Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Car showed pop-up while driving

glitterkitten.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 248 posts

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#171

Post by RajT88 »

tyingq wrote: post #91
RajT88 wrote: post #18

Just FYI - you can replace your head unit even on newer cars. There's a bustling aftermarket industry for this kind of stuff: https://www.belsee.com/android-car-radio/hyundai-radio.html This way - your data gets abused by the Chinese government instead of Hyundai! (I kid, sort of, but these head units let you exert more control over your car, as they often ship rooted, or can be rooted) If you DIY install the head un…

It's tricky for some cars. Things like non-standard sizes for the opening. Important functionality baked into the head unit (Volvo, for example, has paths to configure some safety options, trip/mpg display, etc). Integration for steering wheel controls, rear displays, backup cameras. And more that I'm missing off the top of my head. For some vehicles, some of the above have options to tie in with a 3rd party setup, o…

My current head unit for (admittedly a 10 year old VW) does all of those things.

Backup camera, steering wheel buttons, MPG, fuel level, low tire warnings...

It's actually really impressive for for $190 I spent on it.

The only thing which it disabled when I replaced the head unit was the built-in handsfree bluetooth stuff. It all goes through the stereo now (and doesn't work that great). YMMV on these aftermarket head units.

A lot of the stock head units look like weird sizes, but it's really just trim on the front of it looking highly custom. Aftermarket units sometimes (often?) come with matching trim pieces to make it look OEM.

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#172

Post by pacifika »

guntherhermann wrote: post #26
gwbas1c wrote: post #22

What country do they drive in MPH with the steering wheel on the right side of the car? I've heard a lot of references to "miles" in British culture, but I assumed that was habits of older people. I thought the UK was all metric by now?

Yeah, this'll be the UK. We use a mix of imperial and metric, so you'll see "300m to next service station" and also "30 mph" speed limits :). People typically weigh themselves in stone and lbs, yet the food we buy is weighed in grams

In Scotland it’s kgs

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#173

Post by tesin »

Almondsetat wrote: post #112
pradn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I Give her my old iPhone 7 and use FaceTime now, with auto answer setting turned on in the accessibility. I didn't know this feature existed. Quite thoughtful!

unfortunately Apple seems to be the only consumer brand on earth which actually gives a crap about real disabled folks using their devices and making their lives better because of it

Have you seen the Xbox Adaptive Controller?

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adap...

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#174

Post by gnicholas »

freedomben wrote: post #162
gnicholas wrote: post #76

My Ford CMAX tries to update its software when I'm driving. It often attempts for a while, then fails, then loops and tries again (ad infinitum). When this happens, I am locked out of accessing navigation, music controls, etc. At least I still have knobs for climate control.

I will never buy another Ford again for reasons like this. In the past 8 years I've had an F-350 and an Expedition and they both are plagued by software issues. Paired with the impossibility of getting parts, I've been suffering without HVAC for almost two years! It's horribly uncomfortable for 8 months of the year, and downright dangerous the other 4 as the windshield will get covered in fog and frost that makes it…

I'm hesitant to buy any vehicle that has no knobs for climate control, for the safety-related reasons you mention.

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#175

Post by guidoism »

dotancohen wrote: post #81
RajT88 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd pay to just not have one, but I'm not even sure that's possible any more. Yeah, some stuff makes you go through the head unit on some machines. Any replacement head unit would have to implement the same controls somehow. Wealthy will be the person who makes a generic 2 DIN head unit, where you have physical buttons which you can map to various CANBus messages.

I'm working on a generic device that sends canbus messages, that can have inputs such as potentiometer, push buttons, toggle switches, and rotary encoders. My end goal is to have real hvac controls on my Tesla, but I'd like to abstract the device as much as possible. Fun project, and most of the hardware necessary is already out there.

I've been hoping somebody would do that.

