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I have an aftermarket head unit like you describe, but I wouldn't have installed it if my car didn't already have a space for it in the dash and a whole harness

by lunias 3y ago

I have an aftermarket head unit like you describe, but I wouldn't have installed it if my car didn't already have a space for it in the dash and a whole harness wired and ready to connect. I leave it off unless I need to pull up a map. Your point about being unable to use the features of your car if you replace the factory unit makes sense, but is that type of lock-in a good thing? Again, what if your screen breaks and now you don't know what your AC is set to? What else can't you operate in your car without the screen? The existence of a screen conditions people to expect and depend on a screen. The manufacturer increasingly requires you to use it to operate the vehicle. There may not be shops advertising flashes yet, but I expect they'll come; that or legislation that prevents anyone from tampering with them. You could make laws to discourage people from attaching devices to their dashboards and interacting with them, but it gets murky when all the cars come from the factory with a device already in the dashboard that you have no choice but to interact with.

vel0city 3y ago
> There may not be shops advertising flashes yet, but I expect they'll come It's been over a decade since the first car that I bought new which had a touchscreen, and it wasn't a pricey high end car. When is this market going to come? I do think it's not necessarily a good thing for all the stuff to be routed through the screen. I do agree there should be some amount of things operated by physical buttons and switches like gear selectors and turn signals and wipers and what not. But between my car with a ton of buttons and a tiny screen and my car with few buttons and a large screen, I'll take the one with the large screen every time. The one with lots of buttons has a small screen, making it harder to put in an address or using it while stopped. It's harder to fully understand the navigation at a quick glance on the smaller screen. The vast majority of buttons are practically worthless wastes of space 90% of the time and really shouldn't be used while driving anyways. > wouldn't have installed it if my car didn't already have a space for it in the dash Well, there's not a spot to install one in either of my cars with screens in them, but all the cars which didn't have them were easily upgraded to have them. So once again it's easier today to play videogames while driving in my 2000 Accord than my Mach E on something "built-in" to the dash. This is why I say your point is disingenuous. In a 1993 Ranger, today, I can spend $500 and do your distraction filled example. It would cost me many thousands to do it on either of my touchscreen cars, requiring massive, invasive modifications. This is true of every car I've owned which didn't have a touchscreen from the factory and every car with a touchscreen from the factory, for well over a decade.
- lunias 3y ago
  > When is this market going to come? Maybe once enough people get stuck with a head unit they don't like, but can't change without a lot of cost because it's vital to the operation of the car. I do expect this to be a relatively small market, but who knows? I have an ECU and a TCU flash, they're performance modifications, but they do also modify the output on the small stock screen in the middle of my gauge cluster. I think the average consumer is more likely to buy a mod for their head unit than their engine, but whether enough people care for someone to make the mods is yet to be seen. > In a 1993 Ranger, today, I can spend $500 and do your distraction filled example. It would cost me many thousands to do it on either of my touchscreen cars, requiring massive, invasive modifications. The way I see it you could spend $500 and add a screen to any car, but if your car already contains screens then now you have n + 1 screens (where at least some of those n are necessary). It's not really about whether you choose to integrate the screen into the dash (or anywhere else) or not, it's that the manufacturer already decided to do it for you. They started you off with n screens, they made you use them. If anything becomes possible, easier, faster, etc. to do on another device then you arrive at n + 1 screens. You can't control what people do, but you can start them with 0 necessary screens. > The one with lots of buttons has a small screen, making it harder to put in an address or using it while stopped. It's harder to fully understand the navigation at a quick glance on the smaller screen. Totally agree, gimme big map. That's why I changed my head unit; so I could stop using my phone for navigation. I'm not against big-ish "dedicated" map monitors, but I don't want them to become necessary for operating anything outside of the map and playing audio. I genuinely don't think they're better suited to driving related tasks than conventional gauges and controls.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    > If anything becomes possible, easier, faster, etc. to do on another device then you arrive at n + 1 screens That's kind of the whole point of Android Auto/Carplay. New software feature out there? It's there. Things too slow for the features you want? New phone, faster CPU/GPU, new network connectivity, etc. Even though my Hyundai is >5 years old it's running apps that were last updated yesterday. It's had a few UI changes, mostly for the better. It didn't take a new screen.

by lunias 3y ago

vel0city 3y ago

> There may not be shops advertising flashes yet, but I expect they'll come It's been over a decade since the first car that I bought new which had a touchscreen, and it wasn't a pricey high end car. When is this market going to come? I do think it's not necessarily a good thing for all the stuff to be routed through the screen. I do agree there should be some amount of things operated by physical buttons and switches like gear selectors and turn signals and wipers and what not. But between my car with a ton of buttons and a tiny screen and my car with few buttons and a large screen, I'll take the one with the large screen every time. The one with lots of buttons has a small screen, making it harder to put in an address or using it while stopped. It's harder to fully understand the navigation at a quick glance on the smaller screen. The vast majority of buttons are practically worthless wastes of space 90% of the time and really shouldn't be used while driving anyways. > wouldn't have installed it if my car didn't already have a space for it in the dash Well, there's not a spot to install one in either of my cars with screens in them, but all the cars which didn't have them were easily upgraded to have them. So once again it's easier today to play videogames while driving in my 2000 Accord than my Mach E on something "built-in" to the dash. This is why I say your point is disingenuous. In a 1993 Ranger, today, I can spend $500 and do your distraction filled example. It would cost me many thousands to do it on either of my touchscreen cars, requiring massive, invasive modifications. This is true of every car I've owned which didn't have a touchscreen from the factory and every car with a touchscreen from the factory, for well over a decade.

lunias 3y ago
> When is this market going to come? Maybe once enough people get stuck with a head unit they don't like, but can't change without a lot of cost because it's vital to the operation of the car. I do expect this to be a relatively small market, but who knows? I have an ECU and a TCU flash, they're performance modifications, but they do also modify the output on the small stock screen in the middle of my gauge cluster. I think the average consumer is more likely to buy a mod for their head unit than their engine, but whether enough people care for someone to make the mods is yet to be seen. > In a 1993 Ranger, today, I can spend $500 and do your distraction filled example. It would cost me many thousands to do it on either of my touchscreen cars, requiring massive, invasive modifications. The way I see it you could spend $500 and add a screen to any car, but if your car already contains screens then now you have n + 1 screens (where at least some of those n are necessary). It's not really about whether you choose to integrate the screen into the dash (or anywhere else) or not, it's that the manufacturer already decided to do it for you. They started you off with n screens, they made you use them. If anything becomes possible, easier, faster, etc. to do on another device then you arrive at n + 1 screens. You can't control what people do, but you can start them with 0 necessary screens. > The one with lots of buttons has a small screen, making it harder to put in an address or using it while stopped. It's harder to fully understand the navigation at a quick glance on the smaller screen. Totally agree, gimme big map. That's why I changed my head unit; so I could stop using my phone for navigation. I'm not against big-ish "dedicated" map monitors, but I don't want them to become necessary for operating anything outside of the map and playing audio. I genuinely don't think they're better suited to driving related tasks than conventional gauges and controls.
- vel0city 3y ago
  > If anything becomes possible, easier, faster, etc. to do on another device then you arrive at n + 1 screens That's kind of the whole point of Android Auto/Carplay. New software feature out there? It's there. Things too slow for the features you want? New phone, faster CPU/GPU, new network connectivity, etc. Even though my Hyundai is >5 years old it's running apps that were last updated yesterday. It's had a few UI changes, mostly for the better. It didn't take a new screen.