any more craft, and that they didn't undersell the riskiness of this venture... although I'm unfortunately not optimistic about any of that.
- finitemonkey 3y ago
  Apollo 1 has been too long ago. Collective memory fades. Each generation seems to need its own disasters to keep its safety standards up.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    The general public does, for those in the respective fields those safety lessons are ingrained in proper procedures and constititional knowledge. That's why start-ups in those fields are risky, usually their founders have never witnessed said procedures and knowledge at work, never worked under those procedures. Employees, especially early on, tend to be young an inexperienced as well. As a result, those companies neither have the constitiational knowledge nor the processes of their more mature counter part. Some try up make for this with "hacker" culture... Those things are valid for everything from med tech to aerospace and, yes, cars. The dangerous thing so, and I saw that in real life, is when that culture spreads. Usually through juniors who gained their first experience in said start-ups, and not one of those legacy shops. Edit: None of what I wrote prevents legacy giants from cutting corners themselves, the B737 MAX showed us as much.
jki275 3y ago
Logitech is a "cheap third party"? I like MS hardware, but my goodness, calling Logitech that is clearly missing something in the accuracy department. Logitech is way more experienced at making and selling input devices than MS.
- SllX 3y ago
  I agree with you in principle on your defense of Logitech, but if there’s a company that can give Logitech a run for their money in terms of designing and selling input peripherals, it probably is Microsoft. There are very few extant input peripheral manufacturers that have been doing it as long or longer than Microsoft has, so it would be an overstatement to say they’re way more experienced”. Logitech has released to market more peripherals overall though since that’s pretty much their entire business.
- rjsw 3y ago
  I thought both companies started making mice at about the same time.
- aktuel 3y ago
  Logitech is more experienced in making money by selling crappy devices that fail on you right after the warranty expired.
Clamchop 3y ago
I mostly agree but my knee-jerk concern is mostly what's not the controller. The USB port, the driver, the operating system, and the computer. All of that worries me at a glance, but I absolutely have no awareness of the options in this space or what can be done to mitigate risks re: reliability.
jsnell 3y ago
The Xbox Elite 2 controller costs $150 and is a reliability nightmare. It has the look and feel of a premium product, but there are at least three components that are commonly reported breaking after fairly light use (like, after 100 hours of gaming). Analog stick drift, shoulder buttons that register duplicate presses, and face buttons (usually the A) that stop registering presses. All of these issues are still unfixed years after release. Given that's what their flagship controller is like, they either don't do a lot of reliability testing or are ignoring the results.
onetimeuse92304 3y ago
As an amateur EE, using mass market is a braindead idea in this case. The controller is not built to deal with high humidity which I assume is a given in this kind of sub. Another reason is that these devices are built out of very cheap components and are not at all designed to be reliable. You can easily design a controller that is much more reliable. Having your multi million dollar sub grounded because you allowed a cheap component on board is pretty stupid imo.
hobbescotch 3y ago
You would think that but the Nintendo Switch controller still has analog stick drift many years after being discovered.
kolinko 3y ago
Logitech has even more experience than Microsoft in doing controllers
Ratiofarmings 3y ago
Also assuming that weight isn't an issue, the controller being $30 makes redundancy easy. Just like every other kid playing video games, simply have a second one in case the first one fails. It's small, cheap and replaced in seconds.
- aembleton 3y ago
  It's also wireless. Do they have an easy way of pairing a new controller?
thrashh 3y ago
I don’t trust playing games with third party controllers and to control a submarine with a 3rd-party control blows my mind. Third party controllers never work quite as well.
davewritescode 3y ago
> I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don't understand the criticism I've seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?). Using something off the shelf is completely fine, but it doesn't get you off the hook from doing the work of certifying that it's safe and fit for purpose. If you've ever used a modern game controller (even ones made by Microsoft), many of them are prone to issues with the potentiometer which causes the joysticks to drift subtly in one or more directions. Not ideal for controlling life critical systems.
otikik 3y ago
> Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers I don't think they tested them 2.5 miles underwater though. Even if the cabin is pressurized, electronics can behave differently there.
taskforcegemini 3y ago
the logitech controller has a switch to change between direct input / x-input

soared 3y ago

The issue most people on Reddit were discussing is that it’s a cheap off brand controller, rather than a higher quality name brand controller (from Sony or Microsoft)

leipert 3y ago
How is Logitech “off brand”. They are well known for input devices.
- yenda 3y ago
  It's Reddit
- danudey 3y ago
  I've been using Logitech input devices since before Sony or Microsoft ever made one.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - KerrAvon 3y ago
    You had a P4 mouse in 1982? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Logitech_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Logitech_products
  - tokai 3y ago
    Microsoft's first controller is much older than Logitech'.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  Their controllers are well known for being garbage. People that take video games seriously can tell you all of the different reasons why they "feel worse" or are just less reliable than OEM. It's a $30 controller where the "standard" option is around $60. The "premium" market where they are custom made for important use cases (ie, competitive Melee tournament) can easily reach into multiple hundreds of dollars, using components like hall effect sensors instead of resistive potentiometers that will lose accuracy over time. Most people would refuse to play a video game with this controller, let alone use it as a critical component in a vehicle. Joystick drift in a videogame is frustrating. Joystick drift in a fucking submarine is a disaster waiting to happen.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

