Hacker News Reader

Comment by aetherspawn | Hacker News Reader

I generally didn’t agree with the article.

I have found that my Toyota Corolla Hybrid has about the right mix of smart and dumb (in terms of dials and knobs), and again in disagreement to the article .. I love my digital speedo! It’s high up on the dash and closer to the road, compared to my old space-wasting meters that were more difficult to read.

And the concern about the GPS in our cars invading our privacy.. this would really only concern a certain type of paranoid person. Most people don’t care. I certainly prefer the fully integrated GPS, that dims the radio and such whenever I need to do something. Removing it certainly won’t make any car fly off the shelves! Bad analysis.

View on HN

My country's market is dominated by second-hand Japanese imports, a lot of the integrated navigation / entertainment systems are entirely useless if you're not driving in Japan, or can't read Japanese.

When my 2005 Mazda MPV suffered a flat battery, the centre console screen which was the navigation / radio / clock / DVD player (yes, really) was bricked, and to this day displays a message in Japanese asking you to please insert the manufacturer's navigation data CD to continue using it.

Which no-one has access to, not even in Japan (my brother has been living there for about ten years, and is very helpful for obscure parts requests), so now my radio and clock don't work, because I don't have a CD with data needed for a 16 year old navigation system that, when working, was thoroughly convinced I was driving long distances on the bottom of Tokyo Bay and was desperate for me to turn right and get back on dry land.

New Zealand?

My Dad's old Subaru Legacy used its display to show Japan rotating around as we turned corners, us always in the sea.

I'm onto my second 2005 Mazda MPV (they're great cars). This time I've replaced the head unit with one of those nasty cheap Android things. Basically a confused tablet with some extra hardware, running any mapping or other app you want.

Haha, yep, NZ, and the 2005 MPV :D

That's not a bad idea at all on the head.

There's a good Geekzone thread on head unit installation. Especially useful if you want to keep the factory reverse camera operating. Note the camera needs 6V. Voltage conversion boards are ultra cheap on aliexpress or if you're in Wellington you could have one from my stash :)

Thank you for the kind offer :)

I don't have a factory camera, but would be worth doing a third party one, the visibility while reversing is rather poor as soon as you get teenagers sitting in the back.

Most people have no idea that their car with telematics features (ie Onstar or similar) is almost constantly reporting their location and a slew of parameters back to the manufacturer.

This is true regardless of whether you have a telematics subscription. The subscription just enables the stuff you can actually use.

Manufacturers are monetizing that information, selling it to anyone who wants to buy it. I know someone that worked for a company using said data to try and enhance weather reporting (the data reported back includes outside air temperature, headlights, windshield wiper status, etc.) They were receiving data from multiple manufacturers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com