14 ms·

Modern cars seem to be moving towards all controls on a touch screen somewhere. I suppose this allows for more frequent updates, but in my experience it just le

Modern cars seem to be moving towards all controls on a touch screen somewhere. I suppose this allows for more frequent updates, but in my experience it just leads to more bugs and more painful factory updates. Not to mention using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
I have grown to heavily dislike the whole smartify everything. Haptic feedback is a core part of how humans process the world, and to remove it in favor of more frequent updates seems like a naive decision at best. Flatness in phones works because we can use our full attention - which is also why car accidents happen when people use it while driving.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  > Flatness in phones works because we can use our full attention I very much agree with you, and would like to add that flatness in phones is a feature because today phones are pocket computers, and computers should be able to provide any arbitrary UI to function as such. Cars on the other hand are not a computer nor are they intended to function as one. The fact that modern cars expose part of their on-board computer to the driver is no excuse to treat any capability that may be handled by said computer as something exclusively accessible via a touchscreen UI, especially when its something that is expected to be interacted with while driving (audio playback control, climate control, windscreen wipers, etc.). A touchscreen is fine for features that should not be done while driving and did not exist or were not easily accessible prior to the ubiquity of touchscreens in cars. For all intents and purposes those are computer features. However, subjecting anything that was previously available via mechanical interaction to it is an unacceptable regression.
  - DonHopkins 4y ago
    I've heard Teslas described as "iPads with Wheels".
    - meristem 4y ago
      And an iPhone as a computer that can also make calls.
      - wrycoder 4y ago
        Who makes calls anymore?
ratww 4y ago
I really wonder if the possibility of updates alone can make software worse. Because you don't have to "get it right" on the first try. And the updates always contain something more than bug and security fixes, which often help keeping the quality of the experience low, despite fixed bugs. All the smart TVs I ever had lasted a long long time physically, but after a couple years they invariably started being noticeable slower than when I bought. The same happened to a guitar effects unit I had: changing patches became somewhat slower after update. And the battery of a wireless guitar transmitter I had now only lasts half the time it used to after the update. I honestly can say I dread updating almost any software today.
- sanitycheck 4y ago
  Yes. It'll have more bugs to begin with because the software team has no hard deadline to meet. Then it'll accumulate more bugs over time as "features" are added (while existing bugs are ignored). Then after 2-4 years nobody will be working on it any more and within 6-8 years it may no longer function at all or it may have well known never-to-be-patched security holes. I try to avoid buying tech that can be updated, and tech that can connect to the internet in general.
- fendy3002 4y ago
  Not to mention that corporates have incentives to downgrade the devices the older it gets.
- corrral 4y ago
  > I really wonder if the possibility of updates alone can make software worse. Absolutely does. You see this in console video games. As soon as online updates became possible, game-breaking bugs at launch became practically the norm, instead of incredibly rare (minor bugs were common enough before ["I AM ERROR"], sure, but game-breaking ones, while not unheard of, were rare). Charging $60 for a late-alpha-quality product.
  - dontcare007 4y ago
    "Fail fast" in action, to the detriment of drivers everywhere.
h3mb3 4y ago
I also imagine this trend is bad from the ergonomics / RSI perspective. For generations, we've been using various kinds of per-appliance controls, with various shapes, sizes and stiffnesses. Since the past 10 years almost all of them have been replaced by a flat piece of glass. People are increasingly doing only a couple of motions with their hands throughout the day without any variety (tap/drag without any tactile feedback).
- rambambram 4y ago
  Agree! The fine sensitive movements of fingers (or better, lack of movement) that are required by touch screens can become very annoying. No possibility to rest your finger on a button. Accidentally touching somewhere else in the UI. Et cetera. These kinds of things are small, but add up pretty quickly in a world getting filled with capacitive touch screens.
- meristem 4y ago
  I recall a Car Talk episode many years ago where the discussion about BMW’s big knob for multiple functions was filled with negative statements. Tactile feedback and navigation were issues.
  - bombela 4y ago
    I have a 20y old BMW with the idrive knob. I find it excellent. This is because the knob contains a motor to simulate various detent and other virtual stops. So you actually have a really fine tactile feedback. You can navigate menus without looking the screen. It can act as a spring, a rotary encoder, a joystick, small detent, big detent, etc.
undefinedzero 4y ago
More bugs definitely, but car manufacturers put so much effort into QA for the essential features that they really just short on never are released broken. Changing the temperature while driving on a good touch interface is trivial and incredibly far from incredibly dangerous. Besides with CC systems nowadays people look at the set temperature just as often. More advanced features like toggling internal air circulation do require a peek, but so do the buttons on most classical cars where you have multiple buttons in a row with unlit icons. I still prefer buttons for the tactile feel and feedback, but the downsides you listed are pretty much made up. The great benefit of a touch screen is unlimited update capabilities. It seems absurd to me that there are still cars rolling off the factory line that have unupdatable software in 2022. Your car is basically outdated and replaceable by something better within a year. That’s great for the manufacturers, but not for the customer. Compare that to a 3+ year old Tesla which works almost as good as a brand new one despite big upgrades to their internals, largely thanks to regular updates.
- Joeri 4y ago
  I still prefer buttons for the tactile feel and feedback, but the downsides you listed are pretty much made up. Or, maybe your personal experience doesn’t translate to everyone, and touch controls are indeed dangerously distracting for most people. What we need here is evidence (user studies) and not anecdote, but anecdotally I can say operating a touch screen without looking at it directly is not something I’m capable of doing, even for things I use often.
- arky527 4y ago
  > Changing the temperature while driving on a good touch interface is trivial and incredibly far from incredibly dangerous Looking away for even ~3s at motorway speeds is 100m driven without looking at whats in front of you, I'd say that's fairly dangerous > The great benefit of a touch screen is unlimited update capabilities It also introduces a single point of failure for any features on it, at least with physical buttons you stand more chance of operating other parts of the car if one breaks.
- usrn 4y ago
