6 ms·

> these unwanted smart features Only within the niche HN-type tech crowd. Most people outside of this group want these features, even other techies, including

by dntrkv 5y ago

> these unwanted smart features Only within the niche HN-type tech crowd. Most people outside of this group want these features, even other techies, including myself. It's the same discussion on any thread involving smart devices. People want this stuff, that's why there have been over 200M standalone smart speakers sold. As far as why these things get bundled, that’s just how auto manufacturing works. Every unique configuration costs an additional overhead to the OEM. Bundling allows them to reduce this overhead.

sho_hn 5y ago
I'm always surprised how defeatist and negative the tech community's attitude towards computerized UX in cars is. Often the opinions are simplistic and dismissive instead of zooming into the details. It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I find it much more true that most car software simply isn't very good yet on average. Let's say most existing implementations of touch UIs in cars don't add value and are cumbersome to use, for example - but that just means they're individually badly realized, not that it's not worth trying. And in reality, it's also a much more nuanced "depending on the use case and the situation" or "impacted by bad performance". There are quality differences out there. And there's plenty of use cases in cars that benefit from a thorough software approach. This is an area with interesting problems to solve and plenty of innovation left to happen, and where hard and good work makes a mark.
- chucksta 5y ago
  Then they are charging their buyers 30k to beta test, and leaving buyers with no other option, which, I don't think most people are comfortable with. I think it's easily identifiable to the HN crowd, because most readers are very familiar with this process and the discomfort it can cause. Then you add on the argument of what they are doing with the information, and if they can be trusted..
  - sho_hn 5y ago
- mavhc 5y ago
  The problem is hardware people can't write software, nor can they put in decent hardware so the software is fast. Nor make it secure. That's why people buy Teslas, they're a software company that makes hardware on the side. And participates in hacker challenges, offering cars to the winners. No one actually wants cars with no computers, they just think they do because they don't realise how much computers do, like reduce the amount of wires by 10x, and output error messages on the level of a crappy microcontroller instead of maybe a flashing light if you're lucky
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    No, I really want a car with no computers. I want analog gauges, a real gear selector lever, and switches and knobs for other accessories. A tactile environment that doesn't demand my visual focus to use is what I want. I have no need for a computer in my car, and to the extent I do, my phone is perfectly capable.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      No engine control, no brake control, no airbags, no power steering, no engine starter, no automatic windows, no intermittent wipers, no central locking, no alarm system, no automatic lights
      - hilbert42 5y ago
        - Engine control - unnecessary, cars ran for 100 years without it. - Brakes work perfectly well without computers. - Airbags don't need computers, they work perfectly well by mechanical means. - Power steering works perfectly without computers or any electrics at all. Every car I've ever owned had mechanical power steering without any fancy electroics including my latest one. Why tamper with something that works perfectly well? - Engine starter? Cars have starter motors since just after the hand crank ers, computers were still nearly 100 years away when starter motors were introduced. - Automatic windows are a damn menace, they are reliably unreliable. When one failed - fortunately the driver's side - I had my garage man retrofit a traditional hand windup one. On the three remaining windows I got him to isolate them so they only worked on their individual switches. - Mechanical intermittent wipers have been around since at least WWII. No computers or electronics to go wrong and complicate matters. - Central locking on my last two cars has been a disaster. You obviously have never experienced a situation where the locking gets out of sync and some doors remain unlocked - unlock the others and then the unlocked ones lock and vice versa. - Where I live alarm systems are likely to get you a brick through your windscreen - not from burglars but from annoyed residents who are fed up with car alarm noise. - Automatic lights are another menace, you often can't control