[bredren]

The ill-fated submersible Titan has been routed for its use of consumer grade hardware in displays and controls. I doubt it’s the only vessel to rely on this class of electronics.

I wonder what it means that despite the risks involved these products continue to make it into mission critical workflows at sea and air.

[legitster]

On the USS Indiana you can seem them proudly highlighting the US of an Xbox controller: https://youtu.be/0StWrXoN8nI?t=509 (Also note the insane amount of screens in the control room).

But highlighting the gamepad on the Titan seems like more of a "gotcha" that journalists have latched onto than a legitimate concern. It almost certainly didn't fail because of consumer grade hardware - it failed because of poor engineering of its hull.

[dragonwriter]

Using a witeless gamepad as the primary maneuvering controls of a manned undersea vessel without an onboard backup is one (of very many) indications of reckless corner cutting, but, yes, not particularly likely the critical failure point.

[chx]

Come now, the Titan should never have been built, the primary cause of loss was the carbon fiber laminate which is simply the wrong material for a submersible. This is not hindsight, there's a five year old terse answer on Quora of all places stating this: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-feasible-to-build-submarine-hull... and again three years ago https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-the-military-navy-using-carbo...

> Carbon fiber’s compression strength is poor. Its shear strength is low. It doesn’t dent; it either splinters or returns to shape and hides severe damage in the laminate.

[Clamchop]

The Titan had multiple failsafes to drop ballast and return to the surface under its own buoyancy. One such failsafe was time-delayed by material corrosion in seawater so it would eventually ascend without intervention.

The cabin electronics weren't essential to its safety. The hull might have been, though. Hard to say.