6 ms·

Ideally, my car would look like a BT speaker, possibly with a microphone and some controls, to the phone. I don't want a dedicated satnav, I don't want an elab

by bborud 4y ago

Ideally, my car would look like a BT speaker, possibly with a microphone and some controls, to the phone. I don't want a dedicated satnav, I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. The system in my car that integrates with the phone is a piece of junk. Not only is the microphone system completely useless and the connection procedure so badly implemented it'll fail regularly, but I've recently learned that the system in my car tends to break after a few years. Which has happened in my car. Which makes one of the car's ECUs confused so my dashboard now has a flashing indicator that isn't going to go away until I've spent a pile of cash to either replace the system or rip it out in a manner that isn't documented or supported. The only thing I want in a car is the simplest for of integration possible, preferably using components I can rip out and replace with something better and a system for mounting my phone without having to buy all manner of silly dodads.

riffraff 4y ago
This is basically what I have in my 7yo Kia, and I'm definitely happy with it, and hope the same setup will still be available in my next car. Also, physical buttons!
bombcar 4y ago
All I've ever wanted is a head unit I can dock my phone into, either as a faceplate or just like it was a cassette, so it plays music and stays charged.
JoBrad 4y ago
I do think that navigation which takes into account your car’s battery is a good feature. But ideally there would be a way to expose that to your navigation app.
- avereveard 4y ago
  but you can easily do that with a dedicated navigation app on your phone, which will have more current recharge points, and will also allow you to bring your favorites easily to one car to another (or each driver can has it's own)
plagiarist 4y ago
I don't even want the Bluetooth, just put a USB-C hole on the tape deck. That should be a standard size and easily replaceable with aftermarket components anyway.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  > That should be a standard size and easily replaceable with aftermarket components anyway. Remember when that was TRUE for about 15 years in the 90s/2000s? I'm old-enough-to-have-stopped-believing-tech-progress-goes-only-one-way years old.
bregma 4y ago
Richard Stallman pray for us.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
When I’ve used CarPlay I’ve been generally impressed with the integration with my phone. However in my Tesla it’s not available. But that said it’s proprietary system is decent, except the music player which is tedious to play specific songs or playlists from. The satnav or gps is pretty good. The best though is that it doesn’t get dated. It continuously updates with revs. This is almost certainly the future across all brands.
Angostura 4y ago
So good news - GM will allow you to dock your phone via bluetooth and let you use the car as simple speaker. So - not a problem for you. Just a problem for those of us that actually like the facilities offered by Android Auto or Carplay - and want to use that instead of the car company's frequently crappy and un-updateable software.
myself248 4y ago
That's exactly what I bought on my 2012, and I fear I may not be able to get it again if I have to replace the car. I got the lowest-spec stereo that still had Bluetooth. It also has AM/FM/CD which I use quite a bit, but no nav, no integrated streaming, no telematics, no GSM radio that bricks a bunch of features when the GSM network gets decommissioned, none of that. Reason being, I worked in infotainment testing at the time, and I didn't want my car to remind me of work. It's been fantastic. Nothing about it feels outdated. My kitchen appliances are from around the same era and likewise, they just work like they always have. There's no maps to expire, no subscriptions to renew, nothing of the sort. Equally importantly, it doesn't spy on me. There's no EULA to accept when I start the car, no continuous feed of my location being sent to advertisers (unless I take my phone with me, which is my choice each trip). And no chance of perverts spying on me with the car's cameras. It doesn't have any.
dionidium 4y ago
> The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. CarPlay can't really get out of date any more than iOS can get out of date. It's just a software push. The main problem with the stereo in my car is that not everything is in CarPlay, so you have this sort of absurd situation where CarPlay is supposedly just one function of many, when obviously FM radio should just be an app icon in CarPlay, and the audio settings should be an app in CarPlay, and so on. CarPlay is the OS and the stereo unit also has its own OS, so CarPlay is basically like running an emulated OS on another computer. That's obviously very silly.
- brookst 4y ago
  It’s a little silly, but it avoids the complexity of the car needing to describe every feature to CarPlay. It’s very hard to create an abstraction that allows for any capability, setting, message to be displayed and interacted with. For instance, some 4x4’s have 2D inclinometers. Modern trucks have all sorts of crazy optimizations for towing. Requiring CarPlay to understand and adopt new car-specific features gets crazy. Making CarPlay a system that runs apps provided by the car is also crazy complex. I have no doubt we’re heading that direction, but it is such a more complicated system for marginal benefit that it’s not surprising we’re stuck at a plateau where it works for 80% of scenarios.
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    Integration for AC, radio, backup cameras, etc is coming this year.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Only a curated subset of well-defined features, and not to existing carplay installations. Any car with a feature that is not part of the carplay2 spec will need to find a way to expose UI to the user outside of carplay.
      - johnwalkr 4y ago
_dain_ 4y ago
>I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. Third: they are distracting while you should be focussing on the road.