  Changing the temperature on a touch screen will always suck even the UI is completely modeless (imagine that!) On my car I can just press my hand against the console without looking and feel around for the controls. You can not do this with a touch screen no matter how good the interface is.
nkrisc 4y ago
The touch screens are the only thing keeping me on dino juice cars. I want to go electric, but they all have these awful touchscreens! I don’t want to navigate a menu to change the temperature or turn on a seat warmer. I’m just not buying an EV until there’s one that doesn’t rely on a giant touch screen for everything or I can’t buy an ICE vehicle anymore.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  Some korean brand was moving to physical buttons again, but I can't find which.
  - sosull 4y ago
    I think Honda have returned to at least partial physical controls for heating, air, and music for the Honda e. But it still has a lot of screen.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Backup cameras are legally mandated on new us vehicles. The screens are not going anywhere so they're going to get used for other stuff too.
      - nkrisc 4y ago
        I don’t mind a small screen that isn’t involved in common cabin features. I have a 2018 Mazda3 and I like the backup camera. But I can control the climate control and temperature with physical buttons. The seat warmers have buttons. I can control the volume with a knob or on the steering wheel. The radio, unfortunately, is software. Seems like that much is unavoidable. But the small screen that is there is secondary to everything else I want to control while driving and I don’t ever need to use while driving. I’m typically using Apple CarPlay (or previously Android Auto) so if I do need to do something, I can use voice controls and at least keep my eyes on the road. I don’t mind small screens, as you said, they’re not going away. What I don’t want is a giant screen that controls everything.
causi 4y ago
It seems that Star Trek was incredibly prescient when they depicted literally every interface as a touchscreen.
- Syonyk 4y ago
  It's more the case that Star Trek's lack of budget has driven the modern world in that direction, because that was clearly "the future." Apparently they wanted the Apollo style space-age interfaces with all the knobs and switches. Just, they didn't have the budget, and paint was cheaper. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/how-star-trek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/how-star-trek-artist... > According to Michael Okuda, original Star Trek art director Matt Jefferies had practically no budget. "He had to invent an inexpensive, but believable solution," he told Ars. "The spacecraft of the day, such as the Gemini capsules, were jammed full of toggle switches and gauges. If he had had the money to buy those things, the Enterprise would have looked a lot like that." > What could be simpler to make than a flat surface with no knobs, buttons, switches, or other details? Okuda designed a user interface dominated large type and sweeping, curved rectangles. The style was first employed in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for the Enterprise-A, and came to be referred to as "okudagrams." The graphics could be created on transparent colored sheets very cheaply, though as ST:TNG progressed, control panels increasingly used video panels or added post-production animations.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  And the reason of course, was because it was super cheap and easy to modify. In the 32nd century, tho, they use programmable matter because people like tactile feedback, it turns out.
- Izkata 4y ago
  Well, TNG-era and afterwards at least. The original series was all knobs and buttons. (Aside, in the novels they came up with a reason for this: During the Earth-Romulan war they had to go partially low-tech to avoid the Romulan telecapture technology, a technology they'd just developed to remotely hack into and control enemy starships. Apparently the design kept for ~100 years up through TOS when they finally learned more about the Romulans.)
usa-name 4y ago
I think car manufacturers will ultimately move towards voice assistants for these sort of tasks.
- adwww 4y ago
  Which is useless when you have regional non-us accents, or have the windows open, or a crying baby.
  - _notathrowaway 4y ago
    Thank you, voice recognition systems suck when you have an accent or too much background noise.
    - ncpa-cpl 4y ago
      I hope they do that with non-cloud voice recognition My family tried an Echo Auto for voice control in one of our cars last year, but we ended up disconnecting it. We drive through hills and mountains often, and it was common for voice commands to be ignored or to have seconds in latency because of spotty mobile network. It worked OK in cities, as long as you were not on an underground parking lot, which was a common occurrence.
30944836 4y ago
>Not to mention using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road. I understand this concern and opinion. I just wish that people who had this opinion realized that their car has a very modern voice interface that can reliably understand commands for temperature changes. I know, I know, it's not the buttons you're used to, and these systems used to be very bad. But give it a shot sometime. I was impressed with Tesla's implementation, and I imagine the rest of the industry has caught up too. The best part is, it's the safest method of all, because it doesn't require taking either your hands or your eyes off the road. So if safety is your jam (and it ought to be!), this is really the best solution.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  I don't think it's as prevalent as you think. My partner's car interface is almost all touch, including the temperature controls, but there's no voice interface. Luckily, my vehicle has no touch interfaces at all and everything is much more reliable than their's, not even including the time when half their screen stopped responding to touch.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  In my opinion all voice interfaces I have used (with the exception of very especialized software like Dragon Naturally Speaking) seem to have terrible locale settings for anything other than American English. So sure if you are willing to talk to your car like you're a CNN news anchor, then yes voice interfaces are great and far safer than touch screens.
- tomc1985 4y ago
  As someone who has a physical condition that makes speaking sometimes very unpleasant, the last thing I want in my car is a voice-only interface. Also, cue the skit about the thick scottish-accented guy trying to activate a voice-activated elevator... Buttons, please. And only buttons.
  - me_smith 4y ago
    Had to look up the skit. Thank you for the laugh. The link for those wishing to watch and skip a google search: https://youtu.be/NMS2VnDveP8 https://youtu.be/NMS2VnDveP8
zippergz 4y ago
I don't consider more frequent updates to be a good thing, either. Yes, of course, I want things to be fixed if they're broken. But when automakers take the route of smartphone apps, where they're updating once a month or more, changing UI, moving things around, adding unnecessary features, it's really not what I want in a car. I don't want touch screen control at all, but if I must have it, I REALLY want the UI to stay the same and the controls to stay in the same place. I don't want some random over the air update to be able to break what little muscle memory I might have built up to use the touch screen interface effectively.
gompertz 4y ago
Cadillac driver here (2021 model). I believe it's one of the very few new vehicles that have a physical button for every feature. Granted there is a lot of buttons, it's very nice you don't even have to use the touchscreen ever if you don't want. I theorize this could be due to the age demographic of majority of their buyers, that they have retained all physical buttons.
