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Comment by seanalltogether | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure this image is heavily photoshopped, but it looks like they're trying to make a center console that's half touch screen, half physical controls. I wonder what that will look like in reality.

https://www.ford.com/is/image/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_u...

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This interface is already in production in the electric mustang. The buttons are all touchscreen, with the exception of the physical center wheel which is embedded in a hole in the screen. The photo on this article may be helpful: https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/02/im-obsessed-with-the-ford-...

Disgusting and awesome. I hate and love it.

Just a mind bending and creative design all around.

Probably quite functional, but it looks like a tumor on top of the screen.

Ford missed a trick by not making it magnetic and easily removable.

Then they'd have to add extra hardware to detect whether it's there or not, and change the interface accordingly. And for what? I can't imagine an actual use case to justify it.

It's just stuck on the touchscreen I thought, like that microsoft puck thing for their non portable Surface device

Yes that’s right[1]

1. https://www.motortrend.com/news/2021-ford-mustang-mach-e-ele...

It's not half and half, it's touchscreen with a physical volume knob which in my opinion is the right way. Having touch controls for volume is a horrible idea (my car has touch control for everything and I despise trying to get the volume adjusted quickly).

https://i.imgur.com/Lw4GgNW.jpeg

If a touchscreen is bad for volume, it is probably bad for most other up and down adjustments too (e.g. temp). I'd argue touch screens are bad for everything when you are driving, because you can't feel your way around.

I hate touchscreens in cars. Avoiding them is a big part of why my current ride is from 2011.

Same. Want nothing to do with them.

Also night driving. I love low interior indicator lighting. The big screens inhibit night vision. The older we get, the worse this is.

Touchscreens aren't as bad as the cheap capacitive switches that seem to be taking over the Appliance product space. Every appliance in my new house's kitchen has those damn capacitive switches and they only work ~10% of the time.

I don't disagree, I just tend not to adjust those as frequently. I think Ram has a nice balance between physical and touch:

https://i.imgur.com/anDbKgG.jpg

In general I prefer knob controls for things like temperature and volume, but the physical up/down is ok

Oh man, I'm not sure I agree that anything in that Ram dash looks either nice or balanced. That thing is a mess.

I agree with the sentiment though. I think Mazda and Volvo have had sensible approaches.

On the Ram example though, how would I change what I'm listening to? Would I press:

- select source - favourites - for you - audio - categories - media - related - search - apps - tune - > arrow at top - < > CH arrows at bottom

All those buttons are present at the same time

>Having touch controls for volume is a horrible idea

I second that. This also applies to heater controls and lighting and almost everything else that i can't think of. The benefit of the tactility of physical buttons and switches is sadly being coldly ignored by those who design our cars.

Maybe I am asking for too much but I want physical knobs for: Volume Control, HVAC Fan Speed, HVAC Temp.

A tangential question: Does anyone know why there is an AC button on older cars? I can turn the temp all the way down but that just does outside air temp. If i want real AC I need to hit a button to turn it on. In my ideal car turning the knob to the lowest temp would get me cold air no matter what.

Because the button is connected to a relay that turns the AC compressor on or off. The compressor actually draws quite a bit of power.

The hot/cold adjustment is adjusting a baffle/mixer that can either let in "cold" outside air, or air that's been heated by the engine compartment into the car. Think of it like driving around on a sunny day in the fall - sun is heating up the inside of the car, but the outside air is cold enough it would be silly and a waste of gas to turn on the A/C compressor.

I had a 1996 (iirc) Buick that had AC/Heat knob that did that. It was red on the right, blue on the left. If you left it at the detente position it was outside air. Turn in left, AC; turn it right, heat. Then there was just a separate knob for fan speed. Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen that again.

If you want to defrost your windows, you want hot, dry air. Air conditioning dries your air. If you combine A/C and heat, you get the best defrost performance.

A/C also consumes some amount of power and fuel efficiency- you may want the coolest air you could possibly have without A/C.

Two reasons: 1) The compressor uses some power from the engine, reducing gas mileage. 2) You can actually use it in conjunction with the heater to get dehumidified hot air.