bmelton 4y ago
I've mentioned it before on here, but the Citroen Oli is a cheap EV (prototype) car that is a) cute as a button, and b) sacrifices a lot of fluff that we have misled ourselves into thinking are requirements. I'm basically the opposite of its target market, but really interested in it. One of the things that it has done (that your post reminded me of) is that it eliminated the onboard stereo. There is a dock for a phone (I think in this prototype iteration it only supports a single model of iPhone, but I assume that will change?) and there is a dashboard where a dashboard is expected that will integrate with the phone, and there are optional bluetooth speakers and corresponding mount points in the car (so you can take them with you or not have them at all if you like) This is the closest I've seen to your vision, and it makes sense. Dodge/Jeep do a good job of providing infotainment systems, but no matter how good they are, unless they're outsourced to Apple or Google (who will always be looking for a way to steer customers to their platforms) there's just not really any way for a car company to keep up with the feature velocity of either.
- bonestamp2 4y ago
  I like this concept for the most part, but I would like the option for it to have built in speakers (and an amp). I'm fine to plug in my phone or pair it with the amp to provide sound. It looks like a pretty bare bones car, and I like that it doesn't have a screen at all. I suppose if it needs a UI for configuring vehicle settings, I guess this could be done using a phone over bluetooth or wifi. That's about the only thing I use the screen in my vehicle for, everything else is from my phone.
  - neuralRiot 4y ago
    The average lifespan of a smartphone is about 2.5 years, there are 20 year old cars driven daily. I hope you understand the problem here.
    - bonestamp2 4y ago
      No, I don't see the problem. It seems like the proprietary shaped bluetooth speakers and their mounting points will be more of a problem in 20 years than a simple analog sound input that goes to an amp and speakers. I can plug my iPhone 14 into a 50 year old stereo. I want that level of simplicity and compatibility! In 20 years it is going to be impossible to find replacements for those bluetooth speakers that fit in the proprietary holders they've designed. If they want to go minimalist and simple, go with analog speakers, that have a simple amp and a simple analog input that I can plug any analog source into (including a bluetooth receiver if I really need a wireless input).
amelius 4y ago
Similarly, in turn, the phone should come without preinstalled crap, and without tethering by the vendor. Good luck, though.
TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
It sounds like you've given up completely on what a car infotainment could be because car companies suck at software so bad. I had an old GMC Canyon through college, and the only thing it had was Aux. After college i bought a model 3 when they first came out and I absolutely love the infotainment system. I love that I can play witcher 3 on my Tesla. My bluetooth always connects. I can unlock my car with my app and it never fails me.
- decafninja 4y ago
  Not the OP, but I have. I’ve driven cars from cheap econoboxes to exotics and all of them have had mediocre infotainment and navigation systems at best.
- bborud 4y ago
  At some point it will fail. You will not be able to fix it yourself. And if it is even fixable, it will cost you a fortune to fix. Let's talk in another 10 years and a few cars later how you feel about it then.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    Tesla's hold their value better than any other car on the market. In 10 years, i'll spend an order of magnitude less on maintainance than every other car on the market.
m-p-3 4y ago
Like how I want a dumb TV with the system of my choice hooked up behind it. You can't trust the TV manufacturer to keep the OS up-to-date, and with TV prices always going down it's inevitable they'll cut corners to increase their profit margins.
- bonestamp2 4y ago
  Ya, I don't trust smart tvs not to show me ads at some point in the future, or spy on my behavior without telling me, so I don't even give my TVs my wifi password. I'll update the firmware with a usb stick and use an Apple TV. Apple TVs are more expensive, but I feel less like I'm the product and they're popular enough and with few enough models that any major problems will be widely known.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    "Apple TVs are more expensive" than what? They're cheaper than a games console if all you want to do is stream from a major platform.
    - bonestamp2 4y ago
      You're right, game console are more expensive. But both of them are more expensive than the other streaming boxes/sticks that most people buy (roku, chromecast, fire stick).
- bborud 4y ago
  Having cameras and microphones in TVs seems like a good idea until you remember that the companies that make them are about as trustworthy as a fart after an all-you-can-eat buffet.
neuralRiot 4y ago
There’s a solution for every case, there are aftermarket adapters that allow you to connect a standard audio system that can be replaced later on if needed be. As for the “simple integration” you cannot go simpler than bluetooth audio, it’s basically a wirelless aux input.
winternett 4y ago
So many of these cars will sit in junkyards over this flawed tech era in just a few years... Just one change to phone connectors can cause sudden obsolescence of nav and other major components used in so many cars. We are paying a lot extra for this tech that has a very limited shelf life. Simpler is becoming much better than new at the fastest rate ever. I really don't need my car to be cutting edge any more, because that requires too many damn monthly subscription payments.

by bborud 4y ago

riffraff 4y ago

This is basically what I have in my 7yo Kia, and I'm definitely happy with it, and hope the same setup will still be available in my next car. Also, physical buttons!

bombcar 4y ago

All I've ever wanted is a head unit I can dock my phone into, either as a faceplate or just like it was a cassette, so it plays music and stays charged.