- corrral 4y ago
  IMO the UI preferences of people (yeah, often older people) who are bad with technology are often the best for most folks—the rest of us have just learned to work through the pain of other interfaces, rather than demanding better. Most of the stuff they don't like slows down or confuses me, too, it's just not a show-stopper because I know how to get past it.
d3sandoval 4y ago
We have a PHEV from Chevy (the Volt) and it has the best dashboard ever. Knobs for the stuff you want (A/C, Volume, Skip, etc.) And touchscreen for the stuff you don't (GPS, Apple/Android Auto, etc.)
- rstupek 4y ago
  Teslas have the same knobs and buttons (A/C, volume, skip, pause resume) on the steering wheel
LocalH 4y ago
This is where I think regulation works, to a degree. Most states in the US already ban using handheld devices in a non-hands free capacity (which excludes almost every usage except for navigation and voice-activated messaging and calling), and this should also apply to auto manufacturers with regards to touchscreens in cars. The liability would rest with the manufacturers, since they are the ones installing the touch screens and requiring drivers use them.
woopwoop 4y ago
My toyota Corolla has a touch screen for interacting with audio. It has the following delightful features: - latency - it has a boot procedure when you turn the car on. While this happens, the controls have quite substantial latency. However the first thing that happens is it begins playing audio. - there is a knob for adjusting volume, but it's still part of the same system as the rest of it. There is still substantial latency to this control, especially immediately upon turning the car on. However even a little latency here is really annoying, because one naturally adjusts volume via trial and error. - if you've paired the car with your phone via Bluetooth, it immediately sends a message to your phone to start playing whatever audio was played most recently at whatever the current volume is. I wrote a tasker routine to intercept this, but an android patch a while back helpfully broke this and I haven't bothered fixing it. All of this combines for a user experience dramatically worse than an aux cord. It's kind of spectacular in its terribleness. And this is an otherwise great car.
- SCNP 4y ago
  This is another benefit of truly analog manual controls: Memory. Used to be your stereo volume knob was just at a certain level; when you turned it on it was at that level. Now they're all software controlled. At least some stereo equipment maintains this paradigm but I'm with you on the phone volume as it's dictated by your phone and the volume for one device could be drastically different than another.
- Arrath 4y ago
  The wild variability in boot times for the entertainment center is what gets me. Sometimes, my bluetooth will start playing immediately, other times the car company's logo will grace the screen for a good 30 seconds before I can interact with it at all. There doesn't seem to be any relation to frequency of starting it up, time since the last drive, etc.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Running fsck. We're now in the era of low effort embedded systems. Just slap Linux on it and don't bother tuning for usability in non-desktop use cases.
RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
Agreed. I feel people should start replacing touchscreens with physical buttons/dials with small LED screens on them --- their functions and behaviours can be programmed to change on demand while retaining tactile feedbacks.
izacus 4y ago
> I suppose this allows for more frequent updates, but in my experience it just leads to more bugs and more painful factory updates. What is allows for is: cost cutting. Not having to install a mask, a button, wire harness and QA everything is a massive manufacturing cost saving. It speeds up production and lowers the amount of components that need to be sourced, installed and later made available for replacement as part of a service. This is the same situation as with Electron apps - the savings aren't for YOU the USER, the savings are for person MAKING the thing. They get all the benefit at the cost of your user experience.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
  They get the cost of a costly user experience, which isn't nothing.
- lostgame 4y ago
  >> This is the same situation as with Electron apps - the savings aren't for YOU the USER, the savings are for person MAKING the thing. They get all the benefit at the cost of your user experience. I hate Electron as much as the next average HN user, but isn't the benefit of Electron actually kinda for the user as well as the developer, in the sense that Electron is basically a one-stop shop for porting to other platforms? For instance, Microsoft Teams is written in Electron. This means the application is pretty damn well identical whether users within my company are using Windows or Mac computers. There are advantages to that. I'd say for myself, Unity is a great example of where, basically; if I went 'native', I would really only be supporting one platform, like I used to when I did game dev in the late 90's and early 00's. But Unity gives me the power to flip a switch, and then all my friends can play pretty much the same copy of my game on any platform of their choosing. It also means if there are bugs on one platform, they usually show up on another as well; making QE and addressing bugs a little bit easier, making for a better user experience. Not a fan of Electron, just saying that there are benefits to the user for using such a system.
  - basisword 4y ago
    >> This means the application is pretty damn well identical whether users within my company are using Windows or Mac computers. There are advantages to that. Disadvantages too. Unlike a website, I want the software on my computer to take advantage of the native UI and other features unique to the OS. If Electron didn't exist MS would still build teams for multiple platforms. It would disadvantage small developers but the majority of users (who use well known software developed by large companies) lose out on the prior mentioned benefits thanks to Electrons existence.
martin_a 4y ago
> using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving I've read this argument again and again but I wonder: How often do you people change the temperature in your car? Mine is set to 21°C since two years, never felt the need to change it.
- hnbad 4y ago
  Multiple times a year, mostly in late spring and autumn, and that's infrequent compared to some people I know. People use cars differently. Your experience may not be universal just because it is consistent. Besides individual variation people also differ in whether and how many passengers they regularly transport and how many drivers share the car (e.g. my wife and I share one car and often drive together).
- kingrazor 4y ago
  Constantly.
- bombela 4y ago
  Probably because you have an expensive enough car, that actually does a good job at regulating the cabine temperature. In my cheap pickup I have to constantly adjust temperature and fan speed. In my old German "ultimate driving machine", it's set and forget.
elliottkember 4y ago
I did a car stereo design question during a job interview once. "Design your ideal car stereo" was the prompt. I said that all I wanted was a bluetooth button and a volume knob. They pressed me for details, and I said the volume knob needed to have a minimum and maximum threshold. I guess that worked, because I got the job. I ended up giving this exercise to a lot of candidates. About 30% said they would project the UI onto the windshield.
