321–330 of 491 posts
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Which VW? Except for the ID4, all recent models I've driven have physical buttons for everything I'd need to touch while driving.
I don't think it's fair to call the capacitive touch panels they've put in all new models "buttons". Especially with those crappy tiny touch areas.
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The other day, I was taking a call on my iPhone, over the earpiece, in my office suite's lobby. The connection was rock solid, and then out of nowhere the audio just disappeared, without warning … but the call didn't drop. A few seconds later it returned. The person on the other end said they heard what sounded like a child for a second. I was perplexed. Fast forward a week, and this happens again. I look at the call…
I really want an option like this Enable [ X ] Audio [ ] Phone Calls Because I never, not one single time, wanted a phone call to blast over my car audio. Not once. I can't be the only one that has wanted the car to be a speakerphone exactly 0 times. Heck maybe someone is the opposite. They love terrestrial radio or their CD collection and also the speakerphone feature. Give people options.
Settings > Connected devices
Tap on the device, that brings up a list of switches for features the device is allowed to use.
I assume iOS probably has something similar.
Wonderful. I recently rented a model 3 and found it incredibly frustrating that it required multiple touches to adjust settings that would be a single button press on a more traditional car. Don’t even get me started on the windshield wipers - a total nightmare in winter storms and located on the left stalk? These are safety concerns. As long as humans are operating these dangerous vehicles, I vote for fewer driver d…
Is (among other things) having windshield wipers control on left stalk being a dangerous thing? That cars I had in other countries (with opposite side driving) had signals on right & wipers on left stalk.
Compared to putting the steering wheel on the wrong side it seems like a minor point.
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To me, this is definitely a major safety hazard to rely on voice command. If you just get splashed and in a stressed out voice you ask for wipers and your car might not understand you.
The way to do it is to press the wiper button (press in on the stalk button) to swipe one and then it gives you options for manual wiper speed selection via an on-screen control.
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I just bought an Ioniq 5 a couple of months ago. The buttons are legit great, and the EV drive train is top notch. Loving it so far.
I loved the look and interior of the Ioniq 5. However when testdriving it, it felt sitting on a plank getting tossed about while going over roundabouts. I also had it loose grip and have the FWD kick in in situations and conditions that have never been an issue at higher speeds in my previous (smaller and lower) cars and my current XC90. maybe it had something to do with the large amount of power it has. But it felt…
When researching family cars recently, I literally avoided the Honda CR-V just because the AC was controlled via the touch screen. There's a "Climate" button, which brings up a screen on the display where you can turn the aircon on/off, up/down, etc. It's just horrendous. Give me my dials. My worst gripe - which all modern cars have - is the aggressive bluetooth auto-connect. If my wife takes the car, it will automat…
My 'solution' is: _Maximum_ 1 (one, one!) Bluetooth 'master' (e.g. phone) device per 'slave device' (e.g. headphones, speaker). That means, if your friend asks if they can connect to your speaker the answer is "Sorry, no.". If you want to use headphones on your laptop and your phone, you need to buy two headphones, etc.
For really problematic appliances, like cars, I just deactivate Bluetooth. Not worth the pain. For audio in the car, I use a portable speaker. :shrug:
[1] Proof: Many people can't even pronounce it
[2] I've bought two, different, new 3k bucks computers that never got the Bluetooth work with anything (yes, they run Windows).
[3] I have a 200 bucks Victron SmartShunt in my van to monitor my battery. Can't connect to it anymore with any device (yes, its Bluetooth). Will have to buy an expensive external display (at least that exists) and crawl on the floor to read it. You read my rant this far? Congrats. Have a nice day :-)
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Antennas are not amplifiers. As long as the antenna is correctly tuned to the impedance of the transmitter output stage, it will radiate most of the power of the transmitter, but cannot exceed 100% (it is a passive element, and exceeding 100% would break the laws of conservation of energy). In this case the size of the antenna does not affect the total power emitted and there will be no range gains from using a bigge…
Bigger antennas can positively pick up more signal. The Mars rovers do not have megawatt radio transmitters, instead we use enormous antennas on Earth.
Ofcourse car bluetooth presumably has an antenna that radiates roughly sphere-like, it wouldn’t make sense to pick up signals on the right of the car with a dish or something.
To that end, bigger antenna doesn’t do a whole lot to boost signal. There might be other factors at play increasing the reception though, such as signal polarity and whether the length of the antenna matches the frequency in a correct way (or is some multiplier of it). For Bluetooth that’d be roughly 13cm or 6.5 or so.
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And navigating a software menu (which changes at random times when it updates itself) just to open the fucking glove compartment. What was wrong with a physical latch?
It allows you to lock it with a pin. I don't want to carry keys.
In the spirit of the present article, mechanical locks (especially for anything car related) are better. You can't hack into them. If you force or break them, you are forced to leave physical evidence behind that you did so. Not so for a Bluetooth or WiFi hack. This is why I will not enable my smart garage door opener. I don't even have pay by phone, because they offer an attack vector via NFC directly to my bank account. I carry credit cards instead.
Sure, carrying all those pieces of metal is annoying. I got a KeySmart to help mitigate this. I carry my car key in my wallet with my cards. It's worth it, and there are ways around the costs.