N5329K
Active Member
Okay ladies and gentlemen, it's time to ditch those unsightly analog Breitlings, Rolexes, Patek Phillipes and such and move into the bold new future.
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Okay ladies and gentlemen, it's time to ditch those unsightly analog Breitlings, Rolexes, Patek Phillipes and such and move into the bold new future.
Red Sage
The Cybernetic Samurai
This is my point though. Often a $5 digital watch will keep better time than a $1,000 Rolex. The goal a lot of the time with "luxury" is to show off how much money you spent, not to buy a better product. Watches haven't made sense since cell phones became ubiquitous, and an anolog clock in a car has been ridiculous for much longer than that.
If your goal is to tell the time, yes. A digital watch isn't required to be ugly, but if your goal is to tell the time then what extra functionality does being in analog form serve?
Recently the high schools in our district changed the clocks to digital because a good portion of the students couldn't read them. At first I was absolutely horrified, wondering how they got to high school without being able to tell time (I still am actually).
But then I got to thinking about it. I actually taught kids to read analog clocks when I substituted in second grade during college. They could have been learning anything else during that time and it probably would have been better spent. And the only reason that they still exist is people think they look better as art pieces in their homes and on their wrists.
I disagree. Teaching how to read an analog clock is more than just the digital time. It also teaches a lot about the real (analog) world; the spacial aspect of things, relative sizes, being able to "watch" the passage of time, etc. One can glance at an analog clock and know about what time it is with a lot less mental "processing" than doing the same with digital. I personally felt a bit frustrated when I switched to a digital watch, but did so because at the time I needed the timer features more than the analog ability to glance at it.
Perhaps related, when our kids were young, we resorted to an alternate measure of time for describing how long it would take to get to our destination when traveling. 2.5 hours was "Two Sesame Streets and a Mr. Rogers".
It's about understanding how the world works.But I digress... My point is that an analog clock has intangible features that digital clocks don't have, and do look better (in my opinion) at the same time.
I can't disagree about these things, but those are not the reason that kids are taught to read analog clocks in school today. You could make all the same arguments for an hourglass. And any of those things could likely be taught better in another way.
This may be personal preference, but I completely disagree here. Reading left to right is how we do everything else. Perhaps if I wore a watch I'd get used to it and feel differently, but this is almost surely what you are used to rather than either method being inherently better.
And you've listed just one of the many reasons to prefer digital, the timer functions...
I disagree with all of the intangibles you mentioned, and I think if the high end watch companies hadn't spent years and billions of dollars marketing the association between analog and luxury we wouldn't be having this discussion.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
I haven't owned a watch in 30 years, but my smartphone has a widget I placed on the home screen that shows the time as an analog clock simulation. Why pick that one ? I can tell the time at a glance instead of having to read the digits. I've thought about this before and I think it has to do with how I use time. I rarely care about the minute, I want to know the closest quarter hour. The analog (or simulated analog) hands give me this information immediately while the numbers leave me with further processing.
So for me, the preference is not cheap vs expensive, analog vs digital, or electronic vs mechanical, it is a numbers display vs a graph.
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JeffK
Well-Known Member
Wait, you guys don't use wrist sundials anymore?
It's solar powered...
It's solar powered...
BluestarE3
Active Member
That tail fin is a little too retro '50s-ish to me.Wait, you guys don't use wrist sundials anymore?
It's solar powered...
No it isn't. The top of the screen is close to the top of the steering wheel. It's much closer to where the prius speed is than the start/stop button.
Exactly my point. There's almost never a practical difference between, say, 4:19 and 4:20, yet we're forced to deal with it. We constantly have to waste a whole lot of mental processing to throw away all that extra precision we're accosted with.
When I first got a digital watch I actually thought about making one that rounded to the nearest 5 minutes. The transition was that jarring to me, though at the time I didn't understand why. Analog is best for conveying inherently analog things, especially things that are inherently imprecise. To somewhat make this all relevant to the topic at hand, this is why we need to stop presenting best-guess information (e.g. remaining range) in a manner that looks both accurate and precise, when in fact neither are true. Fight range anxiety by making cars with sufficient range so that it's a non-issue, and display it's state with a blunt (analog, even) gauge so that the driver doesn't get hung up processing the nuances of every changing digit. A dash board shouldn't look like telemetry; that's not its purpose.
