Touch screen nav displays. Fashion or function?

Trundlebug

Trundlebug

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In my recent research for a new radar and the options available (see separate thread) it became apparent there is a trend towards touch screen displays for chartplotters, MFD's and all manner of nav instruments from the main players.

Personally I'm a bit alarmed by this. My personal, albeit perhaps a bit limited experience of touch screen displays (a few different phones, photocopier at work, and various random other displays in museums etc) has been less than positive.

They're either too sensitive, detecting the slightest glancing touch when you're moving your hand across the screen to point, look at, or select another option, or infuriatingly insensitive. Sometimes you can be pressing, holding, re-pressing several times before it gets the message. There's no deflection that you get with a button, so pressing harder doesn't work and they're just not as satisfying or quick. I also have doubts about long term reliability in a marine environment (although that's pure gut feel - I don't have any facts or hearsay to back it up).

For me, I prefer buttons every time. And I'm concerned that they're being phased out in favour of the i-generation technique.
Even the guy in the chandlery demonstrating them had difficulty selecting things on these new touch screen displays.

What do you think? Am I being a MOG (Miserable Old Git)? Or a Luddite?
 
If this was a sailing forum rather than the motor boat forum, then I think you would be right - because sailing boats tend to be open cockpit and the plotter tends to get wet. We have a Raymarine plotter in our cockpit which is one of their Hybrid Touch range - a touch screen which can be disabled, complemented by a full range of physical controls. That works well - in dry weather we can make use of the touch screen functionality but if we are getting spray across the cockpit and the touch screen is going crazy, we can disable it and use the buttons.

In most motor boats, this is not an issue - you drive sitting in a heated (and sometimes air-conditioned), dry environment - get a touch screen from a respected manufacturer!
 
No you're not a luddite. In fact you're spot on:D. Touch screens are appropriate for smart phones where there is limited space for buttons but IMHO are completely inappropriate for cars and boats. I have a car with a touch screen satnav and menu system which is a right PITA because you have to take your eyes off the road for a considerable amount of time to ensure that you hit the correct portion of the screen precisely and with the appropriate pressure. The situation is even worse in a boat which may be moving about far more than a car and in which you're having to hold on to a wheel or handhold to steady yourself as well as trying to hit the correct portion of a touchscreen. IMHO, manufacturers are only introducing touch screens because they're cheaper to produce than a unit with large buttons and because they can claim to have a larger screen within a smaller unit at a lower price. Personally I would never willingly buy a radar or plotter with a touch screen
 
I take you have not seen the new Furuno TZ Touch displays, i have just upgraded from 12" Navnet 3d (buttons and all). The new TZ Touch is amazing and so easy to use, whether you are planning a route, checking tide times, switching on radar or viewing the stern camera, its so easy. More than happy to use new touch screens on a boat.
 
All you have to do is touch the screen ? then the whole menu comes up, so much easier than the old buttons !! if you are talking about planning routes then yes it is dificult when there is chop, but that is the case with buttons as well and to be honest i generally plan my route before i go to sea.
 
Depends on the speed, I have found with Garmin 5000 series. Sure, if you are doing 35 knots or so, getting a finger onto anything is going to be a bit more complex, and I can't say I have needed to change anything on the plotter at 45 knots or so.
Back at normal 25+, no, it isn't a problem at all. Lets face it, you don't control your plotter at arms length; if the situation is a bit bouncy, you just take a bit more care.
Maybe the latest plotters behave more like phones or tablets. Because of their size, the icon you touch on a phone commonly expands so the device can be sure you hit the right spot. That is because you finger is pretty big compared to the screen, and if you have ten options a few mm means a different option. I think on the plotters the size of the screen and so the icon is large enough to avoid these errors.
Again, it may depend on what you intend to do underway. I might zoom, split the screen, navigate to a waypoint or so; I do the input work in the marina, creating a route and waypoints, checking depth or rocks etc and not while blatting along.
I am not sure why finding a button at the side of the screen is easier than finding a same size "button" on a screen?
 
