The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

Post by eszed » Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #200

arkh wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I posit you're unusual in your opinion. I mostly observe people use the climate control knob like a heater knob. If it's cold, the set temperature gets cranked up; if hot it gets cranked down.

Yeah, that's because climate control is crap. When I get into the car and it's 45° I want to a) get some hot air on my feet and hands, and b) warm the cabin up to a comfortable temperature ASAP. The standard climate control system doesn't do that, it sets the air temperature to roughly the target temperature and takes twenty minutes to get to something comfortable. I can "trick" it by setting the target temp to 95°, and then I'll actually get warm air.

I get that approach for AC, because cooling air takes energy, but there's no excuse for that behavior when (in an ICE car) you're warming the cabin with waste heat from the engine. Just give me some damn heat!

Fortunately, I have an old enough car that I can take manual control of the heater and blast it for a few minutes until I'm warm, and then switch over to climate control to maintain temp. Cars which don't have manual override have to be tricked by using the climate control like a heater knob. It's dumb, all around.

Post by amluto » Fri, Feb 14, 2025, 3:31 PM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #239

nottorp wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what exact generation of Tesla model 3 I've tried. It had a stalk not buttons but the stalk wasn't staying down or up, you pulled it and it went back to the center (or even didn't really move, not sure any more) and the turn signal stayed on for as long as the "AI" decided. And if you train the "AI" only on rectangular grid cities, that's a problem.

Yes the stalk doesn’t stay ticked in the direction of the signal. There are 4 “positions” on the stalk, two towards the left and two towards the right. On each side there is one all the way at the end of the throw, and one about 1/3 into the throw. You push it to the 1/3 mark to cancel the signal.

You push it to the 1/3 mark which way to cancel the signal? And what happens if the AI cancels the signal after you start trying to cancel but before you get to the 1/3 mark?

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars

Re: The subtle art of designing physical controls for cars