Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles • Hacker News Board

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#551

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

moftz wrote: post #318

agumonkey wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a company selling ergonomics improvement kits for cars.

You can buy little bluetooth remote controls that strap onto your steering wheel. They don't look great and you have to charge them. The charge thing is really annoying now that many cars turn off the power outlets when the car is off. I remember never really having a dead battery in my devices because they could just charge while I was parked either at work or running errands.

solar powered bluetooth remote

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#552

Post by baybal2 » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

dillonmckay wrote: post #361

baybal2 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market already exists: car improvement stuff on taobao is sold by tonnes: from the same independent DC-DC, and ECU interfaces to projection huds, and complete dashboard revamps I still think the bash car dashboard was that of Honda Beat or Suzuki Cara — no dashboard, with just a motorcycle style gauge, and non-driving related controls almost wholely on steering wheel levers.

Any good links for projections HUDs? My cousin had a Pontiac in the late 90s that would project the speed on the windshield.

【车萝卜 HUD 抬头显示器汽车通用车载多功能显示速度转速时间】https://m.tb.cn/h.efAuVoU?sm=8ee47b 点击链接，再选择浏览器咑閞；或復·制这段描述￥XAN5YfMKXp2￥后到淘寳

【车萝卜2代汽车抬头显示器hud 汽车通用无线导航车载机器人】https://m.tb.cn/h.eU77dAA?sm=d1a047 点击链接，再选择浏览器咑閞；或復·制这段描述￥QASsYfMqMWi￥后到淘寳.

Carrobot is an actual projector, thus there are no questions about focus adjustments.

Other are usually just segment led or el screens, some with collimator, some without

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#553

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

dillonmckay wrote: post #361

baybal2 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market already exists: car improvement stuff on taobao is sold by tonnes: from the same independent DC-DC, and ECU interfaces to projection huds, and complete dashboard revamps I still think the bash car dashboard was that of Honda Beat or Suzuki Cara — no dashboard, with just a motorcycle style gauge, and non-driving related controls almost wholely on steering wheel levers.

Any good links for projections HUDs? My cousin had a Pontiac in the late 90s that would project the speed on the windshield.

I bought a stupid semi reflective sheet to put google maps on my smartphone under.. not good enough of course.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#554

Post by briandear » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

lloeki wrote: post #217

blattimwind wrote: post #194

It's funny how the dashboard UI of lower-end cars tends to be consistently better than higher-end cars, because low end cars simply have a bunch of buttons that you can use without taking your eyes of the road. Sometimes even the location of controls is much better in low end cars; the VW up! comes to mind with all important controls located directly next to the steering wheel. Beautiful. In other cars just switching…

My current and favorite car is a '08 Euro Civic (Type-R). The whole design and layout of things there is pure genius, thoroughly designed from first principles. It takes many people aback but the hierarchy of information is very well thought out: critical up the wheel†† that you can read without taking eyes off the road (speed, turn signals, RPM limit, live cam profile (from ECU cam phasing/VTEC as an eco progress ba…

That interior makes me think of a Cirrus airplane. Very cool. Cirrus has done some pretty amazing things with the button layout and overall UX for glass panel small aircraft.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#555

Post by Fins » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

jbigelow76 wrote: post #496

marapuru wrote: post #47

Praise to Mazda for making this decision. As a User Experience Professional, I was never able to grasp the true user's need for touch screens in cars. For years I have been working on product interfaces (not just apps). Many studies I conducted actually told me that people favored analog controls over digital touch screens controls. It gives you tactile feedback, making it accessible for anyone with sense of touch. >…

> Audi, for instance has said that part of the reason it’s discontinuing its rotary controller is that a touchscreen better supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This to me is insane reasoning. That is no way user centric. This decision is 100% business driven and has nothing to do with the end user. That statement isn't true, Car Play support for me was a non-negotiable for the car I purchased two years ago. Anot…

But you can do CarPlay/AAuto without the touchscreen idiocy.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#556

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

jordache wrote: post #380

agumonkey wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't wait for pocket computers to follow too.

nope! touch sscreen UI has safety implications inside a motor vehicle. pocket computer's usage scope is way broader than inside a car, and you REQUIRE the infinite UI possibility provided by a pure touch interface

Still a massive limitation to be expected to use the device eyes on and high attention. I get that this is the trend but it's still not a good qualitative point.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#557

Post by legohead » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

My 2018 Mazda infotainment and overall "technicality" is just sad. I want to say we are in some weird middle ground where car manufacturers are trying to catch up to modern engineering, or maybe Mazda just doesn't care.

