Rivian's chief software officer says in-car buttons are 'an anomaly'
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Buttons are fine. Even though I prefer driving EVs, the reliance on touchscreen/ voice for everything is just annoying. At least for the most common functions like volume control, AC and stuff.
I was driving a Polestar in the UK, fantastic car, but many chargers wouldn’t work because of my non-UK debit cards… tried many of them, for months.
The receptors in our hardware can identify a hardware button without looking... especially while driving a 2 ton object trying not to hit anyone.
Getting his logic to the extreme, we won't have computer keyboards, just a glass slabs with picture of buttons. Ohh... shit, the war is lost, my phone is exactly that. In 5 years only super premium computer keyboards will have hardware keys I reckon.
For what I've read the problem aren't the buttons, but the cabling they really hate.
This obsession with replacing robust proven solutions with brittle technological toys will never cease to amaze me.
I expect the true reason lies in the fact that they can charge a recurring fee for the AI assistant but not for the buttons. I also wonder about the impact on the car battery. There is no way a call to a backend uses less energy than a car button or a touchscreen.
A certain fraction of potential customers are neophiles and contrarians, who'll eagerly buy anything that's conspicuously new & different. That'll give you an initial burst of sales...but what next? In many types of consumer products, you can crank out something new & different every week or few. In automotive, not so much.
Sorry, I have to disagree.
Touch screen is a bug, not a feature because it requires a shift in focus away from driving.
Physical controls provide tactical feedback and spatial assurance that the correct function has been selected sight unseen.
I shouldn't need to look away from the road to enable signals or wipers.
That said, I do agree with the potential of voice control for nonessential functions such as environmental or entertainment.
Using a touch screen phone while driving is illegal in most areas for a reason. Building the touch screen into the car doesn't negate the logic.
A competent, experienced driver should be able to instinctively operate any vehicle without training, reference material or questions. Anything other than this is a sign of basic design failure in my opinion.
I don't object to touch screen being used for things like setup, configuration, maintenance, troubleshooting, navigation and as an alternative backup to physical or voice controls while the vehicle is STOPPED.
I'm open to the idea of voice being used to replace some NONESSENTIAL manual controls. This could actually be a safety improvement. For example, lots of accidents happen when people try to fiddle with the radio.
It should also be an add-on function to manual buttons. Nothing in a car ever should only voice control, and it should be able to be disabled for some functions.
Imagine an unruly child: "Car, disable child locks!"
Nuh, it's simpler than that. He makes money from cars not having buttons, that's all. He says whatever he has to say to increase his profits, regardless of whether he believes it, or whether it makes sense.
I've used induction hobs, but I've never found them pleasant to control with the touch controls. There is something so utterly ergonomic and pleasant about physical knobs and buttons. It doesn't matter that they perform digital rather than analogue, mechanical actions.
It's a premium feature, but at least it exists. It's disheartening that this is considered either a premium feature or branded as outdated.
That page is about cooktops with resistive heating, not induction. These get hot when they are turned on, even if there is nothing, or something not magnetic, on top.
Cleaning it is super simple, if I get liquids I do not worry that they will spill into something (like knobs).
There is one very important thing though: I specifically looked only for linear scale. A scale what you can press a position and get to the right level (rough "hot", or "very low heat) and slide to adjust when needed.
My brother has one where you have to press 9 times to get to 9. And then 6 times down to get to 3. This is insane.
If I choose to splurge on this item, this one might be nice:
https://etna.nl/keukenapparatuur/fi590zwa/
Smeg has a similar sweet looking offering, but I'm not convinced of the longevity of their appliances:
The "induction as an object that enters into the hole of the work surface" (sorry, I am not a native speaker of English and there is certainly a word for that :)) seems to be way, way more popular and I could really find what I needed.
The knob then would just be a plastic disk with magnets embedded in it. If something spills on it you could just the knob away from the panel and wash it by hand or toss it in the dishwasher, and use a towel or cloth to wipe off the panel.
I also have a wife that puts things in "places she can easily think of", and then they disappear for years.
No - that would not work in my case :) :) :)
Because I have never used a voice assistant even to set a timer when cooking pasta and I probably will never speak to a machine if there is an awkward button I could use instead.
I understand buttons are ugly and expensive. But a few buttons and dials for everything you need while driving seems like the perfect balance. You only need climate, wipers, lights, sound level, and that’s about it. Nav, setup, media selection etc can be touch.