them, they switch off when you want to leave the lights and so on. (It seems to me that the designers of these systems never anticipate what we drivers actually need. Perhaps they only test them in the most tame and predictable environments.) All this gumph is unnecessary, it makes the car less reliable and more expensive to buy and fix. Moreover, they're impossible to fix when you're in places where there's no service mechanic or garage (out on the open road for instance - I've some excellent instances from long trips 3,000 - 4,000 miles anf of cars in convoy on rough roads. Cars with all these unnecessary gadgets were, without fail, the first to break down. And they were a disaster because none of us techies could improvise in the usual manner that we could do with a more traditional car, often we could be stranded for days whilst waiting a tow truck to come from hundreds of miles away. What's more that's hellishly expensive. You people are just gadget mad.
- bonestamp2 5y ago
  The big difference between cars and smartphones is that you can focus all of your attention on your smartphone screen to use it. That's not true for the driver of an automobile. The best automobile interfaces use knobs of different sizes and with different textures so that you can find them without looking. Buttons should be arranged in rows, so they are easy to find with a short look. Extremely common buttons should be located on the steering wheel. Etc. Until screens can offer some kind of dynamic tactile experience, where you can feel what you're about to control, they can't be better than real tactile buttons and knobs. Don't get me wrong, I love a big screen in my car for advanced features (360 camera, vehicle settings, navigation, music, etc). But the basics need to be tactile.
  - sho_hn 5y ago
    That's kind of what I mean: The discussion always starts and too often ends there. A couple of thoughts: - Already in the pre-touchscreen, button-dominated area, plenty of more complicated use cases had terrible UX, and in many cases touchscreens have made them much easier. For example, do you remember how difficult it often was to program radio presets in 80s head-units? There were a lot of real clunkers there. - There's plenty of newer use cases that would be hard or impossible to make easy with traditional hardware button UX, such as route and EV charge planning. - Good software offers many possibilities to avoid interactions altogether, or make them single-step instead of multi-step. A good screen-based system will now often suggest interactions pro-actively and situationally at the top-level of the system and reduce interaction to a single multi-modal (touch/gesture/speech) confirmation on what used to be multi-step processes. - Screens can offer tactile experiences - most recently with the introduction of screens that can do permanent haptic feedback via electrostatic friction coefficient modulation, emulating different surface feels as the finger moves. - You already mentioned features such as 360 degree cameras: If nothing else, screens are great for showing information. Interactions aside, this alone has a lot of legs left and there's absolutely quality differences between good and bad implementations. - There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good physical button (on the contrary - few things are more satisfying than a good, solid, weighty button) and having both for use in the appropriate situation. It doesn't mean there's no possible benefits from further investment into good car software. I feel a lot of this is rooted in first-hand experience with bad systems - which I agree are plentiful, and just as awful as a bad, clunky, unrefined phone onscreen keyboard. Dare to imagine a good one. Working on car systems means getting to own the form factor and the entire surroundings of a user, much more than working on software targeting rarely-changing phone and PC devices. It's an open field for software and hardware innovation and deserves a little more professional excitement and ambition to do it well.
- everdrive 5y ago
  > It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I absolutely hate my screens keyboard, and wish I could just buy a phone with a real physical keyboard. I get so angry trying to use this thing. It’s far less useful than a regular keyboard.
  - RunSet 5y ago
    A keyboard that can snitch on you is a privacy invader's wet dream.
prova_modena 5y ago
