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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiosity, which car are you thinking about that places climate and media controls in a cascaded menu? I don't think this happens. In a Tesla, for example, volume/play/pause/skip/back are all on the left thumbwheel and the climate temperature is fixed at the bottom left of the screen in all UI modes (well, you can hide it with a game/video, but not while driving).

I worry HN has gotten itself into an "alternate facts" mode again with this subject, where the hyperbole has led people to assume facts that don't exist. The real world is always more boring than the most upvoted comment.

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My new Peugeot has climate control on the touch screen, and I have to click a menu button to access it

Are you able to adjust the temperature without looking at the screen?

Being a flat pane of glass, I would worry that you need to use hand-eye coordination to locate the button, whereas with a physical button you can feel for it without looking.

I usually adjust the climate five minutes before getting to my car.

Press the right knob once and issue voice command. That’s it.

Which Tesla are you talking about? In the one I've driven (mind, just once and never again thank you) I couldn't find the temperature controls on that stupid tablet.

And even if it's always visible on the touch screen while driving, I still need to look at the touch screen right?

My main use case for climate controls is turning recirculation on/off when i come up behind a clunker where there's no space to overtake and need to recirculate so I don't suffocate. That is not a good time to take your eyes off the road, except maybe if you're Elon Musk.

Also, on the one Tesla I've driven i couldn't understand how the turn stalk (it still had a physical turn stalk, I believe Musk has apologized for not removing that one physical control from the car) worked. It only signaled while i was holding it when i wanted it to stay signaling and the reverse. Useless in any intersection that's not at 90 degrees. Designed in California :)

Oh sweet summer child. Not only do some manufacturers bury climate in a submenu, some don't even give you a simple [-][+] touchbutton arrangement.

A few years ago I had a rental (can't remember the make but I think it was korean) where you had to move a slider. Doing that is of course extremely easy while driving, especially if the manufacturer forgot that touchpoints should be perspective-corrected for the drive (every point was way to the right of where I saw it).

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