Vibrating Pyra?

[Silent-Hunter]

I like this idea! Without dedicated audio lines to the speakers for ringing, vibration would be the only way to receive a call if I forget the dial is all the way down.

 

[thatgui]

I thought I saw someone comment that this was discussed but most people didn't want it.

Can't remember a specific discussion with such an outcome, the only thing I remember is God Ginrais concerns about vibrations having a decreasing effect on the hardwares lifetime

 

[Natsu]

Can't remember a specific discussion with such an outcome, the only thing I remember is God Ginrais concerns about vibrations having a decreasing effect on the hardwares lifetime

Same here.

 

[deadofmind]

Would vibrations even have a (noticeable) negative impact on the hardwares integrity?

 

[Glyph Reader]

I thought I saw someone comment that this was discussed but most people didn't want it.

Can't remember a specific discussion with such an outcome, the only thing I remember is God Ginrais concerns about vibrations having a decreasing effect on the hardwares lifetime

This is what I was worried about. 

-Glyph Reader

 

[God Ginrai]

Will there be a vibrating motor in the Pyra? If not, can there be some solderpads to add one?

 I don't see any problem with solder pads, but I do not want a vibrating motor to be included in the device. One of the top causes of hardware failure is moving parts. I don't want to pay for a feature in my device that can likely damage it.

She said she wants it for Rez! 

Would be so much win for a possible PS2 emu...

Rez was originally a Dreamcast game. The PS2 version was just a port. Also, the Dreamcast version was the definitive version of the game; The PS2 version had bad jaggies and the increased framerate actually negatively improved the experience.

EDIT:

@TrashyMG: The Dreamcast is only one year older than the PS2, not two.

-God Ginrai

 

[TrashyMG]

@TrashyMG: The Dreamcast is only one year older than the PS2, not two.

Yeah not quite 2 years... 17 months.. was looking at the years released and not exactly the amount of months.. 1998 for dreamcast release in Japan and 2000 for PS2. 


I guess I can't be perfectly correct like you all the time, which must be a burden.

 

[God Ginrai]

I guess I can't be perfectly correct like you all the time, which must be a burden.

That was quite uncalled for.

I only pointed that out because your comment made for some wrong assumptions of the level of technology in the Dreamcast with comparison to the technology in the PS2.

My comment had no malice, why should your response?

-God Ginrai

 

[TrashyMG]

I guess what falls under the term malice has been widened recently. I was just being sarcastic for being corrected over a debatable amount of time.

 

[thatgui]

I don't see any problem with solder pads, but I do not want a vibrating motor to be included in the device. One of the top causes of hardware failure is moving parts. I don't want to pay for a feature in my device that can likely damage it.

Got any evidence ? I don't want to say your wrong as I have no information about that particular topic. I mean, we have rumble motors in controllers and cellphones (and I think some handeld consoles have/had one too) for a very long time, without seeing any major coverage that correlates hardware failure to vibration motors. On the other hand controllers are more simple and probably more robust in design as manufacturers surely try to take some "abuse" by customers into account, and telephone lifecycles may be too short nowadays to really see any effect.

We have a lot of retro gamers here that should have long term experience with rumble hardware, maybe they could provide at least anecdotal data.

All in all its not a "must have" feature for me, but I think it would be usefull (notifications, some games, etc.). Solderpads should be a "must" however, costs are negligble and no harm is done by including them (well except that it may steal an I/O pin that could used otherwise).

 

[slaeshjag]

If you don't get quality right, the rumble will be a problem

My last phone had very intermittent functionality in that regard, some percussive maintenance usually fixed it though. The one before that, I had some really nasty vibration signal on, which probably help killing it. Put it on a table next to you and it was like a jackhammer, so careful usage is probably needed

 

[thatgui]

If you don't get quality right, the rumble will be a problem

Well you could try to turn this around, by advertising that Dragonboxs Q&A - Testing is so extensive that it does not even stop after the Pyra changed ownership :huh:

My last phone had very intermittent functionality in that regard, some percussive maintenance usually fixed it though. The one before that, I had some really nasty vibration signal on, which probably help killing it. Put it on a table next to you and it was like a jackhammer, so careful usage is probably needed

I'm using the vibration motor in every phone I had over the last 10 years: I usually set to vibrate only (you can call me everytime, but just give me some time, I'll take the call eventually, even at nighttimes ). Which led to placing a small "cussion" on my workdesk, so my colleagues aren't disturbed if the phone starts "vibrating" over the desk, only held back by the connected MicroUSB-"Leash". None failed at me, but then again, all of them where replaced within two years max. Which I would deam a rather short lifetime for the Pyra.