I'm going to push back on this statement, as I spend my day-to-day more immersed in the non-techy car world than in the HN tech world. I see a lot of frustration with new tech features among car reviewers and enthusiasts. You can read almost any car-related social media forums and see ire directed at stuff like complicated touchscreen-driven interfaces and flaky emergency braking systems. I also know many older folks who simply ignore and avoid all these tech features that now come standard on luxury vehicles. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but I don't think there's widespread acceptance of this stuff as you imply.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  the world of car reviewers and enthusiasts is also a bubble that's pretty far removed from what typical car owners care about. I care about hard buttons, analog tachs, manual transmissions, etc., but most people I know really don't. they are somewhere between complete apathy and genuine appreciation for all the new tech features. mainly they just want some form of awd crossover that makes them feel safe.
  - sklargh 5y ago
    There are a fair number of reviewers out there (Catchpole, Savagegeese) who are starting to savage some of this stuff. Physical buttons are a safety feature.
adamrezich 5y ago
my dad has been trading his truck in every few years for as long as I've been alive. every time he would get new bells and whistles to play around with and it made him happy. his last truck trade-in, two years ago, was miserable. the new Ford truck had all kinds of shit he'd never use like a wi-fi hotspot and such, but with all these new doodads came more points of failure—he took it to the shop to get something fixed multiple times per week for a few weeks before selling the truck and getting a more simple & reliable SUV instead. people want fancy bells & whistles in their vehicles right up until it makes them a maintenance nightmare—you want your car to just work, like they largely used to.
wolverine876 5y ago
> Most people outside of this group want these features Most people have little idea what features they have, besides the obvious ones. Read through some of the features listed for a car - some aren't even explained.
bonestamp2 5y ago
I do like bluetooth, power seat memory, 360 cameras, etc. But please, for the love of usability, don't bury all of the HVAC and Audio controls in a touchscreen menu. I want real knobs and buttons for all of that stuff. Even Volvo, a company focused on safety, moved nearly all of the HVAC controls to their touchscreen.
karaterobot 5y ago
The only data I have is anecdotal, but I ask people about this all the time. Some people seem to like the idea of an infotainment system, or rely on it for car trips with kids, but I have not heard any drivers who prefer touchscreens to physical controls. I know that I, personally, love having a backup camera, but don't need or a screen for anything else, and would prefer physical controls for most things. Unfortunately that's not an option in most vehicles, so I am kind of coming to the conclusion that my next car will be an older model that's "dumb", since this is an overall better experience. I don't think you could use the number of sales of cars with this kind of UI as evidence that people like it, since (the article mentions this) car manufacturers want to put it everywhere, regardless of popularity. It's got so many benefits from their side. It's not that I think they forced it on people, I think it was originally a cool novelty that people were excited about. But, after the novelty wore off, and a lot of people stopped wanting it in their cars, the industry had so fully committed to it that people just don't have the option to do without it these days.
- lariati 5y ago
  Totally agree. A backup camera actually has utility. I like the blind spot warning system quite a bit too. Most everything else is just technological kitsch. This isn't that new though. Stereo systems have had equalizers forever even though almost everyone is just going to make already mastered audio sound worse by filtering it. That is not the point really of an equalizer. It is just to have a series of useless controls that will never be used but looks cool when you first see it. Pure technological kitsch.
kspacewalk2 5y ago
Nah. Most non-techies I've talked to about this are very frustrated with the move to touch screens and "smart" features they never use. This is particularly true, basically universal, among people over 50.
- klyrs 5y ago
  As a techie, I hate touch screens replacing what should be tactile buttons/knobs/switches that can be used without taking my eyes off the road. I don't mind them for a nav system. But, in many cars, they've stripped the radio and A/C controls and put them behind menus in a touch screen which has a dozen other screens that I never use. I don't care about all that garbage. I need to be able to adjust the A/C and the radio without taking my eyes off the road. And I don't need a default-always-bright screen in the cabin messing up my night vision. I was glad to find that setting buried in a menu somewhere, but holy crap.

