Ford “Volume knob” is “finger” on set of bearings epoxied directly onto display | Hacker News Reader

Ford “Volume knob” is “finger” on set of bearings epoxied directly onto display

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If it is sensitive enough, I think that's fine.

At least they made the effort!

In a car, a rotary knob is ergonomically wonderful

- it is in one location, so you can find it

- once you grab it, you can hold onto it during adjustment, even in a moving car

- you can increase or decrease large or small amounts quickly and accurately

It's unfortunate that tesla is going the opposite direction with respect to ergonomics (touch controls on the moving steering wheel for turn signals, gah)

> once you grab it, you can hold onto it during adjustment, even in a moving car

Unless they have a ton of resistance (old school cable actuated HVAC) or are massive (typical Honda HVAC) rotary knobs suck for adjustment when moving. You want discrete up/down buttons (preferably ones that feel different) and enough dead space around them that the user has something to touch to anchor their hand. We've all sent the volume flying on a radio with a knob.

That doesn't mirror my experience, at all.

Are you talking about brushing the knob somehow?

If you're not on a glass smooth California highway and you try and adjust a medium-small knob that doesn't have a lot of resistance you're not going to be accurate.

Better than a touch screen, definitely, but worse than discrete up/down buttons

I live in the land of salt and snow and rust, never having been to CA at all, and I prefer (larger) knobs and have never said to myself I wish I had buttons - for volume or temperature or anything.

Sometimes - I don't know how many current model cars have them - they have dedicated up/down buttons that nevertheless are apparently capacitive touch operated. I remember the Buick Regal of a few years ago being like that, and I think I remember pictures of Cadillacs that looked similar.

Knobs are better. If you overshoot your desired volume, you simple turn it back a bit. With buttons you need to find a separate control to correct your mistake.

Hah I had a hunch this was what they did. If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.

This PDA in the sytlus-capacitive (does not register fingers) screen era has a retractable keypad that presses points on the screen. https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/reviews/sony-mobile/67352...

It's a clever idea. And it seems to work so well that they're going to use it in the F-150 Lightning.

Uhh...like others has said, there's a good chunk of adhesives on your car. I think(?) at one point, the rear bumper of the Tesla Model 3 was glued on. 3M automotive division has a team dedicated to automotive adhesives.

The point of the tweet was to show that’s it’s funny how Ford solved this problem.

They could have done it all complicated with two displays, one with a circle punched out and the other one a small circle, but they opted to mimic human touch with a simple mechanical dial that simulated “touch” on the screen. Handle the rest with software.

>one point, the rear bumper of the Tesla Model 3 was glued on

Yes, at one point it was. Then it got wet and fell off.

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/10/20/tesla-model-3-bumper-def...

The comment about the safety aspect of a physical volume control reminds me of something mildly irritating on my car.

There is a physical volume control separate from the display, but when Android Auto navigation is in use, it only controls the radio and not the navigation voice.

I know they wanted to make these volumes independent and prevent people from accidentally turning the directions down to inaudibility, but the minimum volume is a little too loud for me, and sometimes maybe the visual directions are enough anyway.

Awesome!

I love it, hate touch interfaces in cars, and hope this idea is robust.

This is quite ingenious, really.

Planned obsolescence at its best! What happens in a few years when the screen goes out and Ford no longer maintains the part? A switch or knob is an easy repair. A lcd screen with an embedded microcontroller sending undocumented I2C commands to the other car components maybe not so easy?

> What happens in a few years when the screen goes out and Ford no longer maintains the part

Not only that - what is currently happening with Nissan Leaf can serve as small glimpse into the future: perfectly good cars made obsolete because of insanely priced or just simply not available batteries

https://www.reddit.com/r/leaf/comments/jifmmg/owner_of_allel...

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/replacing-the-nissan-leaf-batte...

Ford, and\or their parts suppliers still makes parts available for cars they have not sold in over a decade.

A cursory search turns up a lot of people saying that any legal requirement in the US to provide parts outside the warranty period is a myth, although a popular one.

And yet they still are selling the parts, despite that.