 

[moxie]

some percussive maintenance

Haha

If the Pyra includes vibrating stuff, I'm fairly certain that my first and last action regarding that would be to turn it off as permanently as possible. Not because of fears of malfunction, but because I very m uch dislike stuff jumping around unbidded in my hands or in my pockets. But as long as it is possible to disable without using snippers, I'm fine. 

 

[God Ginrai]

I guess what falls under the term malice has been widened recently. I was just being sarcastic for being corrected over a debatable amount of time.

 Except it is not debatable. The Japanese (read: first) releases for the PS2 and the Dreamcast were only 1 year and 3 months apart. (1.25 years) And even if you were trying to look at the more broad release, the release of the PS2 in other regions was almost exactly a year after the release of the Dreamcast in the same regions.

I don't see any problem with solder pads, but I do not want a vibrating motor to be included in the device. One of the top causes of hardware failure is moving parts. I don't want to pay for a feature in my device that can likely damage it.

Got any evidence ? I don't want to say your wrong as I have no information about that particular topic. I mean, we have rumble motors in controllers and cellphones (and I think some handeld consoles have/had one too) for a very long time, without seeing any major coverage that correlates hardware failure to vibration motors. On the other hand controllers are more simple and probably more robust in design as manufacturers surely try to take some "abuse" by customers into account, and telephone lifecycles may be too short nowadays to really see any effect.

We have a lot of retro gamers here that should have long term experience with rumble hardware, maybe they could provide at least anecdotal data.

All in all its not a "must have" feature for me, but I think it would be usefull (notifications, some games, etc.). Solderpads should be a "must" however, costs are negligble and no harm is done by including them (well except that it may steal an I/O pin that could used otherwise).

I don't have any evidence on hand, but I'm sure with some digging it wouldn't be too hard to find some.

To address controllers and cell phones:

As you mentioned, controllers are much simpler and more robust in design, being designed to deal with the abuse of the user.

As for cell phones, they are designed to be compact. Thus, parts are held in place by the case itself because it is so compact. And, as you pointed out, people are onto their next phone so fast that they are unlikely to run into the failure this would bring about.

As for a handheld console that had rumble, I've never heard of or seen one. It is quite possible that among the thousands of crappy Chinese gadgets that one such device exists, however, no handheld made by Sega, Nintendo, or Sony has had this feature. (The NGage doesn't count, since it was a phone) Rumble in a handheld game console has only existed as some sort of add-on. There were games that came with the feature built-in for the Gameboy Color and the GBA, and the Nintendo DS had a rumble pack that you could get that went into the GBA slot. But that was about it.

-God Ginrai

 

[thatgui]

I don't have any evidence on hand, but I'm sure with some digging it wouldn't be too hard to find some.

Great, please do so then

 

[TrashyMG]

I don't have any evidence on hand, but I'm sure with some digging it wouldn't be too hard to find some.

Great, please do so then

Don't question his rightness.

 

[Natsu]

My phones never died on me because of vibrations or at all, actually. Surely small vibrations on the left and right would be alright, especially if you aren't using them. The whole system doesn't need to vibrate.

 

[_wb_]

I would assume that if the vibrating motor is the only moving part in the device, the worst that can happen is that the motor itself stops working. It would be something else if we would have something like a spinning hard disk next to it -- in that case I assume that the vibrations would have a negative impact on the hard disk. But I don't think any of the planned components of the Pyra would care much about shaking a bit. I also don't think that the vibrations would be strong enough to have any impact on the case and its screws etc. So I don't really see any danger.

Of course it would have to be something user-controllable. I think that goes without saying.

To me it's not an essential feature, but since it's cheap and simple, I think it would be a nice little addition. It could be fun to add to some games (get a bit of rumble when one of your units gets destroyed in Microbes), of course as an option you can disable. It would be useful as a notification/alarm mechanism (so I can type "./configure; make; make install; rumble" and put it in my pocket). It would allow better emulation of games with rumble (we may even want to have two motors).

 

[Grench]

The Tapwave Zodiac had rumble/vibration.  It never caused a hardware issue that I heard of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapwave_Zodiac

It was actually kind of a neat effect.

So, I'm in favor of having the Pyra rumble/vibrate (configurable).  It isn't a 'must have feature', but it would be a nice feature.

 

[j0e]

As for a handheld console that had rumble, I've never heard of or seen one.

I believe the GP2X Caanoo has a rumble feature, although I don't own one so I can't speak for how it affects the device.

That being said, I would like you to "dig up" some evidence pertaining to the negative effect of vibration motors on the rest of a handheld device. I've had my current phone (HTC Desire) for a little more than four years now and the vibration - and the rest of the device - is still working well. If one were to use the Pyra as a phone or receive push notifications from some application over 3G, there's really no better way to alert the user when the device is in their pocket, as I'm sure everyone knows about how when you're somewhere noisy and your phone rings but doesn't vibrate and you miss the call or whatever. That could turn out to be quite a problem.