by dntrkv 5y ago

sho_hn 5y ago

I'm always surprised how defeatist and negative the tech community's attitude towards computerized UX in cars is. Often the opinions are simplistic and dismissive instead of zooming into the details. It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I find it much more true that most car software simply isn't very good yet on average. Let's say most existing implementations of touch UIs in cars don't add value and are cumbersome to use, for example - but that just means they're individually badly realized, not that it's not worth trying. And in reality, it's also a much more nuanced "depending on the use case and the situation" or "impacted by bad performance". There are quality differences out there. And there's plenty of use cases in cars that benefit from a thorough software approach. This is an area with interesting problems to solve and plenty of innovation left to happen, and where hard and good work makes a mark.

chucksta 5y ago
Then they are charging their buyers 30k to beta test, and leaving buyers with no other option, which, I don't think most people are comfortable with. I think it's easily identifiable to the HN crowd, because most readers are very familiar with this process and the discomfort it can cause. Then you add on the argument of what they are doing with the information, and if they can be trusted..
- sho_hn 5y ago
mavhc 5y ago
The problem is hardware people can't write software, nor can they put in decent hardware so the software is fast. Nor make it secure. That's why people buy Teslas, they're a software company that makes hardware on the side. And participates in hacker challenges, offering cars to the winners. No one actually wants cars with no computers, they just think they do because they don't realise how much computers do, like reduce the amount of wires by 10x, and output error messages on the level of a crappy microcontroller instead of maybe a flashing light if you're lucky
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  No, I really want a car with no computers. I want analog gauges, a real gear selector lever, and switches and knobs for other accessories. A tactile environment that doesn't demand my visual focus to use is what I want. I have no need for a computer in my car, and to the extent I do, my phone is perfectly capable.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    No engine control, no brake control, no airbags, no power steering, no engine starter, no automatic windows, no intermittent wipers, no central locking, no alarm system, no automatic lights
    - hilbert42 5y ago
      - Engine control - unnecessary, cars ran for 100 years without it. - Brakes work perfectly well without computers. - Airbags don't need computers, they work perfectly well by mechanical means. - Power steering works perfectly without computers or any electrics at all. Every car I've ever owned had mechanical power steering without any fancy electroics including my latest one. Why tamper with something that works perfectly well? - Engine starter? Cars have starter motors since just after the hand crank ers, computers were still nearly 100 years away when starter motors were introduced. - Automatic windows are a damn menace, they are reliably unreliable. When one failed - fortunately the driver's side - I had my garage man retrofit a traditional hand windup one. On the three remaining windows I got him to isolate them so they only worked on their individual switches. - Mechanical intermittent wipers have been around since at least WWII. No computers or electronics to go wrong and complicate matters. - Central locking on my last two cars has been a disaster. You obviously have never experienced a situation where the locking gets out of sync and some doors remain unlocked - unlock the others and then the unlocked ones lock and vice versa. - Where I live alarm systems are likely to get you a brick through your windscreen - not from burglars but from annoyed residents who are fed up with car alarm noise. - Automatic lights are another menace, you often can't control them, they switch off when you want to leave the lights and so on. (It seems to me that the designers of these systems never anticipate what we drivers actually need. Perhaps they only test them in the most tame and predictable environments.) All this gumph is unnecessary, it makes the car less reliable and more expensive to buy and fix. Moreover, they're impossible to fix when you're in places where there's no service mechanic or garage (out on the open road for instance - I've some excellent instances from long trips 3,000 - 4,000 miles anf of cars in convoy on rough roads. Cars with all these unnecessary gadgets were, without fail, the first to break down. And they were a disaster because none of us techies could improvise in the usual manner that we could do with a more traditional car, often we could be stranded for days whilst waiting a tow truck to come from hundreds of miles away. What's more that's hellishly expensive. You people are just gadget mad.
bonestamp2 5y ago
The big difference between cars and smartphones is that you can focus all of your attention on your smartphone screen to use it. That's not true for the driver of an automobile. The best automobile interfaces use knobs of different sizes and with different textures so that you can find them without looking. Buttons should be arranged in rows, so they are easy to find with a short look. Extremely common buttons should be located on the steering wheel. Etc. Until screens can offer some kind of dynamic tactile experience, where you can feel what you're about to control, they can't be better than real tactile buttons and knobs. Don't get me wrong, I love a big screen in my car for advanced features (360 camera, vehicle settings, navigation, music, etc). But the basics need to be tactile.
- sho_hn 5y ago
  That's kind of what I mean: The discussion always starts and too often ends there. A couple of thoughts: - Already in the pre-touchscreen, button-dominated area, plenty of more complicated use cases had terrible UX, and in many cases touchscreens have made them much easier. For example, do you remember how difficult it often was to program radio presets in 80s head-units? There were a lot of real clunkers there. - There's plenty of newer use cases that would be hard or impossible to make easy with traditional hardware button UX, such as route and EV charge planning. - Good software offers many possibilities to avoid interactions altogether, or make them single-step instead of multi-step. A good screen-based system will now often suggest interactions pro-actively and situationally at the top-level of the system and reduce interaction to a single multi-modal (touch/gesture/speech) confirmation on what used to be multi-step processes. - Screens can offer tactile experiences - most recently with the introduction of screens that can do permanent haptic feedback via electrostatic friction coefficient modulation, emulating different surface feels as the finger moves. - You already mentioned features such as 360 degree cameras: If nothing else, screens are great for showing information. Interactions aside, this alone has a lot of legs left and there's absolutely quality differences between good and bad implementations. - There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good physical button (on the contrary - few things are more satisfying than a good, solid, weighty button) and having both for use in the appropriate situation. It doesn't mean there's no possible benefits from further investment into good car software. I feel a lot of this is rooted in first-hand experience with bad systems - which I agree are plentiful, and just as awful as a bad, clunky, unrefined phone onscreen keyboard. Dare to imagine a good one. Working on car systems means getting to own the form factor and the entire surroundings of a user, much more than working on software targeting rarely-changing phone and PC devices. It's an open field for software and hardware innovation and deserves a little more professional excitement and ambition to do it well.
everdrive 5y ago
> It's similar to when onscreen keyboards in phones where "obviously never going to work" when now, most people probably wouldn't want to give up the screen real estate for a hardware keyboard, except even more one-note. I absolutely hate my screens keyboard, and wish I could just buy a phone with a real physical keyboard. I get so angry trying to use this thing. It’s far less useful than a regular keyboard.
- RunSet 5y ago
  A keyboard that can snitch on you is a privacy invader's wet dream.

