Much has been made of thos controller thing and I think it’s getting overblown. I can not speak authoritatively on the safety of the sub or the whole operation but I am aware that off the shelf video game controllers are used for a lot of things including even military vehicles. It’s a good controlling device for many things. Yeh it probably looks a little worrying when you step in to something being manoeuvered by a videogame controller, it’s not good vibes or optics but, it’s not itself a reliable signifier of anything really.
Yeah, if they had not used an off the shelf part, then people would make fun of the janky controls with “levers and pulleys.” The thing is a simple control scheme that’s well understood and easy to learn. It gives inputs to an onboard computer which interprets pilot intent and steers the vessel (how ever questionable the vessel’s construction might be).
Game controllers are used for all kinds of robots and vessels (often remote controlled) - so the fact they chose a controller does not weird me out at all.
Do I think they could have gotten a better quality controller? Yea, sure. Do I think maybe a wired controller would have been better? My gut says yes, but I don’t know their decision making process and the engineering challenges with running cables.
And it was probably the best built component of the entire sub
Should have used a Xbox 360 controller
They could’ve done a 360 and walked away…
If they did a 360, they’d still be walking forward…
Never mind the games controller. They bolt u in from the outside?! I’d never survive the panic attack
The submarine seems to have only one button for on/off… Did they think they can connect to iTunes there in case of some boot issues?
Hope they downloaded all the music to play offline
Imagine having to pilot a submarine with stick drift.
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If it works it wo…
never mind.
Hope they had a backup
If they are still alive in it what a nightmare they must be enduring right now, with only like 30hrs of oxygen left.
I feel like they likely lost pressure or some catastrophic failure and have been dead.
Or theogotec controller died and they drifted away and haven’t been found.
Either way it seems really bad for those inside.
I mean, Logitech makes reliable stuff. But shouldn’t they at lease have a player 2 MadKatz controller in a bin somewhere?
I don’t think that’s particularly bad. Logitech makes reliable input devices. I recall that the US Navy switched to Xbox controllers to control their periscopes on nuclear submarines and saved millions of dollars and found that people understood the controls better.
The navy uses it for periscopes, and training. Not piloting anything like this. This thing was definitely made as cheap as possible.
Sure, but they should still have to be vetted by the Defense Logistics Agency. That includes Quality Assurance overview.
I don’t see any issues with this as long as they had several fail-safes in case of hardware malfunction. US military subs us Xbox controllers because it’s what people are comfortable with.
That is one of the least concerning parts of this lol, at least Logitech makes quality peripherals. If I had to choose a single manufacturer for input devices, it’d probably be them.
The US Navy uses game controllers to control their parascope.
I’ve seen a video of US Navy using an Xbox controller (arguably for experimental weapon iirc but still). If it just works why overengineer it? I would be more concerned about that hull (scuttlebutt says it was just carbon over titanium frame, not titanium hull overlayed with carbon). However I guess we will have to wait until they find the boat to know the reason for failure.