Worth noting they use the controller to steer the periscope, not the sub. A component failure there has a significantly smaller risk to human life.

srmarm 3y ago
Oh absolutely and probably with a manual backup too.
- Frost1x 3y ago
  Or you know, another $30 controller or two. I know space is limited but it shouldn't be too much to have a little redundancy on controller systems.

cm2187 3y ago

The controller itself is probably reliable enough, like any cheap keyboard on amazon. I wouldn't want my life to rely on bluetooth though.

donkey_oaty 3y ago
Absolutely. The fella in the article is going wired though by the look of it.
- lolinder 3y ago
  They have a couple of pretty good shots of the controller, and I don't see a wire. Also, the marketing image they include for the controller is clearly labeled as wireless.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    I have the controller itself and as far as I know there's no way to use it wired. It doesn't even have a port, batteries are replaceable double As.
  - zerocrates 3y ago
    I think by "the article" they mean the one linked at the top of this subthread, which is about the Navy and shows a sailor using a wired Xbox 360 controller. The one used on the missing submersible does use Bluetooth.
rwmj 3y ago
I don't even want my music listening to depend on bluetooth.
kiririn 3y ago
If there’s one place I’d bet my life on Bluetooth it’s at the bottom of the ocean with absolutely no other signals of any kind
- 3y ago

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

> Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers We all know how the military ends up using these consumer grade products; lobbying, aka deep state corruption "if that happens in a foreign country" Hololens didn't find commercial success, yet ended up with the military, soldiers weren't happy when it was time to use the actual consumer grade product ;) > 'The devices would have gotten us killed.' https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/13/23402195/microsoft-us-army-hololens-ar-goggles-internal-reports-failings-nausea-headaches https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/13/23402195/microsoft-us-ar...

dragontamer 3y ago
> Consumer grade products aren't built to last, they are built to be cheap so they can sell them to actual consumers Video game gamepads are probably some of the most well designed pieces of equipment I know of, with each part having a guaranteed lifetime of clicks and/or swipes, and other such details. Video gamers are really obsessive over these details. It wouldn't be surprising to me if the latest hall-effect sensor joypads are the best durability in the world for thumbpads. That being said: a cheap Logitech controller would be an old potentiometer-based controller with far less durability. I'm sure if I asked around, someone out there knows the specifications and would know when to regularly replace that gamepad after X-hours of use (and I'd expect X-hours to be in excess of 1000 hours, maybe even 10,000+ hours, even for a gamepad like that) ---------- I think where video gamers are getting wow'd is that... they weren't using like a brand-name controller here. $30 Logitech is low-end. Video gamers know which controllers to rely upon. Bottom of the barrel $30 Logitech is barely something I feel good about giving to a friend during a gaming session, let alone a life-or-death equipment choice for steering a submarine. You get far more reliable, higher-quality gamepads at the $50 or even $80 levels. I don't think video gamers would be hating on these guys if they used... I dunno... an 8bitdo + GuliKit Hall Effect controller. We'd all be like "Oh yeah, that's quality stuff" (the Bluetooth is unreliable but I assume some kind of wired version is available somewhere...) The top end joysticks used in video game tournaments for maximum reliability are easily $200+.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service To control periscopes (“photonics masts”), and some other equipment, not for primary control of manned vehicles, that I can find any indication of.

dataviz1000 3y ago
The YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay was invited to film on an Ohio class nuclear submarine training in the Arctic. [0] You can see how many of the system are mechanical and not electronic in the demonstration especially the ballast controls. Most if not all boats and ships can control the throttle mechanically so if the boat loses its electronics such as a wave smashing the windshield in, it is still possible to control the rudder and throttles. I was very surprised at the lack if mechanical controls on the recreational submarine. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJnWp1tAdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJnWp1tAdU

_ea1k 3y ago

Yeah, I'm not convinced this is in any way related to the issues. I'm far more concerned with the system that such a controller was plugged into than the controller itself. Commercial off the shelf pc? What kind of redundancy? How was power and power backup managed?

liminalsunset 3y ago
The guidance and control system seems to run on a GTK (?) app running on what looks like Ubuntu 10.04. An HDMI cable can be seen running to the monitor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkytJa0ghc&t=33s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkytJa0ghc&t=33s If I had to take a random guess, this system is probably some form of an embedded Atom/Geode type device (if not just a notebook PC) with some CAN or RS485/422/232 interfaces attached via USB.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Trusting your life to Bluetooth on Linux. Ouch.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    Yeah, I had the same thought. I really hope they had more of a safety plan than that.
    - IshKebab 3y ago
      It turns out it wasn't Bluetooth - it was one of those proprietary radios with a USB dongle which should be a lot more reliable. But still... it doesn't sound like they had any kind of backup at all. Maybe they just didn't talk about the backups?
      - sumo89 3y ago
        wifi dongles aren't exactly bullet proof. For example if you use a cycling turbo trainer with a power meter, a macbook and an ANT+ (2.4ghz) dongle there's a good chance you've had to buy a 6 foot extender cable so get the dongle far enough away from the macbook because something about the macbook itself interferes with the signal. It's a known thing among home training cyclists.

cpleppert 3y ago

The Xbox controllers are used to control the periscope which is not a safety critical device. Regardless, the navy uses wired controllers and did extensive testing and verification. This outfit didn't do anything like that; in one video with a journalist the bluetooth controller was a 'feature' because they could pass it around the sub.

