The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars • Hacker News Board

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#181

Post by 51Cards » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #32

51Cards wrote: post #16

Kudos for to the author for the work put into this and the intelligence functions are interesting. I do have a couple concerns though. A. Trying to design down to two knobs makes each knob multi-modal. This removes a lot of muscle memory benefits requiring a glance at a screen, a small screen that is now partially covered by your hand while operating the knob. Haptic feedback might be able to help you know what mode…

I think the multi-modal stuff can be mostly fixed by dedicated mode selection buttons, which can be blindly pressed to enter a specific mode. The logical option would be to place them around the dial like a pie chart, as that would be trivial to find without looking. Place those buttons underneath the dial instead and you can use the display as a clear mode indicator as well, without the hand obscuring it. You could…

Agreed to rotating the knob on the second point... but it looks like a touch screen to change modes? Or is it a physical push button under the knob? I may have been unclear on how the knob functions.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#182

Post by usmanmehmood55 » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

scottbez1 wrote: post #14

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smart knob you made is genuinely one of the best hardware creations I have ever seen. I only wish that I was creative enough to think up good uses for it so that I could put it to work, lol.

Haha, I've built at least 5 of them and my problem is that I enjoy the hardware/design portion as a hobby, but writing the software to put them to use feels too much like my day job, so I haven't actually done anything too useful yet...

I was just thinking about this while checking out the Seedlabs page.

Because now it is somewhat commercially available, and a lot of people (including myself) that previously weren't thinking of having this just because of the hasstle of assembling it themselves, can now consider buying a pre-made unit and play around with it.

I was thinking that it'd be REALLY GREAT if there was an easy way of making "apps" for this smart knob. Kind of like watchfaces or pebble apps. Anything to make it easier for people to play around with this. Maybe a lightweight SDK or something.

I'd be more than happy to contribute to such a thing, but doing this alone is too daunting of a task.

Side note, the 245 EUR price by Seedlabs is equally daunting :(

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#183

Post by sklargh » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

A bit late but for those of you who still really like physical controls , want a family capable vehicle (I’ve done 3 nights with two under five) and something off the beaten path it’s hard to go wrong with the Audi A4 allroad wagon. Absolutely fantastic suspension and pretty quick for a family wagon. Midrange package gets you adaptive cruise control and all the other safety stuff. Mild hybrid.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#184

Post by HPsquared » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

Lanolderen wrote: post #173

arkh wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you set a target temp You should be able to set 2 temps. Early morning in summer: temperature is under 15°C, no need to heat over 20°C. Evening: outside is 30°C, I don't need 20°C in the car anymore but 25ish would be perfect. A 2 temperatures setting or 1 temperature + delta would prevent having to change it every time I enter the car.

The issue I see with AUTO most often is noise. Almost every time I've disabled AUTO was in the beginning of a drive while talking to someone having to yell over the fans or just going to move my car 10 meters and it just being annoyingly loud. The temp I don't believe you can really fix. Sometimes I throw my jacket in the back, sometimes I keep it on, sometimes I'm tired or my stomach is upset and I want it to be a s…

Some cars have an option for how "intense" you want the system to be.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#185

Post by arkh » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #167

arkh wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you set a target temp You should be able to set 2 temps. Early morning in summer: temperature is under 15°C, no need to heat over 20°C. Evening: outside is 30°C, I don't need 20°C in the car anymore but 25ish would be perfect. A 2 temperatures setting or 1 temperature + delta would prevent having to change it every time I enter the car.

You don't need any of that. You just need a knob that ranges from make as cold as you can to make as hot as you can and a reasonable fine grain in between. I can find the right set point because I'm literally sat next to the knob and I'm a better control system than anything they can come up with.

And I'm a lazy fucker: I want to set a temperature range and then not bother until I sell the car. Under the range? Heat it. Over? Freeze it. But a range, not a single point. So if the temperature is between min and max, the AC stays off.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#186

Post by amluto » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:07 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #172

robertlagrant wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BMW's first iteration of iDrive was very ill-received, and so they improved it. I think launching a global car brand is pretty difficult, even if you don't like the guy.

But I test drove a Tesla and besides the stupid tablet controls the smart turn stalks couldn't hold a turn signal when turning left at a crossroads that wasn't at 90 degrees. That's life threatening if you ask me. No, I don't need to know Musk's politics to avoid his cars. Of course, it's well known that BMWs come without a turn stalk so maybe it seems normal if you compare those two brands :)

My biggest objection to modern smart turn signal stalks is that you can’t turn the turn signal off easily. Sometimes the signal is on, I want it off, and there simply is no way to do it reliably. The old latching stalks could be moved to the center position, and the signal would turn off every time.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#187

Post by queuebert » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

The blog writer's final design is basically what Ford uses in the F-series these days. But Ford's dials have a couple of functions that I didn't see mentioned. First, when you turn the temperature dial all the way hot and push hard into the stop, it turns on max defrost, and all the way cold and push is max A/C. Also, if the system is off, it turns on when you turn either dial. The dials are also large and rubbery for gripping with dirty hands or with gloves on, something a lot of manufacturers seem to ignore.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#188

Post by dupays » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

A pet peeve of mine is that climate controls shouldn't just have a single temperature setting but an acceptable range. In winter 18(c) is quite acceptable. In summer it's too cold. Ideally I'd set a temp range of 18-22(c). If the temp goes outside that the AC should move it back within range.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#189

Post by dupays » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

arkh wrote: post #164

nottorp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how the knobs normally work. And the original poster describes how "automatic a/c" or "climate controls" have always worked in cars, you set a target temp and they handle fan speed and air temperature. Why does the article want to make a multifunction dial with no tactile feedback? Have they only ever driven a Tesla?

> you set a target temp You should be able to set 2 temps. Early morning in summer: temperature is under 15°C, no need to heat over 20°C. Evening: outside is 30°C, I don't need 20°C in the car anymore but 25ish would be perfect. A 2 temperatures setting or 1 temperature + delta would prevent having to change it every time I enter the car.

I just wrote the same thing. It seems obvious. Set range and forget.

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

#190

Post by yial » Wed, Feb 12, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

Lanolderen wrote: post #173

arkh wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you set a target temp You should be able to set 2 temps. Early morning in summer: temperature is under 15°C, no need to heat over 20°C. Evening: outside is 30°C, I don't need 20°C in the car anymore but 25ish would be perfect. A 2 temperatures setting or 1 temperature + delta would prevent having to change it every time I enter the car.

The issue I see with AUTO most often is noise. Almost every time I've disabled AUTO was in the beginning of a drive while talking to someone having to yell over the fans or just going to move my car 10 meters and it just being annoyingly loud. The temp I don't believe you can really fix. Sometimes I throw my jacket in the back, sometimes I keep it on, sometimes I'm tired or my stomach is upset and I want it to be a s…

From my experience: BMW, Subaru, and Mazda the auto settings are worthless / not functional.
Audi is okay.
The best I’ve found is Infiniti, which 2013 ish on, the auto settings are perfect 99% of the time.
(This of course means, you do have to adjust the temperature setting, but once set the fans spinning up and down are perfect along with the heat moderation. )

BMW could be user error on my part. The longest I’ve used a BMW is 3 weeks, with probably 9 weeks of total usage, and while I tried to get the auto settings to work, on multiple models it was nothing but agony for me.