I have a only half-joking business idea to build high-quality physical controls for all of the crap touchscreen shit being forced upon us. High-end ovens for example rarely now include physical controls so (I'm looking at you Miele) so I would like an aftermarket thing that sticks on to the outside of it. Maybe even directly over the touch screen. Actually, hmm, that's a good idea. Maybe we need a device that is the size of various standard touch screens that can read the contents of the screen, interpret them, and then have some sort of way to do capacitance touch on the screen. All of this of course hidden from the user who just wants a damned analog knob.

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#176

Post by npteljes »

gwbas1c wrote: post #22

What country do they drive in MPH with the steering wheel on the right side of the car? I've heard a lot of references to "miles" in British culture, but I assumed that was habits of older people. I thought the UK was all metric by now?

British TV shop "Supersize vs Superskinny" ran between 2008 and 2014, and they still referred to the weight of people in "stones".

Apparently legislation still contains imperial units too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#177

Post by seanmcdirmid »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #141
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could live without it anymore, but I have a really tight parking situation at home and the parking sensors that are exposed through the head unit are really useful. Not to mention navigation and all that stuff. These features are really considered standard now by most (but definitely not all) people.

I had that in a car from 2008 or so. Camera feed switched on when you were reversing, but no touch screen.

Radar parking sensor are very useful. Not sure if you had that in 2008.

In my car, this all comes in via the head unit. Critical driving stuff isn't allowed to be in the head unit (wisely), parking display doesn't come up as critical although the sensors are technically available even if the head unit is fried, which I found out when my head unit failed (car was still drivable, but many nice things gone).

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#178

Post by npteljes »

aeyes wrote: post #144
UberFly wrote: post #86

I'm always surprised we don't see more car console "Blue Screens" reported. Weird reboots mid-drive and such.

In my car the UI just freezes until the headunit restarts 1-2 minutes later. A few years ago I rode with a friend and he'd have to turn ignition off and on again to restart the headunit. That's rather annoying while cruising on the highway. The madman still did it - a bit dangerous because you lose power steering and the brake booster without the engine running.

And while the ignition is off, the wheel locks in place at a specific angle as an anti-theft measure. Terrifies me to think about.

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#179

Post by tyingq »

RajT88 wrote: post #171
tyingq wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tricky for some cars. Things like non-standard sizes for the opening. Important functionality baked into the head unit (Volvo, for example, has paths to configure some safety options, trip/mpg display, etc). Integration for steering wheel controls, rear displays, backup cameras. And more that I'm missing off the top of my head. For some vehicles, some of the above have options to tie in with a 3rd party setup, o…

My current head unit for (admittedly a 10 year old VW) does all of those things. Backup camera, steering wheel buttons, MPG, fuel level, low tire warnings... It's actually really impressive for for $190 I spent on it. The only thing which it disabled when I replaced the head unit was the built-in handsfree bluetooth stuff. It all goes through the stereo now (and doesn't work that great). YMMV on these aftermarket hea…

Sure. Just saying there are some setups that either don't work, or don't work completely. Steering wheel controls is a good example. You can go to the product site for one of those expensive integration units, and their "product fit guide" will show you it works with some cars and not others.

And, yes, some cars can fit a head unit even though the opening looks odd. Others can't, at all. Volvo has several cars in that category.

Re: Car showed pop-up while driving

#180

Post by solarkraft »

figassis wrote: post #170
figassis wrote: post #87

I bought a Nissan this year. I paired my phone and granted access to contacts, but not messages. Every time I turn it on it shows a popup asking to grant access to my phone's messages. I decline each time, and each time it comes back. It's like they build these products with complete disregard for user choice. "We don't care that they decline, show it again until they submit". I've been a developer of products that d…

Another variation of this is the popup that only has "accept" and "remind me later buttons". It's even worse when it happens in work applications. Zoho does this. You open Zoho books, the accounting SaaS, and every X days after login, they show you a full page notice about some product/feature with options to "accept" and "remind me later". Imagine this in the middle of you rushing to create an invoice. I'm a paying…

Oh boy, this makes me think differently of Zoho. I previously had a rather favorable image of them, now that image is quite a bit worse.

Companies should be shamed for this and the reputational damage should far outweigh whatever little gain figuratively spitting in the user's face would have.

Post reply on HN