prova_modena 5y ago

I'm going to push back on this statement, as I spend my day-to-day more immersed in the non-techy car world than in the HN tech world. I see a lot of frustration with new tech features among car reviewers and enthusiasts. You can read almost any car-related social media forums and see ire directed at stuff like complicated touchscreen-driven interfaces and flaky emergency braking systems. I also know many older folks who simply ignore and avoid all these tech features that now come standard on luxury vehicles. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but I don't think there's widespread acceptance of this stuff as you imply.

leetcrew 5y ago
the world of car reviewers and enthusiasts is also a bubble that's pretty far removed from what typical car owners care about. I care about hard buttons, analog tachs, manual transmissions, etc., but most people I know really don't. they are somewhere between complete apathy and genuine appreciation for all the new tech features. mainly they just want some form of awd crossover that makes them feel safe.
- sklargh 5y ago
  There are a fair number of reviewers out there (Catchpole, Savagegeese) who are starting to savage some of this stuff. Physical buttons are a safety feature.

adamrezich 5y ago

my dad has been trading his truck in every few years for as long as I've been alive. every time he would get new bells and whistles to play around with and it made him happy. his last truck trade-in, two years ago, was miserable. the new Ford truck had all kinds of shit he'd never use like a wi-fi hotspot and such, but with all these new doodads came more points of failure—he took it to the shop to get something fixed multiple times per week for a few weeks before selling the truck and getting a more simple & reliable SUV instead. people want fancy bells & whistles in their vehicles right up until it makes them a maintenance nightmare—you want your car to just work, like they largely used to.

wolverine876 5y ago

> Most people outside of this group want these features Most people have little idea what features they have, besides the obvious ones. Read through some of the features listed for a car - some aren't even explained.

bonestamp2 5y ago

I do like bluetooth, power seat memory, 360 cameras, etc. But please, for the love of usability, don't bury all of the HVAC and Audio controls in a touchscreen menu. I want real knobs and buttons for all of that stuff. Even Volvo, a company focused on safety, moved nearly all of the HVAC controls to their touchscreen.

karaterobot 5y ago

The only data I have is anecdotal, but I ask people about this all the time. Some people seem to like the idea of an infotainment system, or rely on it for car trips with kids, but I have not heard any drivers who prefer touchscreens to physical controls. I know that I, personally, love having a backup camera, but don't need or a screen for anything else, and would prefer physical controls for most things. Unfortunately that's not an option in most vehicles, so I am kind of coming to the conclusion that my next car will be an older model that's "dumb", since this is an overall better experience. I don't think you could use the number of sales of cars with this kind of UI as evidence that people like it, since (the article mentions this) car manufacturers want to put it everywhere, regardless of popularity. It's got so many benefits from their side. It's not that I think they forced it on people, I think it was originally a cool novelty that people were excited about. But, after the novelty wore off, and a lot of people stopped wanting it in their cars, the industry had so fully committed to it that people just don't have the option to do without it these days.

lariati 5y ago
Totally agree. A backup camera actually has utility. I like the blind spot warning system quite a bit too. Most everything else is just technological kitsch. This isn't that new though. Stereo systems have had equalizers forever even though almost everyone is just going to make already mastered audio sound worse by filtering it. That is not the point really of an equalizer. It is just to have a series of useless controls that will never be used but looks cool when you first see it. Pure technological kitsch.

kspacewalk2 5y ago

Nah. Most non-techies I've talked to about this are very frustrated with the move to touch screens and "smart" features they never use. This is particularly true, basically universal, among people over 50.

klyrs 5y ago
As a techie, I hate touch screens replacing what should be tactile buttons/knobs/switches that can be used without taking my eyes off the road. I don't mind them for a nav system. But, in many cars, they've stripped the radio and A/C controls and put them behind menus in a touch screen which has a dozen other screens that I never use. I don't care about all that garbage. I need to be able to adjust the A/C and the radio without taking my eyes off the road. And I don't need a default-always-bright screen in the cabin messing up my night vision. I was glad to find that setting buried in a menu somewhere, but holy crap.