The Death of the Touch Panel is Highly Overstated

So, um, for those that aren't sure or haven't been aware, don't necessarily follow the news, I wanna give just a little bit of an overview on sort of more recently some of the discussion points that have been happening.

And, um, you know, I don't mind calling out the publications necessarily.

I-- you can go find them if, if you want.

But, uh, there was one in Architectural Digest that really had more to do with, I f- I feel like the design around a space, right? So there was an article that, um, you know, addressed sort of the, the, the reemergence we can call it, I guess.

I don't know that they never, ever really went away, but, you know, switches and buttons and things like that, the tactile functions of a space and, and those coming back to replace, you know, screens that people were tired of looking at and using these, these touch panels, touch screens.

Um, and then another, uh, coming from Residential Tech Today actually had to do with the rise of voice sort of impacting, you know, the, um, the, the use of touch screens in the home.

And, like, I just-- it felt like everyone from all sides was coming at the touch screen all within like a couple weeks of each other.

It's like, what did the touch screen do? [chuckles] Like, like what the heck? Why are we doing this? So I-- you know, those are kind of the conversations that are going on.

I, I guess just right off the bat, the instant reaction from, from both of you ar- around the just s- hostility [chuckles] toward, towards the touch screen of late.

Uh, like, what, what comes to mind when you see those types of conversations and editorial pieces sort of thrown out there?

I mean, I, I, I read the article as well, and it was, it was interesting because some of the use cases, I guess, they gave the touch screen, I think were a little unusual.

I, I think any integrator in this channel would not suggest that, you know, to turn lights on and off by your bed if you wanna get up in the middle of the night, you have to go to a touch panel, go into an app, go open an app, touch, you know, turn, turn on lighting scene.

That is not a, a practical use of technology, and I think it kind of presented it in an interesting way.

It sort of presented it as an either/or as opposed to having, you know, a, a, an and, you know? And I think some of it definitely comes from, uh, you know, there are, there are touch screens everywhere, right? There's touch screens, and we've seen in the automotive industry where there's been a huge, like, leaning into touch screens to the point where actually some automotive industries are pulling back because, you know, there are-- there's, y- there is so much you can do when you're driving and you're having to navigate.

But I think that kind of illustrates the point in a way.

There's ways that you can use touch screens and where they add tremendous value, but also there is this rise of more sort of tactile, you know, controls, more kind of, I guess, more traditional in some ways that sort of complements that use.

But I think some of it, some of this may come from, you know, app, maybe app and touch, touch screen exhaustion, you know, that we, that we all kind of endure in that we all have like multiple apps for multiple things.

And I think if anything, that really hammers home the value of having a centralized control system, of having one, like one app to, to alleviate that.

But a mixture of different, different interfaces in the home, whether that is voice, whether that is, you know, traditional quote unquote "keypads and tactile controls," and then also touch screens for things that you can only do on touch screens.

You can only view a, a CCTV camera on a, on a touch screen.

You can only edit a tou- uh, edit a lighting scene on a touch screen.

And I know I'm using a touch screen and I know we should call them touch panels at Crestron.

But [chuckles] uh, but you know, there, there are certain things that, uh, where they, where they are absolutely necessary to make the use of a home streamlined and, and simple.

There's a, there's a-- it's a sort of almost a, a, a, a weird kind of, sort of crossover where it actually can become more complicated if you don't have one.

Yeah.