- rurp 4y ago
  I actually test drove a car last year that projected the speedometer onto the windshield in an attempt to make it look like it was overlaying the road. It was terrible! Before even leaving the parking lot I clarified with the sales rep that this "feature" was optional, because there was no way I was buying a car with it.
dontcare007 4y ago
License agreement screens to use a vehicle you have purchased. I despair that our profession has brought this to fruition. Plus, 'features' locked behind pay walls. Crazy town.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  And agree to accept the nag screen before the car will start. Soon: “You need to return the call from your mom before the car will start for home.” Etc.
StillBored 4y ago
Its not just touch screens vs physical controls. Far to many of the recent cars with buttons are designed by people who apparently never drove the automobile in question. For example, AC fan controls were in the past simple sliders, or knobs, you could crank it to max when one enters a hot car, then put it at the 25% (or whatever speed) without taking your eyes off the road, in a matter of a fraction of a second placing, what was usually a unique control, in a particular position. These days the digitization of everything means that modern cars with physical controls usually have up/down buttons to change the fan speed or temp. So like the Ford Flex I rented recently, you can't tell from touching the physical control whether the fan is at max speed, so the sequence is, look on the console for the right button (because there are were a half dozen or so identical buttons next to each other), hold it down, while listening to the fan speed until it sounds like its stopped getting faster. Then when you want to slow down, one has to look/feel for the button, hold it for a second or two until it seems to be roughly at the right speed, try not to over/unershoot because its laggy/etc. Some of this is the result of climate controls designed to hold a given temp rather than setting the fan speed directly, where the assumption is the fan will run at max until it reaches it set point. But that is annoying in a whole other set of cases, including the one where the car isn't doing a good job of circulating the air causing a hotspot on the sunny side/etc. On my wife's car I find myself pushing the climate controls to max cool when I get in because its trying to run in "silent" mode, or waiting for the AC to come up to full pressure and I want it to cool down faster, then I have to look at the controls to reset it back to something reasonable when it finally starts to reach a comfortable temp.
CogitoCogito 4y ago
I wonder if there's a list somewhere of "dumb things you need to check when looking into a new car"? Most of these issues are things that are hard to notice ahead of time or during a test drive so it's kind of extra worrying to me.
wgx 4y ago
Totally agree. Despite the move to touchscreens in cars over the years - they're acually terrible for usability and safety. The lack of tactile feedback and the fact that buttons can move position and appearance from app-to-app means that they require much more cognitive load than physical buttons. Putting a trimmed-down Android tablet into a car is cheaper for manufacturers, but it's bad for usability. There's been some research done that finds touchscreens are more distracting than drink or drug driving: https://www.ala.co.uk/connect/in-car-touchscreens-more-dangerous-than-drink-or-drug-driving/ https://www.ala.co.uk/connect/in-car-touchscreens-more-dange...
Melatonic 4y ago
Yeah I hate this. Part of the reason I do not like the interior of all Tesla vehicles. I test drove one and asked the salesmen what happens if the screen breaks - he told me that it actually happened to his Tesla and that because of parts shortages it took months and months to get it fixed. When this happens all you can do is drive the car and open and close the windows essentially - no sunroof, no AC, nothing.
- frosted-flakes 4y ago
  I'm surprised that Tesla's cars even have window buttons. They've eliminated everything else.
Animats 4y ago
Screens are not the real issue. The real issue is whether you have to look at it to set it. There are annoying devices which have a very small number of tactile buttons, and overload them with multiple functions. Monitors, watches, and clocks tend to be especially bad, because the user interface is not used much. So you get some tiny unlabeled buttons, and have to consult the manual to find out when you need a short press, a long press, a press and hold, a two button press, or a paper clip. Another class of annoying devices is point of sale systems. Some say they're ready for your card but really aren't - the store's system and the credit card terminal are not sufficiently aware of each other's state. Some have a RFID sensor, but it's not clear where the sensor is. Or when it's listening. Some are just really slow. Probably because they're doing too much in a busy "cloud". However, POS systems do work better today. I haven't had a transaction totally fail to be completed in several years.
99_00 4y ago
>Modern cars seem to be moving towards all controls on a touch screen somewhere They aren't. Your car may be a poorly designed exception. The things you need to use need to do while driving can usually be done with controls on the steering wheel. If you need visual feedback while using your steering wheel controls you can glance at the dashboard screen. >using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road Your car is poorly designed. You can adjust the temp on MANY new cars without the touch screen with simple up down buttons and very clear temperature with its own always on display.
waynesonfire 4y ago
It's a cost cutting strategy and it sucks. A screen and software is cheap at scale.
CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
I'm thinking some manufacturers might be catching on to the downsides of touchscreen controls. I did a test drive of the previous generation Honda Civic, and it had touchscreen climate controls. I wound up getting a 2022 Honda Civic which has physical dials for all climate controls. Though, as an aside, dials for temperature and fan speed are fine, but they also use a dial for changing which vents the air comes out of, which makes no sense. Also, the dials rotate infinitely, even though the ranges are finite. It means I still have to look to see what the setting is at, instead of being able to tell by feel. By comparison, the 1992 Honda Civic climate controls are way better: https://i.imgur.com/r8JjjNw.png https://i.imgur.com/r8JjjNw.png
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > Though, as an aside, dials for temperature and fan speed are fine, but they also use a dial for changing which vents the air comes out of, which makes no sense. Also, the dials rotate infinitely, even though the ranges are finite. It means I still have to look to see what the setting is at, instead of being able to tell by feel. Yikes. I know I'm just a nobody on the internet, but if I worked at Honda in any position of power, I would do everything in my power to get the people responsible for rubber-stamping this fired. This is unacceptable for a modern vehicle.
  - CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
    Regardless of how bad it is, it's a step up from touchscreen interfaces, which means it actually is acceptable by modern vehicle standards. But I agree that by objective standards, it's unacceptable.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago

