Touchscreen controls

[EddyP]

Evening Guys,

I've been talking to a company about getting a product made but before they commit any time to it we're trying to find out what sort of interest there would be in such a unit.

The product would be based around a 4.3" LCD screen, and have the ability to have switched outputs, be them momentary or latching switches, the idea is that it could replace all of your dash switches with a single unit that could have your own logo or photo integrated into the GUI.
It would also have the ability to display all sorts of sensors that you might want, for example you could have a page on it that would display the AFR, EGT, Intake temp, Water temp, oil pressure, pretty much anything you wanted, it could even raise alarms from set points, e.g if the oil pressure drops an alarm could sound, or it could put on a warning lamp, it could even turn on your cooling fan at a set temp.

Units would be priced from £220 depending on spec.

So what do you think? a possible solution for different kit cars? Is it the sort of product you'd spend your hard earned on?


Thanks

[Fastpedeller]

Top priority - would it be ok for IVA?

[EddyP]

I don't see why not, it can have indicators on the screen to say if things like your rear fog light are turned on, I think from a safety point of view it would be best to stay with a separate switch for the Hazards so they can work with the ignition off.
Apart from that I can't think of any rule in the IVA that would make it a failure?

[qdos]

At that price? No, sorry

[Andy Bell]

you may have problems in sunlight ala kindle screen type v's normal screens.

[Yamatrix850]

We operate our car controls mostly on a touch, not visual, basis.

Whilst it might look good, it'll be awful to operate on the move.

[EddyP]

Screens can have an anti-glare finish on them I believe.

This is what the gauges part looks like:

[anonymous-user]

Can you carry out a quick test? Stick the display in the fridge overnight, then get it out an immediately boot it up, can you seen anything? Cold LCD's can be a problem in cars! Some later tech screens have a much wider operating range, both in terms of temp and sun/angle readability etc.

[eddie99]

Looks ideal to me, very reasonable at that cost. Especially considering how much i've just paid for warning lights and switches.

I would be interested in a demo one!

[Kevp]

The display side shouldn't be a problem. Not sure about the touch part.

I have been using touch screens for work over a 20 year period. They all suffer from doing their own thing when wet or damp. Some you cant use with gloves. Nowadays I now only use a touch screen laptop & phone. Both are still useless with damp fingers & both need a special stick to poke them with.

So for me to consider I would need a remote method of control, say 4 buttons (2 scroll & input, 1 enter, 1 escape).

Think cost is very good (do you get a frame/housing).

[anonymous-user]

You can buy s/h BMW Idrive controllers on ebay for not much money. They output data over CAN that can be easily used by another device. i'd use one of those for user inputs rather than a touch screen (also, have you ever tried to use a touch screen when bouncing up and down with the screen at arms length? it's suprisingly hard ;-)

[NeilE]

I agree that using a touch screen is not ideal, however I do see a lot of potential in terms of being able to display loads of information on a series of screens, e.g. dials, ECU codes, long and lat accels, datalogging, trackmaps, split times.... A friend of mine is creating some code to do this kind of thing on an Android tablet fitted into his kit car...