<story><title>Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/submarine-missing-near-titanic-used-a-30-logitech-gamepad-for-steering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tredre3</author><text>I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don&amp;#x27;t understand the criticism I&amp;#x27;ve seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?).&lt;p&gt;That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). You don&amp;#x27;t get that with a cheap third party.
So I can understand to a degree why people are questioning the decision to not pay the extra 20 bucks and get microsoft gear.</text></item><item><author>srmarm</author><text>The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0]&lt;p&gt;Mass market has a lot of R&amp;amp;D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;19&amp;#x2F;16333376&amp;#x2F;us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;19&amp;#x2F;16333376&amp;#x2F;us-navy-military...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>twbarr</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a middle ground between &amp;quot;hardware store crap&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;custom.&amp;quot; The aviation industry has plenty of standard interior lighting and environmental control system that&amp;#x27;s known not to light people on fire or short out or otherwise fail and kill somebody.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.collinsaerospace.com&amp;#x2F;what-we-do&amp;#x2F;industries&amp;#x2F;business-aviation&amp;#x2F;cabin&amp;#x2F;lighting&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.collinsaerospace.com&amp;#x2F;what-we-do&amp;#x2F;industries&amp;#x2F;busin...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;These are still COTS products.</text></comment>
<story><title>Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/06/submarine-missing-near-titanic-used-a-30-logitech-gamepad-for-steering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tredre3</author><text>I personally believe using mass market makes sense. I don&amp;#x27;t understand the criticism I&amp;#x27;ve seen on this website for using off the shelf controllers or camping lights (what do you expect, an LED strip magically engineered by a large aeronautics firm specifically for the sub? and what would that change?).&lt;p&gt;That being said, the difference between a Microsoft controller and a third party is that Microsoft very certainly did a tons of reliability and durability testing on their controllers (and it shows). You don&amp;#x27;t get that with a cheap third party.
So I can understand to a degree why people are questioning the decision to not pay the extra 20 bucks and get microsoft gear.</text></item><item><author>srmarm</author><text>The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0]&lt;p&gt;Mass market has a lot of R&amp;amp;D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;19&amp;#x2F;16333376&amp;#x2F;us-navy-military-xbox-360-controller&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;9&amp;#x2F;19&amp;#x2F;16333376&amp;#x2F;us-navy-military...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>addaon</author><text>&amp;gt; and what would that change?&lt;p&gt;Suitability for purpose. Some obvious ones:&lt;p&gt;Defined and validated environmentals (temperature, voltage, and in this case pressure).&lt;p&gt;Qualified components — capacitors chosen for lifetime rather than shaving a cent, perhaps avoidance of MEMS oscillators with helium sensitivity.&lt;p&gt;Failure analysis. Low and understood probability of fail-unsafe conditions (short circuit), mitigation for those risks, fume-proof and fire-proof PCB materials to protect the sealed environment in case of failure.&lt;p&gt;Redundancy to handle failures anyway. Multiple independent strings so that single-point failure lead to partial loss of lighting, not all of it.&lt;p&gt;Load ahedding, eg dropping all but one string at a known voltage above minimum voltage, to save power for other more critical loads during system failure scenarios.</text></comment>