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I’m actually a fan of big screens, HOWEVER they should be limited to being an actual “infotainment” system only. All essential controls should be buttons, switches, and dials.
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Submitted 3 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
scytale@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Pika@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
I think I agree. I would be fine with an infotainment system that:
- doesn’t cripple the car when broken
- isn’t integrated with non-screen controls like climate
- still has functional buttons on the steering wheel
My malibu meets 2 and 3, but the fact that if the infotainment system breaks it cripples the entire car, puts me on edge. This would be mitigated if actual functionality was outside of it, and that the touch screen was just a control layer.
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
I disagree. I don’t want to have to take my eyes off the road to change my music, or turn the volume up/down. They need to be physical buttons/knobs.
scytale@lemm.ee 3 months ago
There are buttons on the steering wheel to skip songs and adjust the volume.
50MYT@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I have a giant screen, and physical buttons for volume and air temp.
Super happy with it.
Chulk@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
My vote is:
- Button layouts that have worked for 20-30 years
- Heads-up displays for readouts of current values. Mph/kmph is displayed by default and the display temporarily changes when something like volume, heat, radio station, track, etc. is adjusted
Best of both worlds
thrawn@lemmy.world 3 months ago
One thing I really like about the Lucid Air is that the big screen retracts. Makes it look and feel quite different, almost like an older car without the big screen.
Important controls like seats, temperature, and volume/pause are physical. So you can have the big screen when you want it, and it goes away when you don’t. More cars should do that, though the additional moving part probably isn’t great for longevity.
MusketeerX@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Exactly!
This pretty much summarises it.
Viri4thus@feddit.org 3 months ago
Before anyone forgets, this all started with Tesla. They lacked the skill, talent, know how, money and manufacturing capacity to make a decent center console. They then decided to move everything to the touchscreen because software is cheap to add to cars, thousands of small precision engineered objects are not. It was a margins game by the man “with the most knowledge on manufacturing in the world”. The rest of the industry followed because the bougie idiots made the band popular so the competitors just copied that absolutely regarded idea. Everyone calling this regarded was screamed into oblivion by tesla fanboys and design savants: “You’re just too dumb to understand minimalist design”. And here we are, turns out designing something that makes the driver take their eyes off the road on a 2000Kg murder machine is actually NOT good design.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Also it accelerates the design-to-manufacture cycle of a new model - just slap a huge touch screen on it and start building the car, and hope the software is ready. If not, well, just ship it as is and patch it later.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Builds in a very expensive replacement component too.
A control button breaks? New button is a (still over-inflated) $75 to replace.
A Tesla control screen breaks (and they do, just as often as buttons) - $1500.
arc@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Tesla doesn’t have that excuse. The original Roadster, Model S and Model X all had fairly conventional controls. They deliberately undermined the safety of their vehicles by aggressively removing physical controls with the model 3 and Y. It probably saved them a few bucks, but at the cost increased risk to human life. If they get penalized in safety tests for their penny pinching then so be it.
OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com 3 months ago
Queue
Cue
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
regardedremoved, right?ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Yes, and I know that because I too am highly regarded.
ctkatz@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
sounds like europe is really sending a very loud, deafining ^FUCK^ ^YOU^ to elon and tesla.
and I am absolutely here for it.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 months ago
While this does fuck him, it’s also sound safety science. Touch screens have made cars less safe. It just so happens that Musk’s company makes shitty unsafe cars which got rid of buttons to cut costs.
ctkatz@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
oh I agree. the thing is elon has explicitly said that he doesn’t want a bunch of knobs in his cars and they should only have a central control screen to run everything. even the backup shift device is a touch sensor somewhere around the rear view iirc (never driven one nor do I want to). I essence, an entire continent is telling one company explicitly that your cars are not the safest on the road no matter what you claim. that’s going to be a massive hit on the company’s reputation and value and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving induhvidual.
victorz@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Not just them, but a lot of the car platforms coming out of China right now, including Volvo cars. I have an EX40, which has a lot of physical buttons, and a physical lever for the glove compartment (🤯), but when I tried the EX30 I was blown away by the poor driving experience. So crappy. Everything is done via the screen, and it sucks. Not even a speed indicator in front of the driver, but you have to glance over to the center screen.