Depends on the speed, I have found with Garmin 5000 series. Sure, if you are doing 35 knots or so, getting a finger onto anything is going to be a bit more complex, and I can't say I have needed to change anything on the plotter at 45 knots or so.
Back at normal 25+, no, it isn't a problem at all. Lets face it, you don't control your plotter at arms length; if the situation is a bit bouncy, you just take a bit more care.
Click to expand...
Actually the OP was talking about radar. I don't know about anyone else but when I use the radar seriously, I'm constantly changing scales, playing around with the gain and clutter buttons to get the best returns and using the VRM/EBL facility to ascertain collision risks with other vessels so I'm playing with the buttons a lot. I know that I would find that more difficult with a touch screen. Agreed that normally you would need to use the plotter controls a lot less but again, I tend to change scales regularly particularly when approaching land. Each to his own I guess but at present, I would need an awful lot of convincing to buy a touch screen radar or plotter
 
gjgm said:
I am not sure why finding a button at the side of the screen is easier than finding a same size "button" on a screen?
Click to expand...

It's not so much that finding the button is any different; it's just that it's much harder to inadvertently press the wrong button than be jolted and touch the wrong part of the screen, which of course then decides to be its extremely sensitive self and react by changing screen, zoom level, or whatever else.
This of course requires umpteen more corrective presses to get you back to where you wanted to be.
Overall I find the repeated errors from incorrect button choice interpretation very time consuming and irritating.


Besides, for me it's as much about that tactile, positive action of a button which is so much more satisfying and deliberate.
Yeah, I know I should get out more but touch screens to me are a PITA
 
I thought he was asking about plotters, not specifically using radar on a plotter ?
Still, each to his own ! I don't think I would go back to buttons unless that was on a small screen.
Edit- I see Blackberry managed to stem their losses yesterday ;)
 
With the Southampton Boat coming up i would recommend going to the Furuno stand and having a play with the TZ Touch unit, you may well be quite surprised as I was, so much so that I had it fitted to my boat and am very very pleased with the result.
 
Anybody who touches my plotter screen get his hands chopped off!!

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Hi all, I'll chip in my 50p, FWIW.

As some of you may know, I sell marinised screens from a Norweagan manufacturer. We have the option of adding in touch screen to the mix should a customer request but we typically find this only occurs when the vessel is large. And when I say large, typically big enough so that when it does experience movement, it is more of a gentle sway than a sharp jerk. The leisure market is certainly moving to have touch-screen but the professional market isn't, though this may very well be due to familiarity / not trusting enough in touch screen over the traditional "mouse & keyboard set up".

From a practical point of view, I struggle to use the tomtom when on the motorway. So the thought of using a touch screen on a object which is experiencing more sudden movement is very strange.

Performance wise, the touch screen works by having a mesh of tiny wires within the unit. This adds another reflective layer on the screen. This means you will get more light being reflected back to you as the user, which will make it harder to see. This is usually counteracted by increasing the brightness of the screen. But that is like turning up the radio as the road-noise is getting loud. Not an intelligent way of overcoming it, IMHO. And if you do night cruising journeys, the higher brightness screen sometimes struggle to truly turn the back-lights off.

It is up to you weather or not you deem the dip in performance as detrimental, but the touch screen will decrease visibility in comparison to the same unit with no touch screen. But with all this said, the difference in visibility depends upon end-user experience.
 
Well, it's pretty obvious that there is a fashion component in the latest wave of touch screen monitors.
It's no coincidence that only small-ish units specifically designed for the pleasure boat market (afaik) has been affected so far, whilst even the most modern 20+ inches screens for merchant navy still rely on more traditional interfaces like keyboard/mouse/joystick/trackball.
In fact, can anyone think of one single function which can only be offered by one or the other type of interface? I for one can't.

Otoh, it's undeniable that the touch screen capability allows the software engineers to design more clever ways for accessing the multitude of features that ANY modern unit can offer (regardless of the interface).
And if the software is well designed, the TS interface can indeed make the use a tad faster and more intuitive, hence making life easier.
And unsurprisingly, this is more appreciated by helmsmen who only deal with these things during their holidays, while their primary job/expertise has nothing to see with that - which is the typical situation with pleasure boats (aside from professionally crewed superyachts, of course).
Btw, among the TS units I've seen so far, Garmins are the ones which better exploit the TS interface, imho.
But that's also a matter of personal tastes of course, and I haven't yet seen the Furuno TZ which Bazzer mentioned, for instance.

Anyway, that's why my short answer to the question in the thread title is a bit of both.

I tend to see the other hardware-related issues mentioned so far (splashes, sensitivity, etc.) as a separate issue.
Yes, it's easy to see why a TS interface can be somewhat less reliable/stable than a non-TS one, but it's just a matter of technology life cycle, and not so related to the OP question, as I understand it.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we would see a TS monitor at a boat show, working normally even if completely surrounded by fishes in an aquarium.... :D
 
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