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Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

ben.stolovitz.com

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Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#121

Post by oblio »

scottyah wrote: post #76
oblio wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe it's done through EuroNCAP: https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens... It has already started asking for physical buttons for key functions to give manufacturers the top safety rating, and it's working. Buttons are coming back.

Their source is "a Swedish motoring magazine in 2022". Europe sure does love regulation- no desire or call for finding the best way to implement vehicular controls, just a desire to lock in old functionality with a flimsy excuse.

LOL. Go do more research if you have issues with their approach. HN really likes to assume that everyone except themselves are idiots.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#122

Post by OptionOfT »

citelao wrote: post #2

OP here: I always disliked touchscreens in cars, so I didn't understand why automakers kept shoving them in. I always assumed I was weird in some way, and that most consumers preferred touchscreens or something (Reddit seems to argue this in circles all the time). I planned to keep buying Mazdas, with their lovely buttons and stuff. But when Mazda unveiled their button-lite 2026 CX-5 about a year ago, I started inves…

They are. All BMWs have the same screen.

It's one 1 screen, regardless of whether your car has heated seats, ventilated seats, sync, arm-rest warmers, separate blowers or a single blower.

Within 1 production line, say for the BMW 3 series, some people don't select heated seats, some do.

Now they only need to make 1 version of the plastic, and it's just a checkbox in the software to enable the heated seats.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#123

Post by vardump »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #41
gumby271 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the click-wheel on my Mazda3 and I love that it allows the screen to sit out of arms length up on the dashboard. Its a very nice interior. What I don't love is how Android Auto is slowly breaking since it assumes more and more that you have a touchscreen. It used to be that it would focus buttons in notifications, making it easy to interact with. Now the focus doesn't seem to change at all (or only sometimes)…

I cried when Mercedes go rid of the click wheel. Research in this article be damned, I’d argue that rotary knobs with directional shifting like Mercedes paired with great software are the best car infotainment interface in recent history for screens in cars.

Curiously Teslas currently have two click wheels in the steering wheel.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#124

Post by max8539 »

wvenable wrote: post #103
max8539 wrote: post #85

Not sure why the command knob in Mazda scares new users: it’s an option and you still could use the touch screen, it’s just a nice alternative for it… Absolutely love the command knob, so much better than using the touch screen

You cannot touch the touch screen on a Mazda with the commander knob unless you're in Carplay/Android Auto and only if you've found the buried setting to enable it. It is not an alternative for touch screen, it replaces it.

Oh, my bad, the touch screen isn’t working when the car is moving. But this is just a Mazda restriction, not a technical one.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#125

Post by max8539 »

wvenable wrote: post #112
max8539 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a knob, you always could stop what you are doing and look back at the road and then continue. With a touch screen, you need to find a button and touch it without looking at the road, or you need to do it from the start again.

I have this knob and I don't understand your point. With the knob or the touch screen, you need to look at the screen to see what you're doing. The knob merely controls a cursor. I find the knob considerably more distracting. First you have translate the motion of the knob to the cursor moving on the screen. Secondly, you have to cycle through all the options so you have to spend even more time looking at the screen.…

Yes, you still need to look at the screen but could pause this in any position of the selected item and continue after looking back at the road. I was driving an F150 with just a touch screen and it was much worse when I needed to find an item on the screen and try to touch it on a far-located screen in a shaking car.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#126

Post by wvenable »

max8539 wrote: post #125
wvenable wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this knob and I don't understand your point. With the knob or the touch screen, you need to look at the screen to see what you're doing. The knob merely controls a cursor. I find the knob considerably more distracting. First you have translate the motion of the knob to the cursor moving on the screen. Secondly, you have to cycle through all the options so you have to spend even more time looking at the screen.…

Yes, you still need to look at the screen but could pause this in any position of the selected item and continue after looking back at the road. I was driving an F150 with just a touch screen and it was much worse when I needed to find an item on the screen and try to touch it on a far-located screen in a shaking car.

In my experience, there is no advantage to pausing on some random icon I don't want. I always have to re-orient anyway. Tapping an icon on the screen is instantaneous. There's also some extra complexity in what grid of icons you currently have selected and how to move between them.

But that advantage goes away for any element that isn't currently on the screen. So navigating between pages or submenus or slide up drawers is much more fiddly than the dial and much more susceptible to the "car shake" issue.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#128

Post by scottyah »

Miraste wrote: post #120
scottyah wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot push physical buttons on a dashboard without taking your eyes off the road, it's a myth. Fiddling with radio controls is the most cited reason for accidents before cell phones.

? You most certainly can. That doesn't mean people do it 100% of the time.

You're right- it was a generalization. I think the amount of actual dashboard-button-pressing without looking away is extremely low, probably 1 button. The rest might be usable a quick glance, but so is a touchscreen.

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#129

Post by bijowo1676 »

drakythe wrote: post #13
bijowo1676 wrote: post #8

Voice interface is the future, just have voice assistant do everything without relying on knobs nor touch screen same way people just talk to claude code via whisper

Lordy I hope not. Cannot imagine having to childproof my car's entertainment system, or make sure I don't sing a trigger word, or try to turn on the defroster to dehumidify the windshield during an intense rain storm where I can barely hear myself think. Also: I don't want a microphone in my car at all times. Thank you.

Tesla has a button that activates microphone only when you want it (like push-to-talk)

Re: Car touchscreens are cheap, not good

#130

Post by Miraste »

scottyah wrote: post #128
Miraste wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? You most certainly can. That doesn't mean people do it 100% of the time.

You're right- it was a generalization. I think the amount of actual dashboard-button-pressing without looking away is extremely low, probably 1 button. The rest might be usable a quick glance, but so is a touchscreen.

I suppose that's true. I was thinking of my car, which has a lot of buttons on the steering wheel itself. They're easy to use without looking, since you don't have to change your hand position, and I control music entirely with those.
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