Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl says Boeing 787's slow window dimmers cause costly component wear due to poor feedback

@bscholl Honestly, with Boeing involved we're lucky that pushing the button doesn't make the entire window fall out.

@bscholl Also no indication when they're *not* working because the crew has locked them

@bscholl The wild thing was at the launch this was one of the key highlights of the tour of the plane and symbol of fancy cabin innovation.

@bscholl Blake I reckon we need to go old school and just strap one of these to it

@bscholl I had experience winning awards for parts designed in the 1960s where they could not be made. Likely it has been made out of spec the whole time, but they wouldn't give engineering support to update the drawing and we couldn't pass fair.

Its an insane system.

@bscholl Makes for cool pics tho. https://x.com/i/status/2048062675679330644 Also now I know it's electrochromic gel

@bscholl The problem with these dimmers is the cabin crew override which enables them to dim the entire cabin against individual passenger wishes. They do this to “birdcage” the cabin and reduce their workload.

@stevesi And it was a good first iteration. Just not a place to stop and rest

@bscholl Great theory to go electronic. One of the things that really pisses me off is all the window shades being closed most of the flight on long haul that I have been on. Even if in a seat adjacent to the window I want to see outside. Might as well get rid of windows all together.

@bscholl The response time is ridiculous. So slow. Someone looked at this, though, and thought - "good enough, ship it".

@bscholl Ahhh, where my industrial design and even UX skills come in to play, yet I only got an interview from Lockheed… now I’m moving

@bscholl Why not abandon the horrid device altogether? Boeing should bring back cheap physical shutters. Allowing flight attendants to centrally lock dimmers, denying the pleasure element to window passengers to peek outside as they like, makes me never want to fly on a 787 👍

@bscholl Plus they never really go all the way opaque.

@bscholl Exactly. I mean just make the thing a hard button instead of soft that lasts too.

@bscholl i think many passengers keep pressing them because they’re kind of fun to press

@bscholl "press to increment" is just the wrong interface when response is so slow. A knob with an arrow fixes the problem easily.

@bscholl The other problem is they don’t dim enough if the sun is coming directly through the window.

@bscholl Still 100x better than any other plane

@bscholl I feel like any electronic button accessible to the public is essentially a wear part.