Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens • Hacker News Board

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#901

Post by prettychill » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 5:43 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #304

joppy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mazda software works ok with the wheel, but using something like CarPlay with it is almost impossible without taking your eyes off the road for a long time. It’s worse than touch-screens in that respect: what will the spinning knob select next on a screen which has three separate panes?

Is CarPlay really that terrible? I don't have issues using Android Auto easily with my Mazda, it all takes a few very learnable clicks.

I use carplay in my CX5 and have no issues (my cx5 does not have a touch screen at all, 2022)

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#902

Post by d_runs_far » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 5:43 PM UTC

While we're ranting about the 'infotainment' systems on cars, how about the apps? The Kia Connect enrages me every time I have to use it for my wife's car. It makes the in-car system seem snappy and awesome. The fact that they want to start charging for it after the 'trial' period is un-believable.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#903

Post by Vvector » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #229

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…

> because it was written by under-experienced software "engineers." I used to be an infotainment software engineer for an Auto maker. There’s this idea in the software industry that because the software behaves poorly on your car’s system, it must’ve been written poorly by someone who didn’t know what they were doing. In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.…

> In my experience it was almost always a matter of the hardware being stretched way past its limits.

I find this hard to believe. An Intel 486 from 30+ years ago could run Doom full screen with nearly instant key press response. A 6502/6510 C64 could repaint the entire text screen each frame. Why would today's auto hardware require 500ms to respond to touches on a static menu?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#904

Post by byyll » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #227

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…

> That physical button that takes 500ms to respond is still as dangerous. You've just removed one problem. Major accidents are almost always a cascade of errors. It may not be perfect, but not having to take eyes off the road can really break the chain of a big accident in progress. A touchscreen UI probably won't cause an accident on its own, but it will be a link in the chain of a driver already tired and lost in t…

Is there a reason not to have auto start and auto stop headlights?

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#905

Post by fnordpiglet » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

nluken wrote: post #275

fnordpiglet wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is mentioned in a parallel comment this will change dramatically as LLM are introduced to voice assistants. LLM are much more robust in inferring semantic meaning from noisy language. As long as they don’t ask the LLM to solve partial differential equations and confine it’s originating prompt aggressively to only interpret voice text transcriptions to a finite set of actions, it’ll be amazing.

I don't doubt that voice recognition will continue to improve, but doesn't it seems kind of ridiculous for automotive manufacturers to pour millions of dollars into R&D (or spend millions licensing someone else's software) and add much more expensive processors to their cars at mass scale to solve an already solved problem? I can already adjust the climate control and other basic things without this sort of interface…

If it sells more cars with more profit I fully expect them to, yes. I’d also note that wiring and layout of all those buttons as well as the manual work necessary to make a static user interface is fairly expensive. The slap a general purpose processor and use the existing AV in the car to control everything greatly simplifies both assembly and supply chain. Perhaps it’s counter intuitive, but buttons aren’t nearly as cheap as you might imagine, and computing resources are decreasing in cost rapidly. Finally LLM and voice recognition model computation costs are falling dramatically - you don’t need a GPT-4 to improve voice recognition outcomes, most of the smaller system scaled models would just as well. The more advanced models are only necessary for significantly more advanced semantic tasks.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#906

Post by winternett » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

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…

I've got a volvo XC90...

The "ipad-like" touch screen looks cool, but it's very uncool as software updates have slowed it down over time... When I shift into reverse, the camera often doesn't come on for what seems like ages... The car also does not turn completely off when I turn it off, completely bewildering to me, as the battery can go dead easily in a crisis because of this issue, especially when the car is connected to Android Auto, the car never wants to turn itself off.

The volume control on the car turns up every time I switch the radio to a new station or input, even when the stereo is on mute, which is verrrrry jarring. The car beeps constantly for no reason as well, reverse sensor noises and a lot more unhelpful options need to be turned off every time the car is started, almost feels as if they want to frustrate drivers.

I am really beginning to hate advanced technology in cars, because the software in them is geared towards people that constantly want to be distracted and entertained by the tech, whereas I like to stay focused on the road. Mobile phones also drive the tech and stimulation obsession for many, whereas old cars just serve a common and simple purpose, and with an audio jack and car-native GPS (which phone/car makers got rid of) life was so much more simple and enjoyable while driving from what I can recall.

Software driven cars create tons of distractions that translate into real world accidents that could be preventable, especially with developing hands free commands (they work very poorly still in most cars to this day).

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#907

Post by madcaptenor » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

GenerocUsername wrote: post #852

Rediscover wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun story: My ex (one of my best friends), born and raised in Seattle, used to give me serious grief anytime I mention rain in Boston or NYC. She had no belief in what I would describe. Work finally ships her out to (NYC). She calls me up to say she just ran ~2meters from the hotel to the taxi and is soaking wet. She has never commented on Seattle "rain" since. REAL rain.

Seattelite here. We get that rain too periodically. Sesttelites complain about rain because we regularly experience 100+ days of rain. Seattle rain is not not a storm, it's a marathon.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/this-simp...

There's a map here that shows that most of the eastern US gets more rain than Seattle, but Seattle is very high on the number of days of measurable precipitation.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#908

Post by zaroth » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

martyvis wrote: post #815

zaroth wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have an auto mode. But also, you can now adjust wiper speed / interval on the steering wheel in a Tesla without using the touchscreen. Feature was actually added a just a few weeks ago in a software update.

I'm sure it's the type of thing in an Elon meeting he would say "Surely we can think of a solution better than relying on drivers to provide meaningful input to the desired outcome?"

Surely the ideal is the wiper is always moving at the perfectly desired speed and interval without any human intervention required.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#909

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

Lio wrote: post #504

emodendroket wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some abstract sense, like how you could say that you should absolutely not drive a car as you could accidentally kill a pedestrian.

I don't think it's all that abstract. We know that phone using drivers perform worse than drink drivers. They regularly kill people because they're not concentrating on what's in front of them. If you change the car's UI from something with low latency[1] to something with much greater latency[2] then you are definitely putting others at higher risk because drivers spend longer not concentrating on driving. -- 1. See…

Then why is anyone skating for the decision to abandon buttons in the first place? The driver is responsible for paying attention to the road rather than fiddling with the radio.

Re: Automakers are starting to admit that drivers hate touchscreens

#910

Post by gofreddygo » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #371

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…

> 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…

Physical buttons have the distinct advantage of being physical (duh!)

I can triangulate my way to the right button on the dashboard with just my fingers without ever taking eyes off the road.

I can touch and feel a button without "pressing" or activating it. Impossible with a touch screen!

Buttons can be differently shaped to make this even better.

Touch screens invite and allow bad ux with nested menus. You need to know which screen you're on, which menu is activated.

I know distinctly if I pressed a button once or twice or thrice, or long pressed it. No dice with touch screens.

No software update will ever change the physical layout of those buttons. Period. So much simpler.

And if buttons are more expensive, well thats good ! Make it harder to put more buttons. We don't need more.

Anecdotally, my 2006 prius had a touch screen. Always worked as expected, no lag. I could never, through 5 years of ownership, change the temp, or start the defogger without looking at the screen. A nissan I drove last week with physical buttons, took me a day to get used to with physical buttons and knobs for these functions.

I dont see a single end user benefit for touch screens. I see a bunch of reasons for the manufacturer tho.