It already exists in the electric mustang, and looks exactly like that.

Go to 10:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4n5iPqxpaw

Very cool, I love it, I hope more automakers figure out clever ways to keep analog controls mixed in with touch.

For my part i hope that they figure out that not literally everything needs to be crammed on to a flashy screen. The purging of tactile controls must stop.

Yuck! I don't look forward to this in my future lifetime of vehicles. I'll have to wait for "dumb" electric vehicles.

Good luck. This is like being a fan of non-touchscreen or non-capacitive touchscreen phones. Been there...

It's odd that talking on a cell phone while driving is illegal, but messing with those user interfaces is perfectly safe.

Someone needs to start a dash company for these auto manufacturers. They are all hideous and have terrible functionality. Why would I ever want to control my heated seats through a touchscreen? Or A/C? Or Radio presets. I want to buy a newer vehicle but they are all so bad.

You lost me at radio presets.

This is already a reality in the 2020 Mustang Mach E

https://www.google.com/search?q=2020+mustang+mach+e+interior

My Mercedes has this. Except the knob isn't on the screen, it's where the right hand would rest.

In my humble opinion, It's superior to touch screen experiences, at least while driving the vehicle. That said, dedicated knobs (such as a knob for a/c) are still the best for some things.

Range rovers have been doing something like this for a few years. Theirs can go between being radio controls and climate controls pretty seamlessly. I think it's a great compromise between touch controls and tactility

Is anybody selling conversion kits to replace touch screen controls with physical or is that too hard/niche?

How could you possibly cram everything that's controlled via the touchscreen into physical controls?

You mean like in every car made before 2015? Do new cars really have that many more features?

With the touchscreen cars I've rented or driven for work I'd have loved to have a little bluetooth or serial connected control cluster that sat near to hand with basic radio and climate controls. Something I could operate by feel. Seems like there are enough bad touchscreen consoles out there to make an aftermarket kit viable but maybe I underestimate the technical challenges.

Maybe I'll just keep driving my junkers until voice control gets good.

The top level Settings menu in my 2020 Ford Explorer doesn't even fit on one page. It would end up looking like the cockpit of a commercial airliner if everything had to be mapped out to a physical control.

Every action doesn’t need its own physical control. Knobs and buttons can be multipurpose. My mazda3 has touchscreen but it’s disabled because I can navigate and control everything with a single “command” knob.

This is the configuration I've got in my vehicle, which I feel strikes the right balance: https://www.ford.com/content/dam/vdm_ford/live/en_us/ford/na...

It isn't to say "All menu items are strictly button based" like the space shuttle or something. It means that the screen will not be touch-based.

This often means a large knob that one can turn, use as a joystick (up down left right) and push in for selection. This knob is used for navigating the majority of the console. There are some unique buttons and knobs for things like volume, climate, etc.

This is what my Mazda does, it's perfect. The big knob does exactly what you describe, where turning the knob scrolls. There's also a small dedicated volume knob that you can push in for mute and left/right to change tracks, and dedicated home and back buttons next to the big knob. All easy to use without looking.

Mazda stopped using touchscreens: https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...

> “Doing our research, when a driver would reach towards a touch-screen interface in any vehicle, they would unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel, and the vehicle would drift out of its lane position,” said Matthew Valbuena, Mazda North America’s lead engineer for HMI and infotainment.

> “And of course with a touchscreen you have to be looking at the screen while you’re touching...so for that reason we were comfortable removing the touch-screen functionality,” he added.

Well that's what autopilot systems are for.

There's no real danger of FORD, of all companies, doing something usable or well-designed here.

Well, they one-upped Tesla on their touchscreen design, so I wouldn't count them out just yet.

I still think massive touchscreens in cars are a horrible idea, so Ford doing better than Tesla at something I hate and wish would go away is not super convincing. :)

What you are seeing there is a trend in UI design called Neumorphism.

I think it's all still touch screen, looks like that new trend, "Smart depth" or whatever it is.

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