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Please make a dumb car

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Re: Please make a dumb car

#431

Post by xd1936 »

chungy wrote: post #428

> Power seat adjustment, though, that’s a luxury even today. Use the lever. Probably the one thing I disagree with the article on. Power seat adjustment is a heck of a lot safer in the driver seat than manual levers, and it's not even close. If a passenger accidentally adjusts the seat too far forward or too far back while the car is in motion, fine, it's an inconvenience. If the driver does this, they become a road…

Same could be said for adjusting wheel height. Don't do it while driving, problem solved.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#432

Post by 6LLvveMx2koXfwn »

chungy wrote: post #428

> Power seat adjustment, though, that’s a luxury even today. Use the lever. Probably the one thing I disagree with the article on. Power seat adjustment is a heck of a lot safer in the driver seat than manual levers, and it's not even close. If a passenger accidentally adjusts the seat too far forward or too far back while the car is in motion, fine, it's an inconvenience. If the driver does this, they become a road…

What on earth is the driver doing adjusting their seat fore and aft whilst driving?

Re: Please make a dumb car

#433

Post by wkjagt »

olyjohn wrote: post #393
protomyth wrote: post #213

I'm fine with a touch screen for things like rear camera and plugging in a smart phone, but I want actual volume, temperature, and fan speed knobs. I also want all of the information about the car I can get. For example, I don't want a "tire low light", I want an air pressure in each tire with an flashing indicator that its out of safe range. I don't want an "overheat", I want the temperature and big flashing when it…

My 1992 Miata came with an honest-to-god oil pressure gauge in it, that gave you real oil pressure readings. The pressure gauge moves back and forth with engine RPMs, because the oil pump is driven off of the engine. More RPM = more oil pressure. That's how cars work. In 1994, Mazda removed it, and put in a "Dumb" gauge. It looks like a gauge, but really is either on above a certain PSI or off below that. They did th…

I have a 93 Miata and I love those kinds of things about it. Even the odometer is mechanical. I love how real and direct cars from that era feel. In contrast, I’m always discouraged when for example I try to figure out how to even make the radio work in my girlfriend’s 2017 Odyssey.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#434

Post by soylentcola »

boobsbr wrote: post #66
pjmlp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went with WebOS, so far the best of them, meaning the less painfull one.

I have an LG TV with WebOS. The OS is fine, but the CPU is underpowered and has difficulty streaming video.

I usually describe my "smart" TV (and all of them, really) as a bargain basement smartphone with an incredibly nice screen. All of the same issues - bare minimum specs to operate the thing in a typical fashion, lack of software patches and bundled "apps" that stop getting updates after a couple of years, questionable privacy policies, etc.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#435

Post by kspacewalk2 »

dntrkv wrote: post #274
stillsut wrote: post #179

I went car shopping this year in the new market and found that that if you want more a "dumb" car (UX occurs primarily outside of a touchscreen, no internet, no geolocation) you lose all potential for any nice non-smart features. So no heated/powered seats, no power windows, the material of the interior is refurbished from a spirit airlines airplane, etc. I think manufacturers are hoping that certain aspects of the m…

> these unwanted smart features Only within the niche HN-type tech crowd. Most people outside of this group want these features, even other techies, including myself. It's the same discussion on any thread involving smart devices. People want this stuff, that's why there have been over 200M standalone smart speakers sold. As far as why these things get bundled, that’s just how auto manufacturing works. Every unique c…

Nah. Most non-techies I've talked to about this are very frustrated with the move to touch screens and "smart" features they never use. This is particularly true, basically universal, among people over 50.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#436

Post by ghostpepper »

drdaeman wrote: post #391
breakpointalpha wrote: post #193

Bought a Mazda CX5 a few months ago. Thank god Mazda currently has the "driver first" mentality. NO Touchscreen! Main input is through a comfortable knob in front of the arm rest, where your hand naturally lands when resting. Gauge cluster is digital, but analog type dials for spedo, etc. AC, Power Cool/heated seats, driver assists, auto-park, all controlled via BUTTONS! It's a modern miracle and one of the big reaso…

> but analog type dials for spedo Why is this considered an upside? When I shopped for a car, I've specifically looked for one with a simple (uncluttered) large digital number-only speedometer. Ended up buying 2013 Civic, which is still bad in other regards but got this one right, with a large digital speedometer conveniently located not behind the steering wheel but right below the windshield (less eye travel; and s…

> Why is this considered an upside?