So let them play in their prototypes, but don't let them fill the roads with dangerous voice assisted vehicles that will fail in critical moments.
Rivian: "Sure thing, now playing George Michael!"
- Navigate home.
- Ok, showing nearby ski resorts.
To which I responded "I fscking hope not yet." because for me New Zealand is the mythical land far away that I'm gonna escape to when the civilisation mostly collapses due to for example all out war in Europe or the Pacific.
Sounds like loner consumerism to me.
What if the driver making a statement to someone else in the car?
Does it respond only to the driver, or also to the bored kid wanting food simply as a distraction?
Why suggest a restaurant instead of, say, the sandwiches the driver brought?
Who gets to prioritize which restaurant to mention?
Why suggest a restaurant and not grocery store?
Or, make a statement like "you are five minutes from home, you can wait", or "what? You just had lunch 45 minutes ago and you've been complaining about your weight, so drink some water instead."
That’s an easy one! Whatever restaurant or fast-food chain paid the most, obviously. That’s be triple-dipping: get money for the car, get money from the “customer” because obviously such premium features require a subscription, and then get money from businesses who want to attract the “customer”.
The best thing is that you can do the same with service stations. Or car parks.
Gotta finish your sentences, men.
Stay away from Rivian, they don’t have a clue what customers want.
I like the buttons in my (now practically antique) 2007 Mazda 3, but voice sounds miles better than updating my car and ending up with a janky touch screen that takes my focus off the road, the layout and responsiveness changing randomly with OTA updates.
However this:
> For instance, he said if a driver says “I’m hungry” the in-car assistant should be able to quickly direct them to a nearby restaurant that they might prefer.
sounds like more adtech hellscape.
First thing I did with my current car was replace the stereo with one that has physical playback control buttons, a physical volume knob, and Bluetooth. God I can’t stand touchscreens in cars.
Physical buttons can be "feeled". In the dark, when you know where they are and your muscle-memory got used to their position any you can keep your eyes ot in the traffic.
Not a great sign that he's all in on touch + voice of course, just that he may not be dictating what is actually in the vehicle.
Humans have hands. Our hands are built-in, highly flexible, comfortable means of controlling things. I want buttons for my fingers to press. I want haptic interfaces.
Voice has to contend with other sounds and other uses of voice in the car. You ought to be able to drive a car if you lose your voice. If you can’t push buttons, though, you should not be driving.
I love a screen for configuring my front dash and another one for maps, certain settings, etc. But you absolutely should have tactile interfaces for various things.
After touch screens everywhere I fear this means the next wave will be voice control everywhere...
ridiculous. "turn the volume down!" might not work too well for example. And are we expected to say "high beam", "low beam", "indicate left" etc constantly?
I stopped reading at this insanity. I'm usually listening music or radio, or talking to other passengers, I can interact with the car with easier, flawless and much faster buttons.
Music too loud? VOLUME DOWN. VOLUME! DOWN!
Typical Silicon Valley blah blah. The button is an evolution. A solution to a problem from before computers and voice assistants were a thing.
Recently, I drove a Volvo and a Polestar and found that using physical buttons required me to look down to see what I was pressing. Even after over 20 hours of driving, I couldn’t adapt back to physical buttons scattered across the dashboard. I really missed the streamlined, contextual controls I’m used to.
I've got a full analog Fiat Punto 2017 and almost fully digital VW Polo 2024 and I find the second one more dangerous, distracting, I just can't but hate it (I know it might be me).
When I lease cars abroad the more digital they are, the more complex I find them to use and the more annoyed I am.
To be honest, pretty much everything that gets more digital I hate it, even more than cars it applies to house appliances. Wi-fi connected dish washers, smartphone-controlled ovens, smart fridges, they create more problems while solving made up ones.
Tesla literally changed their entire UX and UI from one day to the other confusing my in-law for weeks.
What used to be standard icons on all cars on analog knobs and buttons are now stylized bs all different from car to car. Every car I need to learn its own menus and try to find where are things hidden, as someone who has to lease cars often I truly hate it.
Your washer example is comedy because it either confirms that it's yet another digital crap for something like this to happen. Never had good washers/fridges or whatever had their physical buttons or knobs break bar a stove one in 37 years of my life because of an accident, and fixing it was few euros without the need of service.