I have grown to heavily dislike the whole smartify everything. Haptic feedback is a core part of how humans process the world, and to remove it in favor of more frequent updates seems like a naive decision at best. Flatness in phones works because we can use our full attention - which is also why car accidents happen when people use it while driving.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Mordisquitos 4y ago
> Flatness in phones works because we can use our full attention I very much agree with you, and would like to add that flatness in phones is a feature because today phones are pocket computers, and computers should be able to provide any arbitrary UI to function as such. Cars on the other hand are not a computer nor are they intended to function as one. The fact that modern cars expose part of their on-board computer to the driver is no excuse to treat any capability that may be handled by said computer as something exclusively accessible via a touchscreen UI, especially when its something that is expected to be interacted with while driving (audio playback control, climate control, windscreen wipers, etc.). A touchscreen is fine for features that should not be done while driving and did not exist or were not easily accessible prior to the ubiquity of touchscreens in cars. For all intents and purposes those are computer features. However, subjecting anything that was previously available via mechanical interaction to it is an unacceptable regression.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  I've heard Teslas described as "iPads with Wheels".
  - meristem 4y ago
    And an iPhone as a computer that can also make calls.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      Who makes calls anymore?

ratww 4y ago

I really wonder if the possibility of updates alone can make software worse. Because you don't have to "get it right" on the first try. And the updates always contain something more than bug and security fixes, which often help keeping the quality of the experience low, despite fixed bugs. All the smart TVs I ever had lasted a long long time physically, but after a couple years they invariably started being noticeable slower than when I bought. The same happened to a guitar effects unit I had: changing patches became somewhat slower after update. And the battery of a wireless guitar transmitter I had now only lasts half the time it used to after the update. I honestly can say I dread updating almost any software today.

sanitycheck 4y ago
Yes. It'll have more bugs to begin with because the software team has no hard deadline to meet. Then it'll accumulate more bugs over time as "features" are added (while existing bugs are ignored). Then after 2-4 years nobody will be working on it any more and within 6-8 years it may no longer function at all or it may have well known never-to-be-patched security holes. I try to avoid buying tech that can be updated, and tech that can connect to the internet in general.
fendy3002 4y ago
Not to mention that corporates have incentives to downgrade the devices the older it gets.
corrral 4y ago
> I really wonder if the possibility of updates alone can make software worse. Absolutely does. You see this in console video games. As soon as online updates became possible, game-breaking bugs at launch became practically the norm, instead of incredibly rare (minor bugs were common enough before ["I AM ERROR"], sure, but game-breaking ones, while not unheard of, were rare). Charging $60 for a late-alpha-quality product.
- dontcare007 4y ago
  "Fail fast" in action, to the detriment of drivers everywhere.

h3mb3 4y ago

I also imagine this trend is bad from the ergonomics / RSI perspective. For generations, we've been using various kinds of per-appliance controls, with various shapes, sizes and stiffnesses. Since the past 10 years almost all of them have been replaced by a flat piece of glass. People are increasingly doing only a couple of motions with their hands throughout the day without any variety (tap/drag without any tactile feedback).

rambambram 4y ago
Agree! The fine sensitive movements of fingers (or better, lack of movement) that are required by touch screens can become very annoying. No possibility to rest your finger on a button. Accidentally touching somewhere else in the UI. Et cetera. These kinds of things are small, but add up pretty quickly in a world getting filled with capacitive touch screens.
meristem 4y ago
I recall a Car Talk episode many years ago where the discussion about BMW’s big knob for multiple functions was filled with negative statements. Tactile feedback and navigation were issues.
- bombela 4y ago
  I have a 20y old BMW with the idrive knob. I find it excellent. This is because the knob contains a motor to simulate various detent and other virtual stops. So you actually have a really fine tactile feedback. You can navigate menus without looking the screen. It can act as a spring, a rotary encoder, a joystick, small detent, big detent, etc.

undefinedzero 4y ago

More bugs definitely, but car manufacturers put so much effort into QA for the essential features that they really just short on never are released broken. Changing the temperature while driving on a good touch interface is trivial and incredibly far from incredibly dangerous. Besides with CC systems nowadays people look at the set temperature just as often. More advanced features like toggling internal air circulation do require a peek, but so do the buttons on most classical cars where you have multiple buttons in a row with unlit icons. I still prefer buttons for the tactile feel and feedback, but the downsides you listed are pretty much made up. The great benefit of a touch screen is unlimited update capabilities. It seems absurd to me that there are still cars rolling off the factory line that have unupdatable software in 2022. Your car is basically outdated and replaceable by something better within a year. That’s great for the manufacturers, but not for the customer. Compare that to a 3+ year old Tesla which works almost as good as a brand new one despite big upgrades to their internals, largely thanks to regular updates.

Joeri 4y ago
I still prefer buttons for the tactile feel and feedback, but the downsides you listed are pretty much made up. Or, maybe your personal experience doesn’t translate to everyone, and touch controls are indeed dangerously distracting for most people. What we need here is evidence (user studies) and not anecdote, but anecdotally I can say operating a touch screen without looking at it directly is not something I’m capable of doing, even for things I use often.
arky527 4y ago
> Changing the temperature while driving on a good touch interface is trivial and incredibly far from incredibly dangerous Looking away for even ~3s at motorway speeds is 100m driven without looking at whats in front of you, I'd say that's fairly dangerous > The great benefit of a touch screen is unlimited update capabilities It also introduces a single point of failure for any features on it, at least with physical buttons you stand more chance of operating other parts of the car if one breaks.
usrn 4y ago
Changing the temperature on a touch screen will always suck even the UI is completely modeless (imagine that!) On my car I can just press my hand against the console without looking and feel around for the controls. You can not do this with a touch screen no matter how good the interface is.