I agree with all the reasons given in the article - namely that it's easier to tell with your peripheral vision if a needle has moved a small amount or a big amount than it is for your brain to register the difference between 69 and 71 and then think about whether that's significant, compare it to the limit, etc.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#437

Post by vel0city »

causi wrote: post #227

I love having a dumb car. My wife has a modern car and my experience is superior in almost every way. She has to select a temperature and then her AC system blasts her with freezing or burning air until it decides the car is at the desired temperature. Since the selector only goes down to 65, it's impossible to get medium-temperature air on a nippy day. My dash, on the other hand, has a dial that goes from cold to ho…

Its too bad your experience with automatic climate control systems is so terrible. I'm of the exact opposite experience. I recently had to have my car in the shop and as a rental they gave me a mid-tier level Nissan Sentra with manual climate controls. I absolutely hated having to manually adjust the climate, usually 2-3 times every trip. Why would I want to fiddle with climate controls when it could be entirely automated?

I haven't really had to adjust the climate controls in my current car since I bought it, aside from pressing the defrost button a few times. During that time outside temperatures have ranged from 15F to 110F, and my car is always comfortable inside. Even the heated steering wheel and heated seats are automatic, I haven't had to manually control those either. Automatic climate control has worked very well for me across 4 different models of cars ranging from a 2000 Honda Accord, a 2012 Ford Focus, a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe, and a 2021 Mustang Mache E. All of them pretty much never required me to adjust it day to day, and I would go weeks to months without needing to do anything.

Given that you're talking about only being able to set the temperature selector down to 65, it sounds like you're doing automatic climate control wrong. You're going to have a bad experience if you're always setting it to max cold or max heat instead of just picking a comfortable temperature in the middle and letting the car get to that temp. Sure, it'll take a minute or two before it starts blowing air, because usually the AC needs to really start cranking before its doing anything or it takes a bit for the heater core to warm. During that time you're not really doing much blowing around the air, in fact you might make the experience in the car worse blowing non-conditioned air around.

Just like in your house, setting your AC unit to 60F isn't going to make your AC unit run harder. Do you go to your home thermostat and drag it all the way one way when you're warm, then drag it all the way to the other direction when you're cold? No, you set it for a comfortable temperature and let the system hold it there.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#438

Post by SyzygistSix »

chakintosh wrote: post #138
khazhoux wrote: post #74

Our Volvo doesn't let you adjust the volume when you're in reverse. That means if you're backing out of the garage and the music is blaring -- you can't turn it off! The Volvo UI pops up an almost full-display warning when it can't connect to the phone over bluetooth on startup. This UI takes priority over the rear camera . So I guess it's better to hit Timmy and his puppy when I'm backing out, so long as I know my p…

I'm a UX designer and I've taken delivery of an XC40 Recharge two months ago, and I've never felt dumber in my life. Don't get me wrong, the car is absolutely wonderful, but the UX is so badly designed it makes me question myself. For starters, I have absolutely no clue how to use the lights, fans and wipers. Just last Saturday, a design oversight (and idiocy from my part) caused me to reverse into another car parked…

I find this hilarious, especially since they brag about having "Google inside", which already sounded more like a confirmation to me of a dystopian timeline rather than a feature.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#439

Post by everdrive »

sho_hn wrote: post #292
dntrkv wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these unwanted smart features Only within the niche HN-type tech crowd. Most people outside of this group want these features, even other techies, including myself. It's the same discussion on any thread involving smart devices. People want this stuff, that's why there have been over 200M standalone smart speakers sold. As far as why these things get bundled, that’s just how auto manufacturing works. Every unique c…

I'm always surprised how defeatist and negative the tech community's attitude towards computerized UX in cars is. Often the opinions are simplistic and dismissive instead of zooming into the details. It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I…

> It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note.

I absolutely hate my screens keyboard, and wish I could just buy a phone with a real physical keyboard. I get so angry trying to use this thing. It’s far less useful than a regular keyboard.

Re: Please make a dumb car

#440

Post by sinab »

What I hate about "car discourse" like this is the apparent blindness to public transportation. Trains, bikes, buses, and street cars solve almost every problem that the author complains about.

The only outstanding problem, however, is that American infrastructure has been deliberately designed solely around the car. Those who suggest alternative modes of public transportation are immediately written off as "impractical". Discourse ought to be centered around democratizing and diversifying the ways people can get around, not on how one ought to "make dumb cars".

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