They're not required to, nor did I claim they were. They do it because it's good for business, because their vehicles can last for decades and their business practices reflect that.

Yes, and my point is that they could change their mind if there's no legal constraint.

Switching the lineup to electric cars could provide a nice excuse - out with the old, in with the new, we don't want to encourage anyone to use their old polluting vehicle too long.

Built up brand equity/consumer goodwill eventually will be exploited, just like spare cash.

Was there ever any definitive solution to the Focus transmission problems?

You can still buy parts for a 1929 Ford Model A

I'm putting good money down that Ford sells a ton of EV F150s and you'll be able to find OEM and aftermarket parts for them as long as fleet vehicles are gonna fleet.

I'm not sure I understand how this works. Can someone explain?

When you glue the bearing to a surface, the knob/wheel turns freely.

Under the nob there is a fake finger, which is always touching the touch-screen.

So when you turn the knob, the touch screen registers a "finger" going around in circles.

Givent hat there already is a large touchscreen, this is much simpler than cutting a hole in the screen and fitting a traditional knob.

I'm assuming the screen is capacitive in that car which would allow the fake finger to hover without even touching the screen. Less wear/friction that way.

I wonder. It would be neat to see a teardown. I am also interested in how this holds up over time. I am sure they tested it a ton to make sure it is durable, but what happens if a kid grabs it and pulls it down or away from the screen? I have faith the epoxy they use is incredible strong, but then what happens to the screen? What will it do to that? It could be that it is as durable as any other in-car volume knob, but the damage would be worse as the whole touchscreen would likely need to be replaced.

Or, more likely, you touching the knob adds the capacitance needed to complete the signal.

"There, I fixed it."

Totally! I wonder what the prototype meetings were like:

"You did what?"

"Lemme see"

Contrary to the people in this twitter thread, I absolutely hate this. I don't want a car with parts that are held on by glue.

You’d hate to find out how your windscreen is held in place.

I'd hate to find out the hard way.

"...brand-new Tesla Model Y's glass roof flew off on the highway..."

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/10/05/tesla-roof-flies-off-bui...

Heh. I was once driving on a highway when my hood latch broke. My hood flipped up and folded over the windshield, blocking all view of the road.

Scared me to frigging death. I was going about 45 mph at the time. Stuck my head out the side window and maneuvered to the side of the road, and then pried my hood back into place and tied it down.

I think you may be associating “glue” (or epoxy in this case) with an inferior type of fastener. Modern glues chemically bond the materials, forming a much stronger adhesive than physical fasteners ever could.

If anyone would like a simple demonstration of just how good modern adhesives are, go buy a decent wood glue (not even an epoxy!), some wood, and test the strength of some glued joints. With the exception of butt joints (flat edge to flat edge), 99% of the time the wood around the joint will break before the joint itself. With a quality glue or epoxy, even butt joints can be stronger than the parts they glue together.

In some situations, industrial grade structural adhesives can even be stronger than well made welded joints, which is literally just heating up the metal so it can recrystallize into a single lattice.

This is one of those, leave it to the professionals moments.

There are tons of types of glue, think of super glue being a weak form of glue compared to alternatives (TDI + polyol)

Agreed, though not because of the glue itself so much as the entire concept.

It looks terrible. It literally looks like nothing more than what it is - a cheap plastic knob glued to a touchscreen. Made to look even worse by having an empty center exposing more touch screen.

Add to that, I don’t see any reason why a volume knob is any more or less deserving of a physical control than climate controls or radio station presets. That is to say, volume controls are plenty deserving of a physical knob, but so is everything else you might do in the center console with similar frequency.

Which is to say, further more, that they are admitting that physical controls are better for frequent adjustments like volume, but instead of handling that properly, they’re just saying “here’s a big touch screen for everything... but we’ll relent and give you this lame ass pasted on knob for volume and volume alone”.

Have fun on your WW1-era dune buggy.

You'd be surprised how many of your car parts are holding up with glue.

you're going to have a bad time in the future, cars are moving from welds to adhesives. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/automobiles/the-superglue...

You know that new car smell? That's the smell of all the glues they use.

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