JoBrad 4y ago

I do think that navigation which takes into account your car’s battery is a good feature. But ideally there would be a way to expose that to your navigation app.

avereveard 4y ago
but you can easily do that with a dedicated navigation app on your phone, which will have more current recharge points, and will also allow you to bring your favorites easily to one car to another (or each driver can has it's own)

plagiarist 4y ago

I don't even want the Bluetooth, just put a USB-C hole on the tape deck. That should be a standard size and easily replaceable with aftermarket components anyway.

jrochkind1 4y ago
> That should be a standard size and easily replaceable with aftermarket components anyway. Remember when that was TRUE for about 15 years in the 90s/2000s? I'm old-enough-to-have-stopped-believing-tech-progress-goes-only-one-way years old.

bregma 4y ago

Richard Stallman pray for us.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

When I’ve used CarPlay I’ve been generally impressed with the integration with my phone. However in my Tesla it’s not available. But that said it’s proprietary system is decent, except the music player which is tedious to play specific songs or playlists from. The satnav or gps is pretty good. The best though is that it doesn’t get dated. It continuously updates with revs. This is almost certainly the future across all brands.

Angostura 4y ago

So good news - GM will allow you to dock your phone via bluetooth and let you use the car as simple speaker. So - not a problem for you. Just a problem for those of us that actually like the facilities offered by Android Auto or Carplay - and want to use that instead of the car company's frequently crappy and un-updateable software.

myself248 4y ago

That's exactly what I bought on my 2012, and I fear I may not be able to get it again if I have to replace the car. I got the lowest-spec stereo that still had Bluetooth. It also has AM/FM/CD which I use quite a bit, but no nav, no integrated streaming, no telematics, no GSM radio that bricks a bunch of features when the GSM network gets decommissioned, none of that. Reason being, I worked in infotainment testing at the time, and I didn't want my car to remind me of work. It's been fantastic. Nothing about it feels outdated. My kitchen appliances are from around the same era and likewise, they just work like they always have. There's no maps to expire, no subscriptions to renew, nothing of the sort. Equally importantly, it doesn't spy on me. There's no EULA to accept when I start the car, no continuous feed of my location being sent to advertisers (unless I take my phone with me, which is my choice each trip). And no chance of perverts spying on me with the car's cameras. It doesn't have any.

dionidium 4y ago

> The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. CarPlay can't really get out of date any more than iOS can get out of date. It's just a software push. The main problem with the stereo in my car is that not everything is in CarPlay, so you have this sort of absurd situation where CarPlay is supposedly just one function of many, when obviously FM radio should just be an app icon in CarPlay, and the audio settings should be an app in CarPlay, and so on. CarPlay is the OS and the stereo unit also has its own OS, so CarPlay is basically like running an emulated OS on another computer. That's obviously very silly.

brookst 4y ago
It’s a little silly, but it avoids the complexity of the car needing to describe every feature to CarPlay. It’s very hard to create an abstraction that allows for any capability, setting, message to be displayed and interacted with. For instance, some 4x4’s have 2D inclinometers. Modern trucks have all sorts of crazy optimizations for towing. Requiring CarPlay to understand and adopt new car-specific features gets crazy. Making CarPlay a system that runs apps provided by the car is also crazy complex. I have no doubt we’re heading that direction, but it is such a more complicated system for marginal benefit that it’s not surprising we’re stuck at a plateau where it works for 80% of scenarios.
- johnwalkr 4y ago
  Integration for AC, radio, backup cameras, etc is coming this year.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Only a curated subset of well-defined features, and not to existing carplay installations. Any car with a feature that is not part of the carplay2 spec will need to find a way to expose UI to the user outside of carplay.
    - johnwalkr 4y ago

_dain_ 4y ago

>I don't want an elaborate in-car entertainment system. The reason is twofold. The first is that all of these in-car systems are pretty dated even after a couple of years. The second is that they tend to be fairly low quality to begin with. Third: they are distracting while you should be focussing on the road.