nkrisc 4y ago

The touch screens are the only thing keeping me on dino juice cars. I want to go electric, but they all have these awful touchscreens! I don’t want to navigate a menu to change the temperature or turn on a seat warmer. I’m just not buying an EV until there’s one that doesn’t rely on a giant touch screen for everything or I can’t buy an ICE vehicle anymore.

spaniard89277 4y ago
Some korean brand was moving to physical buttons again, but I can't find which.
- sosull 4y ago
  I think Honda have returned to at least partial physical controls for heating, air, and music for the Honda e. But it still has a lot of screen.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Backup cameras are legally mandated on new us vehicles. The screens are not going anywhere so they're going to get used for other stuff too.
    - nkrisc 4y ago
      I don’t mind a small screen that isn’t involved in common cabin features. I have a 2018 Mazda3 and I like the backup camera. But I can control the climate control and temperature with physical buttons. The seat warmers have buttons. I can control the volume with a knob or on the steering wheel. The radio, unfortunately, is software. Seems like that much is unavoidable. But the small screen that is there is secondary to everything else I want to control while driving and I don’t ever need to use while driving. I’m typically using Apple CarPlay (or previously Android Auto) so if I do need to do something, I can use voice controls and at least keep my eyes on the road. I don’t mind small screens, as you said, they’re not going away. What I don’t want is a giant screen that controls everything.

causi 4y ago

It seems that Star Trek was incredibly prescient when they depicted literally every interface as a touchscreen.

Syonyk 4y ago
It's more the case that Star Trek's lack of budget has driven the modern world in that direction, because that was clearly "the future." Apparently they wanted the Apollo style space-age interfaces with all the knobs and switches. Just, they didn't have the budget, and paint was cheaper. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/how-star-trek-artists-imagined-the-ipad-23-years-ago/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/how-star-trek-artist... > According to Michael Okuda, original Star Trek art director Matt Jefferies had practically no budget. "He had to invent an inexpensive, but believable solution," he told Ars. "The spacecraft of the day, such as the Gemini capsules, were jammed full of toggle switches and gauges. If he had had the money to buy those things, the Enterprise would have looked a lot like that." > What could be simpler to make than a flat surface with no knobs, buttons, switches, or other details? Okuda designed a user interface dominated large type and sweeping, curved rectangles. The style was first employed in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for the Enterprise-A, and came to be referred to as "okudagrams." The graphics could be created on transparent colored sheets very cheaply, though as ST:TNG progressed, control panels increasingly used video panels or added post-production animations.
QuercusMax 4y ago
And the reason of course, was because it was super cheap and easy to modify. In the 32nd century, tho, they use programmable matter because people like tactile feedback, it turns out.
Izkata 4y ago
Well, TNG-era and afterwards at least. The original series was all knobs and buttons. (Aside, in the novels they came up with a reason for this: During the Earth-Romulan war they had to go partially low-tech to avoid the Romulan telecapture technology, a technology they'd just developed to remotely hack into and control enemy starships. Apparently the design kept for ~100 years up through TOS when they finally learned more about the Romulans.)

usa-name 4y ago

I think car manufacturers will ultimately move towards voice assistants for these sort of tasks.

adwww 4y ago
Which is useless when you have regional non-us accents, or have the windows open, or a crying baby.
- _notathrowaway 4y ago
  Thank you, voice recognition systems suck when you have an accent or too much background noise.
  - ncpa-cpl 4y ago
    I hope they do that with non-cloud voice recognition My family tried an Echo Auto for voice control in one of our cars last year, but we ended up disconnecting it. We drive through hills and mountains often, and it was common for voice commands to be ignored or to have seconds in latency because of spotty mobile network. It worked OK in cities, as long as you were not on an underground parking lot, which was a common occurrence.

30944836 4y ago

>Not to mention using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road. I understand this concern and opinion. I just wish that people who had this opinion realized that their car has a very modern voice interface that can reliably understand commands for temperature changes. I know, I know, it's not the buttons you're used to, and these systems used to be very bad. But give it a shot sometime. I was impressed with Tesla's implementation, and I imagine the rest of the industry has caught up too. The best part is, it's the safest method of all, because it doesn't require taking either your hands or your eyes off the road. So if safety is your jam (and it ought to be!), this is really the best solution.

nvrspyx 4y ago
I don't think it's as prevalent as you think. My partner's car interface is almost all touch, including the temperature controls, but there's no voice interface. Luckily, my vehicle has no touch interfaces at all and everything is much more reliable than their's, not even including the time when half their screen stopped responding to touch.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
In my opinion all voice interfaces I have used (with the exception of very especialized software like Dragon Naturally Speaking) seem to have terrible locale settings for anything other than American English. So sure if you are willing to talk to your car like you're a CNN news anchor, then yes voice interfaces are great and far safer than touch screens.
tomc1985 4y ago
As someone who has a physical condition that makes speaking sometimes very unpleasant, the last thing I want in my car is a voice-only interface. Also, cue the skit about the thick scottish-accented guy trying to activate a voice-activated elevator... Buttons, please. And only buttons.
- me_smith 4y ago
  Had to look up the skit. Thank you for the laugh. The link for those wishing to watch and skip a google search: https://youtu.be/NMS2VnDveP8 https://youtu.be/NMS2VnDveP8

zippergz 4y ago

I don't consider more frequent updates to be a good thing, either. Yes, of course, I want things to be fixed if they're broken. But when automakers take the route of smartphone apps, where they're updating once a month or more, changing UI, moving things around, adding unnecessary features, it's really not what I want in a car. I don't want touch screen control at all, but if I must have it, I REALLY want the UI to stay the same and the controls to stay in the same place. I don't want some random over the air update to be able to break what little muscle memory I might have built up to use the touch screen interface effectively.

gompertz 4y ago

Cadillac driver here (2021 model). I believe it's one of the very few new vehicles that have a physical button for every feature. Granted there is a lot of buttons, it's very nice you don't even have to use the touchscreen ever if you don't want. I theorize this could be due to the age demographic of majority of their buyers, that they have retained all physical buttons.