1. It has terrible bluetooth lag. I like to sit in my car at lunch and eat and watch YouTube, Netflix, etc. but I have to disconnect bluetooth because the 2-4 second lag is unbearable. I don't have this problem with my other cars.

2. The keyfob drives me insane. If I get out of the car and leave it running, keyfob in hand, I can't unlock the back doors. I have to open the driver door and do it manually. I also can't lock the car while it's running with the keyfob. I guess Mazda would rather my children have heatstroke while I go in and grab something from the store. I have the keyfob in my hand! And the car knows it.

3. The touchscreen and overall UI is slowwwww. Strangely, the rearview camera boots up and displays superfast, which is the only nice thing I can say about the car's technical features. Switching from radio to bluetooth is an annoyingly long process. The main bootup is excruciatingly long as well. If I'm 5 minutes from home I just don't bother with any sound and mute everything because I'm already on my way and driving by the time it's able to do anything.

4. They charge you to add on Android Auto. Even if I did get this option, you have to get to it thru their already-mentioned slow system, so I don't even know if I'd use it. And you have to plug in the phone. Faster and easier to just put the phone on the magnetic holder and go.

I could go on but this is long enough already. I really like the car otherwise, but I'll be checking my next purchase very carefully when it comes to the technical side.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#558

Post by gerbilly » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #508

gerbilly wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, you're just making my point for me. I mean you said app twice in it. Ten years ago, nothing was mediated via an app, somehow we managed to survive. Now almost everyone has been turned into a phone zombie. You're wasting your lives people! FOMO is entirely backwards, you shouldn't be afraid of missing out on something in your phone, you should be afraid of missing out on your entire life.

10 years ago we still had in-car GPS's, but instead of being an app it was a standalone device, I don't see how that makes anything better. Having my car read a SMS from my wife reminding me to pick up eggs from the store on the way home hardly seems like being a zombie. We survived without a lot of things we have now that we didn't have 10, or even 100 years ago, but that doesn't mean we were better off without them…

It doesn't immediately mean we're better off with them either.

I'd argue that life is worse since smartphones were invented, on many axes.

The privacy implications alone far outweigh the benefits.

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#559

Post by Piskvorrr » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

potta_coffee wrote: post #528

toyg wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The steering wheel is where most of this stuff should be all the time. The second you force me to reposition my hand, security levels drop off a cliff, since you get involuntary movement on the other side (as proven by this post) and likely take your eyes off the road, which is bad even for a split second. I know this for a fact, having crashed a car on a motorway as I was turning down the fan (controlled by an analo…

Have you ever driven a stick shift?

That's a single control that's located in a highly ergonomical position - you take your hand off the wheel, and the stick is just right there. Contrast to radio/AC with inadequate/zero tactile feedback. "Stop looking at the stick, it's not going anywhere" is literally one of the first things I had drilled into me when learning to drive. (The involuntary movement comes from looking away from the road: you drop out of the feedback loop for a moment.)

Re: Mazda is purging touchscreens from its vehicles

#560

Post by mataug » Mon, Jun 17, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

The AndroidAuto / Apple carplay in newer Subarus accepts both rotary controls, and I always end up using the rotary controls as often as possible when driving. This is because the touch screen is harder to accurately press when driving, compared the rotary dials.

On that note I also want to mention that Maps on Apple carplay has a terrible UI which could potentially be dangerous. To move around the map, one has to use arrow buttons on the touch screen. We can't move the map by just dragging on the map like on a cellphone.

I believe this is an effort to avoid driver distraction. But people, including me, keep trying to move it anyway while driving since its so instinctive, and when the map fails to move it adds additional distraction by having the driver investigate.