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.

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.

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.

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.

And it was probably the best built component of the entire sub

Don’t know why this is news. I have those Logitech controllers still in service and they still work after years. Generic controller input works with everything.

Probably was the most reliable thing on the sun.

Never mind the games controller. They bolt u in from the outside?! I'd never survive the panic attack

Should have used a Xbox 360 controller

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.

Nottheonion?

I had a Logitech F310 which started malfunctioning, where the left stick's signal was always halfway to the left. Logitech's quality isn't what it used to be. I can imagine something like this happening on the submarine. Question is whether they had a replacement and if they even recognized that the gamepad was malfunctioning.

Fun fact: The Logitech Extreme 3D-stick is used in many professional systems, but those are reliable.

Stop mocking the missing Titan submersible for being piloted with a video game controller. Submersibles are more reliable when the devices used in them are kept simple, marine scientist says.

This is an interesting article that makes some good points. Why re-invent the wheel and potentially make something unnecessarily complicated and less reliable when simple items with simple electronics often have less that could go wrong?