corrral 4y ago
IMO the UI preferences of people (yeah, often older people) who are bad with technology are often the best for most folks—the rest of us have just learned to work through the pain of other interfaces, rather than demanding better. Most of the stuff they don't like slows down or confuses me, too, it's just not a show-stopper because I know how to get past it.

d3sandoval 4y ago

We have a PHEV from Chevy (the Volt) and it has the best dashboard ever. Knobs for the stuff you want (A/C, Volume, Skip, etc.) And touchscreen for the stuff you don't (GPS, Apple/Android Auto, etc.)

rstupek 4y ago
Teslas have the same knobs and buttons (A/C, volume, skip, pause resume) on the steering wheel

LocalH 4y ago

This is where I think regulation works, to a degree. Most states in the US already ban using handheld devices in a non-hands free capacity (which excludes almost every usage except for navigation and voice-activated messaging and calling), and this should also apply to auto manufacturers with regards to touchscreens in cars. The liability would rest with the manufacturers, since they are the ones installing the touch screens and requiring drivers use them.

woopwoop 4y ago

My toyota Corolla has a touch screen for interacting with audio. It has the following delightful features: - latency - it has a boot procedure when you turn the car on. While this happens, the controls have quite substantial latency. However the first thing that happens is it begins playing audio. - there is a knob for adjusting volume, but it's still part of the same system as the rest of it. There is still substantial latency to this control, especially immediately upon turning the car on. However even a little latency here is really annoying, because one naturally adjusts volume via trial and error. - if you've paired the car with your phone via Bluetooth, it immediately sends a message to your phone to start playing whatever audio was played most recently at whatever the current volume is. I wrote a tasker routine to intercept this, but an android patch a while back helpfully broke this and I haven't bothered fixing it. All of this combines for a user experience dramatically worse than an aux cord. It's kind of spectacular in its terribleness. And this is an otherwise great car.

SCNP 4y ago
This is another benefit of truly analog manual controls: Memory. Used to be your stereo volume knob was just at a certain level; when you turned it on it was at that level. Now they're all software controlled. At least some stereo equipment maintains this paradigm but I'm with you on the phone volume as it's dictated by your phone and the volume for one device could be drastically different than another.
Arrath 4y ago
The wild variability in boot times for the entertainment center is what gets me. Sometimes, my bluetooth will start playing immediately, other times the car company's logo will grace the screen for a good 30 seconds before I can interact with it at all. There doesn't seem to be any relation to frequency of starting it up, time since the last drive, etc.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Running fsck. We're now in the era of low effort embedded systems. Just slap Linux on it and don't bother tuning for usability in non-desktop use cases.

RyEgswuCsn 4y ago

Agreed. I feel people should start replacing touchscreens with physical buttons/dials with small LED screens on them --- their functions and behaviours can be programmed to change on demand while retaining tactile feedbacks.

izacus 4y ago

> I suppose this allows for more frequent updates, but in my experience it just leads to more bugs and more painful factory updates. What is allows for is: cost cutting. Not having to install a mask, a button, wire harness and QA everything is a massive manufacturing cost saving. It speeds up production and lowers the amount of components that need to be sourced, installed and later made available for replacement as part of a service. This is the same situation as with Electron apps - the savings aren't for YOU the USER, the savings are for person MAKING the thing. They get all the benefit at the cost of your user experience.

0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
They get the cost of a costly user experience, which isn't nothing.
lostgame 4y ago
>> This is the same situation as with Electron apps - the savings aren't for YOU the USER, the savings are for person MAKING the thing. They get all the benefit at the cost of your user experience. I hate Electron as much as the next average HN user, but isn't the benefit of Electron actually kinda for the user as well as the developer, in the sense that Electron is basically a one-stop shop for porting to other platforms? For instance, Microsoft Teams is written in Electron. This means the application is pretty damn well identical whether users within my company are using Windows or Mac computers. There are advantages to that. I'd say for myself, Unity is a great example of where, basically; if I went 'native', I would really only be supporting one platform, like I used to when I did game dev in the late 90's and early 00's. But Unity gives me the power to flip a switch, and then all my friends can play pretty much the same copy of my game on any platform of their choosing. It also means if there are bugs on one platform, they usually show up on another as well; making QE and addressing bugs a little bit easier, making for a better user experience. Not a fan of Electron, just saying that there are benefits to the user for using such a system.
- basisword 4y ago
  >> This means the application is pretty damn well identical whether users within my company are using Windows or Mac computers. There are advantages to that. Disadvantages too. Unlike a website, I want the software on my computer to take advantage of the native UI and other features unique to the OS. If Electron didn't exist MS would still build teams for multiple platforms. It would disadvantage small developers but the majority of users (who use well known software developed by large companies) lose out on the prior mentioned benefits thanks to Electrons existence.

martin_a 4y ago

> using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving I've read this argument again and again but I wonder: How often do you people change the temperature in your car? Mine is set to 21°C since two years, never felt the need to change it.

hnbad 4y ago
Multiple times a year, mostly in late spring and autumn, and that's infrequent compared to some people I know. People use cars differently. Your experience may not be universal just because it is consistent. Besides individual variation people also differ in whether and how many passengers they regularly transport and how many drivers share the car (e.g. my wife and I share one car and often drive together).
kingrazor 4y ago
Constantly.
bombela 4y ago
Probably because you have an expensive enough car, that actually does a good job at regulating the cabine temperature. In my cheap pickup I have to constantly adjust temperature and fan speed. In my old German "ultimate driving machine", it's set and forget.

elliottkember 4y ago

I did a car stereo design question during a job interview once. "Design your ideal car stereo" was the prompt. I said that all I wanted was a bluetooth button and a volume knob. They pressed me for details, and I said the volume knob needed to have a minimum and maximum threshold. I guess that worked, because I got the job. I ended up giving this exercise to a lot of candidates. About 30% said they would project the UI onto the windshield.

rurp 4y ago
I actually test drove a car last year that projected the speedometer onto the windshield in an attempt to make it look like it was overlaying the road. It was terrible! Before even leaving the parking lot I clarified with the sales rep that this "feature" was optional, because there was no way I was buying a car with it.

dontcare007 4y ago

License agreement screens to use a vehicle you have purchased. I despair that our profession has brought this to fruition. Plus, 'features' locked behind pay walls. Crazy town.

wrycoder 4y ago
And agree to accept the nag screen before the car will start. Soon: “You need to return the call from your mom before the car will start for home.” Etc.