bmelton 4y ago

I've mentioned it before on here, but the Citroen Oli is a cheap EV (prototype) car that is a) cute as a button, and b) sacrifices a lot of fluff that we have misled ourselves into thinking are requirements. I'm basically the opposite of its target market, but really interested in it. One of the things that it has done (that your post reminded me of) is that it eliminated the onboard stereo. There is a dock for a phone (I think in this prototype iteration it only supports a single model of iPhone, but I assume that will change?) and there is a dashboard where a dashboard is expected that will integrate with the phone, and there are optional bluetooth speakers and corresponding mount points in the car (so you can take them with you or not have them at all if you like) This is the closest I've seen to your vision, and it makes sense. Dodge/Jeep do a good job of providing infotainment systems, but no matter how good they are, unless they're outsourced to Apple or Google (who will always be looking for a way to steer customers to their platforms) there's just not really any way for a car company to keep up with the feature velocity of either.

bonestamp2 4y ago
I like this concept for the most part, but I would like the option for it to have built in speakers (and an amp). I'm fine to plug in my phone or pair it with the amp to provide sound. It looks like a pretty bare bones car, and I like that it doesn't have a screen at all. I suppose if it needs a UI for configuring vehicle settings, I guess this could be done using a phone over bluetooth or wifi. That's about the only thing I use the screen in my vehicle for, everything else is from my phone.
- neuralRiot 4y ago
  The average lifespan of a smartphone is about 2.5 years, there are 20 year old cars driven daily. I hope you understand the problem here.
  - bonestamp2 4y ago
    No, I don't see the problem. It seems like the proprietary shaped bluetooth speakers and their mounting points will be more of a problem in 20 years than a simple analog sound input that goes to an amp and speakers. I can plug my iPhone 14 into a 50 year old stereo. I want that level of simplicity and compatibility! In 20 years it is going to be impossible to find replacements for those bluetooth speakers that fit in the proprietary holders they've designed. If they want to go minimalist and simple, go with analog speakers, that have a simple amp and a simple analog input that I can plug any analog source into (including a bluetooth receiver if I really need a wireless input).

amelius 4y ago

Similarly, in turn, the phone should come without preinstalled crap, and without tethering by the vendor. Good luck, though.

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago

It sounds like you've given up completely on what a car infotainment could be because car companies suck at software so bad. I had an old GMC Canyon through college, and the only thing it had was Aux. After college i bought a model 3 when they first came out and I absolutely love the infotainment system. I love that I can play witcher 3 on my Tesla. My bluetooth always connects. I can unlock my car with my app and it never fails me.

decafninja 4y ago
Not the OP, but I have. I’ve driven cars from cheap econoboxes to exotics and all of them have had mediocre infotainment and navigation systems at best.
bborud 4y ago
At some point it will fail. You will not be able to fix it yourself. And if it is even fixable, it will cost you a fortune to fix. Let's talk in another 10 years and a few cars later how you feel about it then.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  Tesla's hold their value better than any other car on the market. In 10 years, i'll spend an order of magnitude less on maintainance than every other car on the market.

m-p-3 4y ago

Like how I want a dumb TV with the system of my choice hooked up behind it. You can't trust the TV manufacturer to keep the OS up-to-date, and with TV prices always going down it's inevitable they'll cut corners to increase their profit margins.

bonestamp2 4y ago
Ya, I don't trust smart tvs not to show me ads at some point in the future, or spy on my behavior without telling me, so I don't even give my TVs my wifi password. I'll update the firmware with a usb stick and use an Apple TV. Apple TVs are more expensive, but I feel less like I'm the product and they're popular enough and with few enough models that any major problems will be widely known.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  "Apple TVs are more expensive" than what? They're cheaper than a games console if all you want to do is stream from a major platform.
  - bonestamp2 4y ago
    You're right, game console are more expensive. But both of them are more expensive than the other streaming boxes/sticks that most people buy (roku, chromecast, fire stick).
bborud 4y ago
Having cameras and microphones in TVs seems like a good idea until you remember that the companies that make them are about as trustworthy as a fart after an all-you-can-eat buffet.

neuralRiot 4y ago

There’s a solution for every case, there are aftermarket adapters that allow you to connect a standard audio system that can be replaced later on if needed be. As for the “simple integration” you cannot go simpler than bluetooth audio, it’s basically a wirelless aux input.

winternett 4y ago

So many of these cars will sit in junkyards over this flawed tech era in just a few years... Just one change to phone connectors can cause sudden obsolescence of nav and other major components used in so many cars. We are paying a lot extra for this tech that has a very limited shelf life. Simpler is becoming much better than new at the fastest rate ever. I really don't need my car to be cutting edge any more, because that requires too many damn monthly subscription payments.