281–290 of 549 posts
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I think backlit E-ink screens would be great for cars. I too want something I can see well in the day.
E-ink is slow/inefficient to react, so probably not suitable for speedometer and tachometer type gauges. Apart from that, I agree.
(although i've never understood why it has a tach since its a manual anyway... but i guess i can close my eyes and imagine my V6 ranger is a corvette...)
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One of our cars is a 2004 Toyota Tacoma with everything analog except the radio, and I vastly prefer it. If it just had a usb plug so I could play music from my phone, it would be ideal. Oh, and oddly, the radio doesn't have a clock. Bizarre. It I can 100% everything better than our 2016 Subaru Outback with it's annoying touch screen console. Plus my nieces and nephews are amused by the actual manual window openers.
FWIW Subaru kinda just has crappy digital components. Corresponding touch screen console from recent year Toyotas are pretty good, especially with CarPlay / Android Auto.
Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse than the systems they replace or augment. The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors. Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming o…
What worries me the most is the usage of flash storage backing huge swaths of the functionality in the car. I suspect 10 years from now we will have cars where everything between the dashboard and glove-box does not work because the flash has worn out.
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So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car but with feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y is really important, while for someone else, it will be al…
It's not inevitable. At one point we made a 6th gen Honda Civic.
Nothing worse than automotive software. Buggy, slow, terrible user interfaces, outright dangerous and in many ways much worse than the systems they replace or augment. The automotive industry has a long long way to come - assuming it will happen at all - before they can be said to be responsible software vendors. Case in point: my - former - C class Mercedes that made two pretty good attempts to kill me by slamming o…
As long as pre-2010 cars are available, I’m gonna continue driving them.
Serious question - what alternatives are left for those of us who want a dumb car? I've spent the last three months finding out I can't get solar panels installed without a high-fidelity power-monitor tap connected to the provider's cloud, logging every appliance I use and what it's doing. Same deal with cars - they are on the internet and they generate evidence used to convict, and geofencing is coming. Other than s…
I bought a new Nissan Kicks last year (the lowest-end crossover SUV) and it seems pretty dumb. It has no internet connectivity as far as I can tell. It has a touch-screen, but it's pretty much just for the backup camera and audio controls, everything else has physical controls. It does have a computer that is involved in operating the CVT, but besides that it never gets in my way. And it does have sensors for the saf…
Not sure about 2020, but 2021 has Automatic breaking, pedestrian detection, and collision detection standard. There are likely a few hundred thousand to millions lines of code in these various systems. Even "dumb" cars today have tons of software, it's just hidden since it doesn't require user input. Literally every aspect of your driving is fully computerized - braking, acceleration, engine spark plug ignition, transmission, steering, etc. The infotainment is often relatively simple compared to all of the other software running internally.
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Glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants a dumb car. Unfortunately, the idea of electric cars has become bound up with the notion of software-driven cars. I want an electric car with analog controls, no touch screens or over-the-air updates, and minimal software. A car that I feel like I own, rather than one I'm getting a click-through license to use.
So you want a mechanical door lock, manual windows, no car stereo, no power steering, no thermostat, no cruise control, etc... The problem with that dumb car is that it is missing that very convenient feature. So you want a dumb car but with feature X, because feature X is really great. But the other guy will not care about X and will think it is bloat, but Y is really important, while for someone else, it will be al…
Power central locking doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates.
> manual windows
Electric windows doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates.
> no car stereo
Car stereos do not need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates.
> no power steering
Power steering doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates. Hell it doesn't even require electronics.
> no thermostat
Thermostats are mechanical...
> no cruise control
Cruise control doesn't need a microcontroller, code, or a touch screen, or updates.
The problem with this is that auto companies are not software companies. They may have good engineers there, but they are hamstrung with a culture that considers software as an add on cost center at best. Perfect example: I have no way to report software bugs to Honda. I've found a few and collected detailed reproduction data. The best I can do is give it to a sales rep in the service department and hope they send it…
On the other hand, having seen the software industry I don't really want its values applied to cars. Games used to be shipped on chips to customers with the assumption that they could never be updated, but now the expectation that that's possible results in multi GB release day patches. Games used to be shipped to consoles without network access but if Blizzard goes out of business tomorrow, Starcraft II will just fa…
Most of what you listed applies to web apps and games, not bespoke software for hardware.