Also the one-pedal drive was really bad on the EX30, but that’s another story. I also hated the gear lever behind the wheel instead of a stick between the driver and passenger seat.
boonhet@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Tesla was the trailblazer, but what’s worse is that everyone else followed. Now Mazda of all companies is kind of a trailblazer in getting back to sanity (there were articles about them ditching touchscreens or at least touchscreen-only setups a couple of years ago already).
What’s really funny to me is that even so-called premium German brands went to pretty much full touch. Used to be they’d put in the engineering time to make buttons feel more solid to push and nowadays they just give you a big slab of touchscreen you can’t even feel properly while driving.
Everyone is just pinching pennies because touchscreens are cheaper than buttons.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 months ago
While we’re at it get rid of retina frying headlights. Sure, you can see great but I’m blind as I drive into you at night. At least make it so they don’t look like point sources and can’t aim upwards.
Also make the auto headlight setting the default if the car is in drive. Too many people driving in the twilight with no headlights on.
Pulptastic@midwest.social 3 months ago
People do that on purpose, there’s a huge aftermarket for 10x brighter headlights.
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
New models have LED headlights and they’re awful. They’re angled down, but any sort of hilly back road means you’re blinding anyone in front of you anyway. Halogen are much better because it’s a softer glow instead of a laser beam.
svtdragon@lemmy.world 3 months ago
If you’re in the US like me, we should be aware the problem isn’t bright lights; it’s that our regulations don’t allow for the European beam alteration tech that will dim sections at a time based on oncoming traffic.
Brighter lights are a huge boon to safety, but we need the corresponding tech to keep it that way.
ctkatz@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
and good luck getting those regs passed with this congress and this administration. it’s likely never going to happen unless the auto industry demands them.
torrentialgrain@lemm.ee 3 months ago
common EU w
ATDA@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Driving and texting is dangerous. Put down that phone and stare at this ipad in your dash! Further the ipad is slow, designed by imbeciles, is glitchy, buggy, and not intuitive and doesn’t follow modern design standards.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
now with #ADS, please tap the x to continue changing your GPS.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Your brakes will be available again after this mandatory 30s ad.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
To be fair, it’s at least closer to the windshield, so you’re more likely to see something through peripheral vision with the dash screen than your phone, which you need to keep out of view of police.
Still bad, but probably not as bad.
Darrell_Winfield@lemmy.world 3 months ago
cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for hazard warning lights, indicators, windscreen wipers, SOS calls, and the horn.
Not enough, in my opinion. I’ve never had a car with these on touch screens, but I can’t imagine why anyone would think it’s a good idea. I’d like entertainment centers to stop being touch screens as well, but this doesn’t go that far. Hopefully they do in the future, though, since this is a good start!
Nighed@feddit.uk 3 months ago
I consider temperature and fan controls to be safety critical for demisting windows etc for example.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 3 months ago
What, keeping a rag on hand to wipe away the fog on the windshield every 3 minutes isn’t safe enough?
tiramichu@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Not far enough indeed.
I dont need all my entertainment as physical controls but I do at least want volume - and that is totally justifiable as a safety consideration too. Sometimes you need to mute it quickly if you think you heard something of concern on the road - or if you are like me, just to concentrate on driving when things get tricky…
There are so many other items you can apply similar safety arguments for:
Blowers and demisters - you shouldn’t be messing around in a touchscreen when you see your windows starting to fog
Cabin temperature - Uncomfortable driver = distracted driver
In my opinion, the place to draw the line should be this:
If the driver always has the luxury of choosing when to engage with the feature, then it can be fully touchscreen. (example - entertainment except volume, fuel economy settings, electric seat position)
If the need to interact with the feature is triggered by external conditions and will happen in motion, it MUST be physical. (Example: wipers, heating, blowers, all headlight and fog light controls, enable or diasable lane assist, cruise control)
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 months ago
I can’t imagine why anyone would think it’s a good idea
Suposedly it’s to cut costs but I find it very hard to believe a few buttons add much cost at all. Much less at the expense of customer satisfaction. Tripping over a dollar to pick up a dime, in my opinion.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The button might be 1c, but you gotta wire it, install it, warranty it etc etc. It’s not as inconsequential as you might think.
