Honda plays contrarian by removing touchscreen controls

LONDON: It looks like Honda in Britain and India are returning to analogue controls for such features as climate control functions on the new Jazz and City.

“The reason is quite simple - we wanted to minimise driver disruption for operation, in particular, for the heater and air conditioning," Jazz project leader Takeki Tanaka told autocar site.

“We changed it from touchscreen to dial operation, as we have received customer feedback that it was difficult to operate intuitively. You had to look at the screen to change the heater settings. Therefore, we changed it so one can operate it without looking, giving more confidence while driving.”

While Honda’s decision to return to physical controls will be popular with some, the expected move towards more voice-controlled actions in cars could eliminate the debate around touchscreens versus analogue controls in the future.

In Malaysia, the Jazz and City have either manual or a dedicated capacitive touch control panel for air-conditioning.