EddieJLSH 3y ago
US UAV/Drones use xbox controllers too
- mey 3y ago
  There was video floating around of a machine gun turret being remote controlled using the Valve Steamdeck in Ukraine. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-deck-controls-a-real-ukrainian-army-machine-gun-turret-report https://www.tomshardware.com/news/steam-deck-controls-a-real... Edit: consumer joysticks normally use potentiometers, which aren't great for deadzones/drift. For things like dust incursion reasons along it would make sense for any industrial/military device to be using hall effect based joysticks.
  - Accujack 3y ago
    The more modern ones use hall sensor based sticks. Most new RC transmitter designs have 'em.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Valve donated few of those for kids. Most likely one of those units, than purposefully chosen.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  Unmanned, if anything a controller failing will save some lives.
- giantg2 3y ago
  Unmanned, and they have logic to autopilot in most cases.

modeless 3y ago

I trust an Xbox 360 controller a whole lot more than I trust a Logitech controller. First party game console controllers are generally very robust and the 360 one is a classic. Third party are hit or miss but usually miss.

iepathos 3y ago

xbox 360 controllers last only 6 months to a couple years with various failures that don't matter when you're playing a video game with them but can actually get you killed if they fail when you're in deep ocean. These are not ok for controls in vehicles where failure can mean everyone onboard dies. The navy does not use these for critical system controls. They were never built or tested for that.

holoduke 3y ago
They do for drones. But plenty of spares available.
dharmab 3y ago
How are you treating your controllers? I still have working PS2 and 360 controllers from back in the day.
cmcaleer 3y ago
I have thousands of hours of playtime on CoD4, MW2, and countless PC games over the course of about 15 years on my 360 controller I've had since I was a teenager. I've had to replace the joysticks a couple of times, and opened it up to clean it a few more times than that. wth are you doing to your controllers that they die in 6 months?

TX81Z 3y ago

Fun fact: DOD likes game pads because soldiers all play videos game since birth and it requires the least training.

hnbad 3y ago
Not just video games, video games that intentionally mimic the job they're performing. The only real difference is that you don't get achievement pop-ups or announcements. And, of course, that you kill or maim human beings in the process, but that is intentional.

babypuncher 3y ago

I doubt anyone thinks this is why the sub went missing. It's just funny that the submarine, which went missing, and is now notorious for skimping on safety, went with a generic "third party" controller instead of something higher quality, like a genuine Xbox controller from Microsoft.

saberience 3y ago
You think it’s funny that these people are most likely dying or dead right now?

c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago

Military loves COTS. You've also got a user interface that many in the service would already be familiar with.

fastball 3y ago

Yes but that is the Xbox 360 controller, the greatest controller of all time. This is... logitech.

iancmceachern 3y ago

Yes, but interesting they don't use it to drive the sub, or for other mission or life critical tasks... in this sub they did seemingly

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers; I'm sure a contractor could do "better" for whatever meaning of the word better for specialist cases like the military, but... why? If an xbox controller breaks, they can just pull out a new one. War is as much about cost as it is about effective means of killing others. I can't say how much it's used because of a confirmation / media bias, but cheap drones are used effectively in Ukraine, plain commercial off the shelf drones (with matching controllers) with a bomb strapped to them taking out tanks and crews (who often leave their hatch open in the clips I've seen). A few hundred bucks to take out a multi million tank sounds like a really good exchange.

calpaterson 3y ago
> I mean the xbox and Playstation controllers are both actually really good, sturdy, reliable controllers In point of fact they are not. The PS5 controller has poor battery life and both have stick drift issues because they use cheap analogue sensors. The current generation of Nintendo controllers are similar: stick drift and battery issues are common. And then there are issues with wireless interference which can be a serious problem and, when it is, difficult to diagnose and fix. I don't think the Logitech controller in question even has wired as an option though of course I have no idea if that's relevant to the incident at all.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

I once spole to a team thay used a wireless controller to control a robot. If that particular wireless controller ran out of battery or lost sognal for any reason, the dongle in the PC kept the command, i.e. move forward, forever. You'd have to chase the robot around. Thats thw kind of thing you have to test for

13th_yc_acct 3y ago

Logitech F710 has been the least reliable controller I have ever used. Connectivity and driver issues all over the place across all Windows OS's I have ever had the displeasure of using it with. Once I switched to Xbox controllers on my Win machine those issues were a thing of the past.