A screen is the screen and the wiring to the computer.
It’s a couple skus to maintain instead of dozens. It’s 1 warranty item instead of dozens.
It might not be a good idea, but it absolutely will save a noticeable amount of money per vehicle.
aulin@lemmy.world 3 months ago
More physical controls is great, so I see this as a win. For navigation and media, I don’t want to be without the screen, but I hate that my ventilation controls are 50 % hidden under touch controls, meaning I usually don’t bother to change them while I drive, because it requires looking away too much.
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 months ago
How about just banning touchscreen use while driving altogether?
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
We already have distracted driving laws here. You can’t use electronic devices like phones while driving. How a giant iPad in the middle of your dashboard doesn’t count blows my mind.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Well, presumably this group is more about models of cars and less about individual driver behavior.
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 months ago
I didn’t mean individual driver behavior, I mean ban touchscreens from accepting any inputs at all while driving.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 months ago
“Don’t stare at your phone but instead stare at this screen that controls your car.”
ik5pvx@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Good.
Next please go after the animated indicator lights that take way too much time to realise the car in front of you is turning and not playing snake. Fuck you, Audi, and all the others tha copied this absolute bullshit of an idea.
herrvogel@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I genuinely don’t see the problem with those. Amber lights on the left side of the car light up, that can only mean one thing. There is no ambiguity there whether they’re playing snake or just flashing. I have never, on no occasion, found myself confused by those.
ik5pvx@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I find them distracting. There are useful innovations, and there are pointless gimmicks.
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 3 months ago
Is it possible that you’re just following too close if you feel these new turn signals aren’t fast enough for you to react?
ik5pvx@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Is it possible that you have not been driving for the last 35 years seeing a solid block of flashing light, so your brain is not yet hardwired to recognise that and only that?
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Only if mandatory rear lights come back as well. Having them animate in the direction they are going to turn are very helpful when the car has no other rear lights whatsoever.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Drove a new pickup the other day, upper trim model. Felt like I was driving a luxury car. Even had hands-free driving in some areas. Those parts were amazing.
Absolutely hated the infotainment and other automatic systems. A giant clusterfk of poorly designed, non-intuitive, frustrating systems that did unexpected things or took too much time to set up. The nice tech was completely overshadowed by the over-engineered junk.
Grippler@feddit.dk 3 months ago
A giant clusterfk of poorly designed, non-intuitive, frustrating systems that did unexpected things or took too much time to set up
That sounds heavily under engineered, not the other way around.
MintyFresh@lemmy.world 3 months ago
What i suspect happens is, a good design gets made. It is then “improved” by the M.B.A. having class.
Then marketing gets their say, useless shit and third party add-ons sloppily slapped on top.
Enter another round of “economizing” and a perfectly good design becomes enshittified.
arc@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I think Euro NCAP ratings would have more teeth if it was mandatory for manufacturers of standard passenger vehicles to submit a reference model for testing. Voluntary testing doesn’t work since manufacturers would be averse to submit cars for testing if they thought they’d get a bad score. And while Euro NCAP does sometimes buy cars for testing, they don’t do it for every make and model.