StillBored 4y ago

Its not just touch screens vs physical controls. Far to many of the recent cars with buttons are designed by people who apparently never drove the automobile in question. For example, AC fan controls were in the past simple sliders, or knobs, you could crank it to max when one enters a hot car, then put it at the 25% (or whatever speed) without taking your eyes off the road, in a matter of a fraction of a second placing, what was usually a unique control, in a particular position. These days the digitization of everything means that modern cars with physical controls usually have up/down buttons to change the fan speed or temp. So like the Ford Flex I rented recently, you can't tell from touching the physical control whether the fan is at max speed, so the sequence is, look on the console for the right button (because there are were a half dozen or so identical buttons next to each other), hold it down, while listening to the fan speed until it sounds like its stopped getting faster. Then when you want to slow down, one has to look/feel for the button, hold it for a second or two until it seems to be roughly at the right speed, try not to over/unershoot because its laggy/etc. Some of this is the result of climate controls designed to hold a given temp rather than setting the fan speed directly, where the assumption is the fan will run at max until it reaches it set point. But that is annoying in a whole other set of cases, including the one where the car isn't doing a good job of circulating the air causing a hotspot on the sunny side/etc. On my wife's car I find myself pushing the climate controls to max cool when I get in because its trying to run in "silent" mode, or waiting for the AC to come up to full pressure and I want it to cool down faster, then I have to look at the controls to reset it back to something reasonable when it finally starts to reach a comfortable temp.

CogitoCogito 4y ago

I wonder if there's a list somewhere of "dumb things you need to check when looking into a new car"? Most of these issues are things that are hard to notice ahead of time or during a test drive so it's kind of extra worrying to me.

wgx 4y ago

Totally agree. Despite the move to touchscreens in cars over the years - they're acually terrible for usability and safety. The lack of tactile feedback and the fact that buttons can move position and appearance from app-to-app means that they require much more cognitive load than physical buttons. Putting a trimmed-down Android tablet into a car is cheaper for manufacturers, but it's bad for usability. There's been some research done that finds touchscreens are more distracting than drink or drug driving: https://www.ala.co.uk/connect/in-car-touchscreens-more-dangerous-than-drink-or-drug-driving/ https://www.ala.co.uk/connect/in-car-touchscreens-more-dange...

Melatonic 4y ago

Yeah I hate this. Part of the reason I do not like the interior of all Tesla vehicles. I test drove one and asked the salesmen what happens if the screen breaks - he told me that it actually happened to his Tesla and that because of parts shortages it took months and months to get it fixed. When this happens all you can do is drive the car and open and close the windows essentially - no sunroof, no AC, nothing.

frosted-flakes 4y ago
I'm surprised that Tesla's cars even have window buttons. They've eliminated everything else.

Animats 4y ago

Screens are not the real issue. The real issue is whether you have to look at it to set it. There are annoying devices which have a very small number of tactile buttons, and overload them with multiple functions. Monitors, watches, and clocks tend to be especially bad, because the user interface is not used much. So you get some tiny unlabeled buttons, and have to consult the manual to find out when you need a short press, a long press, a press and hold, a two button press, or a paper clip. Another class of annoying devices is point of sale systems. Some say they're ready for your card but really aren't - the store's system and the credit card terminal are not sufficiently aware of each other's state. Some have a RFID sensor, but it's not clear where the sensor is. Or when it's listening. Some are just really slow. Probably because they're doing too much in a busy "cloud". However, POS systems do work better today. I haven't had a transaction totally fail to be completed in several years.

99_00 4y ago

>Modern cars seem to be moving towards all controls on a touch screen somewhere They aren't. Your car may be a poorly designed exception. The things you need to use need to do while driving can usually be done with controls on the steering wheel. If you need visual feedback while using your steering wheel controls you can glance at the dashboard screen. >using a touchscreen to adjust the temperature while driving is incredibly dangerous compared to a dial you can feel for without taking your eyes off the road Your car is poorly designed. You can adjust the temp on MANY new cars without the touch screen with simple up down buttons and very clear temperature with its own always on display.

waynesonfire 4y ago

It's a cost cutting strategy and it sucks. A screen and software is cheap at scale.

CoryAlexMartin 4y ago

I'm thinking some manufacturers might be catching on to the downsides of touchscreen controls. I did a test drive of the previous generation Honda Civic, and it had touchscreen climate controls. I wound up getting a 2022 Honda Civic which has physical dials for all climate controls. Though, as an aside, dials for temperature and fan speed are fine, but they also use a dial for changing which vents the air comes out of, which makes no sense. Also, the dials rotate infinitely, even though the ranges are finite. It means I still have to look to see what the setting is at, instead of being able to tell by feel. By comparison, the 1992 Honda Civic climate controls are way better: https://i.imgur.com/r8JjjNw.png https://i.imgur.com/r8JjjNw.png

antisthenes 4y ago
> Though, as an aside, dials for temperature and fan speed are fine, but they also use a dial for changing which vents the air comes out of, which makes no sense. Also, the dials rotate infinitely, even though the ranges are finite. It means I still have to look to see what the setting is at, instead of being able to tell by feel. Yikes. I know I'm just a nobody on the internet, but if I worked at Honda in any position of power, I would do everything in my power to get the people responsible for rubber-stamping this fired. This is unacceptable for a modern vehicle.
- CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
  Regardless of how bad it is, it's a step up from touchscreen interfaces, which means it actually is acceptable by modern vehicle standards. But I agree that by objective standards, it's unacceptable.