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Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

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Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#671

Post by hyperhopper »

the_overseer wrote: post #569
kgwgk wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because that is how automotive industry works. This time BMW wants infotainment and a third party wins the contract (because it's the cheapest usually). For the next BMW car another company wins the contract. Everything is rebuilt from scratch. Yeah, that's how the automotive industry works. For each car BMW will change the third parties manufacturing each piece and every model is completely rebuilt from scratch. T…

I've never understood why that is happening. Are they trying to make sure there is no knowledge accumulation at a single tier 1 supplier? Kind of make sure nobody can create a competing product and just sell it to different OEMs?

The poster you replied to was being sarcastic

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#672

Post by tasuki »

zamnos wrote: post #458
tasuki wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits. What aspects of the hardware would lead to 500ms response times?

Underpowered CPU being asked to do way more work than it properly has capacity for.

I bet the "underpowered CPU" is way faster than the supercomputers of not that long ago.

Way more work, as in, turn up the volume or display another thing on the screen?

How do you explain that not that long ago, when CPUs were slower, interfaces were faster?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#673

Post by jocaal »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #535
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We completely understand - and we would all make the same decision. Which is why (in the UK) I view the rise of strikes and unions positively - workers need to hang together - set standards that they won't go below, and also ensure the spoils are fairly shared out. Recently the deputy governor of the bank of england said "inflation has made everyone poorer - get used to it not ask for wage increases". Which tone deaf…

>"inflation has made everyone poorer - get used to it not ask for wage increases" Which is absolutely horseshit, because the European countries that had the least amount of inflation (besides the super wealthy Switzerland and Luxembourg), were the countries where salaries are automatically indexed with inflation, like Belgium. So it turns out that forcing companies to increase wages by inflation is a very effective d…

> You want better, then vote better.

This doesn't help. Even if you were the guy that read all policies or whatever a candidate pushes, the vast majority if people are still just gonna vote with their emotions.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#674

Post by ricardobayes »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #189

I wouldn't mind touchscreens as long as these imbecile developers would strictly limit UI response time to under 16ms. In no world where you're barrelling 3,000+ lbs of mass at tens of miles an hour should you be distracted by some moronic app or subsystem failing to respond in time because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." Any software running as a part of a motor vehicle should be federally…

Believe me it's not about the developers. Even just a few years ago premium, even luxury makes used a 333 MHz processor in the head unit to power their onboard entertainment. Again, it's no such much about software - in safety critical automotive ECUs load must never reach above 33% or so. The hardware is ridiculously underpowered in most cases due to cost cutting. Remember most car makers operate on razor thin margins, often (much) less than 1k USD per car sold.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#675

Post by londons_explore »

alliao wrote: post #655
acapybara wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Subaru has a physical volume knob. Its position is only a "gentle suggestion" to the software to move volume up or down. At times, especially when starting the vehicle, there is major latency in the software processing the knob movement.. Also, if the knob is moved too fast, the sw gets the wrong reading. This results in volume being way too high for serveral seconds as well as many other frustrating, dangerous s…

sounds like a different type of hell, didn't realise it could get this bad!

Thing is... most of these are quite small bugs. The software development team working on this stuff for just a week or two more would have fixed 80+% of these.

Problem is they probably had project managers breathing down their necks about "don't spend time working on non-release-blocking tickets".

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#676

Post by phkahler »

TheFragenTaken wrote: post #533
jjav wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? You've got physical buttons? Big whoop. That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. No, that's wrong. Problem with touchscreens is that (1) you need to look at them and (2) there is no tactile feedback of whether you pressed it or not and (3) you need to hover your arm in a moving car at just the right spot. Physical buttons cleanly resolve all of these major problems. If the ac…

The fact that these cars pass safety certification, makes me question certifiers. It's illegal to look at your phone while driving, for good reason, but it's legal to fiddle with a damn computer screen, because it's part of the car. I predict it's a matter of time before we'll see a correlation between number of crashes, and cars with touchscreens.

>> I predict it's a matter of time before we'll see a correlation between number of crashes, and cars with touchscreens.

Insurance companies should have this data already. They should start setting rates based on it.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#677

Post by londons_explore »

nicky0 wrote: post #662
phpisthebest wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the driver was attempting to adjust non-critical features of wipers not turning them off and on We should be very careful not to include the kitchen sink in with "essential" items. Turning the wipers off and on, is critical, adjusting delay timings is not

If you're in a rainstorm and the wipers are set to "minimum speed" then turning the speed up would be critical.

The safe thing to do would be to pull over first, as you see the rain getting heavier, then adjust.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#679

Post by [deleted] »

hackernewds wrote: post #476
CGamesPlay wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it's still the law. By 2054 (31 years from now), the NHSTA's estimates say it will save less than 2000 lives. https://www.extremetech.com/cars/179635-car-backup-cameras-a...

What about pets? And injuries? Wouldn't imagine a reversal killing most healthy adults, so the fatality rate isn't a great measure

[deleted]

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#680

Post by phkahler »

Another overlooked "feature" I see on GM cars. The "reverse" lights are turned on when the car is in park. Not sure why, but it's training me to partially ignore backup lights in parking lots, because they no longer mean a vehicle is going to back up.
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