And if the cheapest dogshit cars on the road (Kia Picantos, Dacia Sandero’s etc) can have buttons, dials, wipers and indicators then so should everything above it. Companies like Tesla remove controls to cheap out on having to make a part, but they attempt to pass this off as innovation when it puts people’s lives at risk.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
thank god. I hope this trend migrates to other countries. The amount of effort/distraction for touch screens combined with the additional cost of having to replace full on infotainment systems is annoying.
zephorah@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Screen consoles in 4000lb bullets were the dumbest engineering idea ever. It’s probably a contributing factor as to why accident rates are up.
Up until 2018 I could manipulate my entire console without shifting my eyes from the road. Doing this by touch alone only works with physical buttons and knobs.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
The second dumbest engineering idea. The dumbest was clearly the car itself, letting the average person control a device that can accelerate hundreds or thousands of kilograms to speeds where reaction times of fractions of a second matter for safety was clearly one of the stupidest ideas ever.
zephorah@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Maybe the evolution. My grandmother told stories of her dad scaring her mom with his “crazy” driving, speeding up to 40, sometimes even 45 mph.
faltryka@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Be still my heart
wall_panel_96@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Less screens? Why does a car even need one screen?
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You can prise my windscreen from my cold dead hands.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 months ago
You afraid of getting bugs in your teeth? Coward. ^/s^
wall_panel_96@lemmy.world 3 months ago
😂👍
tty5@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The mandatory in EU reversing camera.
wall_panel_96@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Holy smokes. That’s nuts. I’m glad I font live there then.
RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
Reversing camera
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 months ago
Those things would be way more useful if they had a wider FOV. I hate how most people now use them as the only way of checking behind them when backing up, because you really can’t see shit well enough for that. It’s meant for seeing something small and close that even physically turning around to look, you wouldn’t see it. Like an animal or a child directly behind you.
All they’ve done is make people drive less safe because so many people just stare at the fucking camera screen instead of actually turning their head and checking their blind spots.
wall_panel_96@lemmy.world 3 months ago
They are called rear vision mirrors/ side mirrors, and neck muscles.
Mad_Punda@feddit.org 3 months ago
Wait, which car models lack that for “hazard warning lights, indicators, windshield wipers, SOS calls, and the horn”?
Don’t get me wrong, I agree these need physical buttons or similar. But everyone is celebrating as if it’s for things I’ve seen hidden behind touch or capacitive buttons in the cars I’ve driven and that really annoy me, like temperature, volume, mute, and cruise control inputs. Or have I just not driven the worst of the worst (Tesla).
Benaaasaaas@group.lt 3 months ago
Tesla, tesla lacks all of those
vin@lemmynsfw.com 3 months ago
They don’t have a physical horn? Wtf…
Cyber@feddit.uk 3 months ago
I’ve only been in a Tesla with an Uber driver, so not paid attention to it… but no indicator or wiper control?
Jeez.
I’ve had a couple of cars with automatic wipers and they’re not that great… Having no controls would do my head in
Mad_Punda@feddit.org 3 months ago
That’s insane.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 3 months ago
If they could ban the “confirm you know the rules of the fucking road” dialogue box that would be great.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
I hope the standard makes it clear that touch buttons are about as bad as a touch screen is
roude@lemmynsfw.com 3 months ago
cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for […] the horn
Very excited for when I get cut off in my 2030 Polestar 3 and can adjust my honk volume dial all the way to 11 before Family Feud smashing that sucker through my dash and into the gates of hell.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ya know what? Lets get a mulligan. Lets go back to the begining. Let’s start from the begining with vehicles again. From now on, the only vehicle allowed to be produced is the Ford model T that came out in like 1914. Every car is now that car.
No screens. No gimmicks. No seatbelts. Not even a heater or an enclosed surface. If you crash, your ass is getting thrown from the car onto the pavement! HEADS UP ASSHOLE!!! PAY ATTENTION TO THE GOD DAMNED ROAD YOU CELL PHONE DRIVING DISTRACTED FUCKCLOWN!!!
Let’s just get back to basics, ya know?
kokesh@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Finally!!!
Viri4thus@feddit.org 3 months ago
Fucking finally.