"I predict TSLA on 31.12.2019 to be $1279.23"
Data: 1279.23
Info: about 4 times the current SP
Regarding the time ... every single digital watch is always wrong. There is not a single movement it shows the correct real time as there is no such thing as exact time - time is made of intervals, shorter and shorter. Analog watch inherently conveys this concept by just pointing in general direction of correct interval. Digital watches display the beginning of current interval.
Data: 1279.23
Info: about 4 times the current SP
Regarding the time ... every single digital watch is always wrong. There is not a single movement it shows the correct real time as there is no such thing as exact time - time is made of intervals, shorter and shorter. Analog watch inherently conveys this concept by just pointing in general direction of correct interval. Digital watches display the beginning of current interval.
Had dinner last night with an interior design engineer who worked on the Series 3 and X5 interiors. I asked his opinion of the Model 3 interior design. Here are some of his thoughts, based on my having shown a photo of the interior from an RC car:
This is the future, like it or not. We're going to see more and more "simple and clean" designs like this.
What works well in one culture may not be well received in another. He thought the Japanese will love the Model 3 interior, with its high-tech appeal.
He said he'd love to own a Model 3, even though he didn't personally care for the single-panel display. But he's aiming to be car-free soon, so isn't in the market for a new car.
He asked whether there will be a HUD, given the absence of other instrumentation.
He thought that it wasn't a "weirdmobile."
This is the future, like it or not. We're going to see more and more "simple and clean" designs like this.
What works well in one culture may not be well received in another. He thought the Japanese will love the Model 3 interior, with its high-tech appeal.
He said he'd love to own a Model 3, even though he didn't personally care for the single-panel display. But he's aiming to be car-free soon, so isn't in the market for a new car.
He asked whether there will be a HUD, given the absence of other instrumentation.
He thought that it wasn't a "weirdmobile."
gregd, exactly, digital implies accuracy where there is an educated guess at best, i.e. range.
The gas/petrol gauges in cars are imprecise but we manage, there is little range anxiety , we just fill up in time.
In reality with most EV situations you wouldn't have to wake up one morning and think to stop off at the fuel station to fill up before hitting the highway, you'd be good to go, but you don't need a plethora of digital stats to tell you that just a simple analogue gauge.
KISS
The gas/petrol gauges in cars are imprecise but we manage, there is little range anxiety , we just fill up in time.
In reality with most EV situations you wouldn't have to wake up one morning and think to stop off at the fuel station to fill up before hitting the highway, you'd be good to go, but you don't need a plethora of digital stats to tell you that just a simple analogue gauge.
KISS
JeffK
If the Model 3 had the Porsche mission e dash , I'd be camping out at the Tesla factory chomping at the bit
P.S. they use OLEDS apparently!
I'm glad Tesla has the confidence and maturity to not bother chasing after latest tech. It's relatively easy to stick a couple of laser headlights , oled displays, dynamic suspension and call it a luxury 250k EV expected to sell only a few thousand at best.
The real engineering challenge is in picking proven, reliable, low cost material and techniques to produce an affordable mass market EV. I don't agree with every design decision Tesla has made on Model 3's dash but from a design-for-mass-manufacture perspective Tesla is way ahead of everyone else.
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Candleflame
Active Member
that is not very scientific. it has been shown that especially digital gauges (weather time, speed or other) can be read at a glance and are hence much quicker, wheras with analogue dials you have to look for much longer to get a reading.
To see just the hour on a digital watch is even easier because you just have to look at the rough shape of the number. You do not have to even look directly at it as it is the case with analogue.
You mean the dash in a concept car that - when produced - will cost at least 3x the model 3? Using the most expensive form of LED? That's realistic for a $35k car. I guess a problem with the 3 is that it is a Tesla, which currently only makes luxury/sport cars, and its exterior styling reflects that. So we are easily led to compare it to cars that compete with the S/X. Not fair.JeffK
If the Model 3 had the Porsche mission e dash , I'd be camping out at the Tesla factory chomping at the bit
P.S. they use OLEDS apparently!
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
ymmv
I would not put much credence in the studies though, without knowing the detail of what the reader was trying to ascertain. E.g., reading seconds or even down to the minute on an 'analog' watch may take longer than a number display but as I mentioned, that is not how I read time. I leave for work at ~ 6:30. Anywhere in the range of 6:25 - 6:35 is fine, and the minute hand of an analog clock tells me at a glance when I am near. Since that is all I care about, the graphic representation works best for me.
So you agree with my point that having knobs for some functions is better than having to use a touch screen.
