Hacker News Reader

Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

Do cars really have that much more functionality that it requires everything to be thrown into a touch screen?

I have a 2017 Chevy Sonic with a built in touchscreen and I basically never have to touch it other than to input an address into Android auto.

I haven't found any pieces of the car functionality I cannot access through a button somewhere on the dash or steering wheel

I doubt a 2024 car has that much more functionality than my 2017

View on HN

Both of my cars from different makers have a ton of things which don't have a physical button. Configuring the colors of the lights in the interior, setting restrictions on secondary keys, changing the doorpad settings, configuring navigation quick saves, configuring auto lock on walk away, whether the car moves the seats back for easier getting in and out, how much it moves the seats for that, toggling liftgate gestures, setting the default settings for ADAS systems, configuring if the mirrors automatically tuck in or not, configuring the puddle lights, configuring charging settings, configuring stereo equalizer and other deeper settings, rear occupant alert systems, configuring how long it waits to have the lights on, defaults for auto-high beam and its sensitivity, configuring remote start options, deeper setting options for drive modes, configuring cross traffic alerting, deeper route planning, etc. Probably still a hundred more options I haven't listed here.

And so you can have physical buttons (left, right, up, down, enter) and a screen with a menu for all those options.

How is that better? Press press press press press press press press press press press press press press press cool just set one setting. Versus tap settings, flick scroll, tap to set.

It’s not. I think the people in this thread already have their minds made up.

In terms of doing it while driving, I'll take the buttons instead of a touch screen. I can press a button without looking at a screen.

One shouldn't be adjusting practically any of those things listed while driving. That makes having it as a physical control moot. And having physical buttons to navigate a selector on the screen is still a terrible thing to do when driving anyways.

My rule of thumb is if it's on the center console I shouldn't be messing with it when the car is in motion. If I'm supposed to mess with it while moving it's on the wheel or immediately around it.

And tbh between my car with a zillion buttons I shouldn't be pressing while driving and a small screen and the car where most of those functions I shouldn't mess with while driving are on the screen I prefer the screen. Far bigger screen to quickly glance at the maps when driving instead of a smaller one that's harder to see. Less space to actually see the media collection when I'm stopped and can safely navigate it.

That's not always the case, some things on the center console include skipping songs, flipping between audio sources, etc. If you need to switch to an emergency radio station from bluetooth, its drastically more complicated because there's no physical buttons anymore.

> skipping songs

That's on the steering wheel on practically every car I've had for over 20 years of model years.

You probably shouldn't be flipping between audio sources while driving. But even then, I've had change audio source as an option on steering wheels before. Generally, you shouldn't be fiddling with the radio when the vehicle is moving, you should be driving. Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road, not on the stereo in the center console.

FWIW, in pretty much every car I've had since a 2012 model year I've been able to press a button on the wheel and say "tune to am 1510" and it'll tune that without having to take my hands or eyes off the wheel. Far preferrable than trying to look over at the radio to find the AM button again and figure out which knob is the tuning dial and then look to see I'm tuning to the right station.

> I've been able to press a button on the wheel and say "tune to am 1510" and it'll tune that without having to take my hands or eyes

Every time I try to talk to the voice assistant its the most horrible driving experience. It hijacks everything, and definitely sets me to where I have to pull over, or just stop trying to talk to it to get anything done. It does not understand me whatsoever.

> left, right, up, down, enter

Every UI using "simple" menu button navigation has been horrific in my experience. Remote controls, handsets, TV configuration menus, yadda yadda.

Discoverability is also an issue touch screens can help with - I enjoy that in the settings app on iPhone (I believe android is the same) one can search for a setting, rather than try to guess where a given setting has been placed.

But I don't want discoverability when my windshield suddenly fogs up and I can't see anything. I want to be able to just reach out and adjust the airflow without even thinking about it when I start noticing the fog in the first place.

Last time I had something useful was in my Volvo 740. After that it has been getting worse and worse. Even physical nobs can be bad, just round and smooth, without any physical notch that snows what direction it points.

In regards to dealing with windows fogging, I prefer the system in my car that automatically detects conditions where it might fog and adjusts itself accordingly. On top of that the car has a physical max defog button close to the actual driver controls.

Oh, I completely agree - everything important should be accessible and intuitive - typically that does mean a well-placed physical control.

But there are so many settings on a contemporary car that it would be impractical to have a switch for all of them, and even if they were, if it's something you'd like to change once in a blue-moon being able to search for that setting is really useful.

I don't know if this makes great sense as an example, but, say you're travelling from the UK to France (or USA to Mexico?) and want to have your speedometer show km/h rather than miles/hour. That's not a setting which should have a switch, but may be something useful.

>I don't know if this makes great sense as an example, but, say you're travelling from the UK to France (or USA to Mexico?) and want to have your speedometer show km/h rather than miles/hour. That's not a setting which should have a switch, but may be something useful.

Three presses in a Mercedes on its speedometer screen.

> Three presses in a Mercedes on its speedometer screen

> speedometer screen

> screen

So a setting behind a screen instead of a dedicated hardware button/switch/toggle for it.

You use the dedicated hardware buttons for controlling car options on the steering wheel.

I don't see why in God's name would you ever need that as a hardware switch.

Many here argue there should be no screens in cars. The screen has some state you'll need to at least look at to get a bearing for where in the menu you'll need to navigate to. But most people aren't going to memorize the menu layouts for settings they rarely use, meaning they'll be looking at the screen when they interact with it.

The discussion is not about buttons for everything. Ofcourse I can't have a 737 cockpit from 1980 with buttons all over the place. Even planes get smart controls for the less used things. But the fan, the air direction and other very important and time sensitive controls HAVE to be physical in a car.

Surely none of that requires a touchscreen though? Just basic generic navigation and selection buttons will work fine.

It doesn't require it to be a touchscreen, sure, but it practically requires it to be a screen. But I'd much rather just quickly tap a checkbox instead of press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press navigating the giant array of settings.

And then on top of that people want AA/CarPlay which is designed around touch inputs first, so you're going to have that screen be touch anyways.

None of that should really be changed by the driver when the car is in motion, and you'd have to manage the deep navigation of a bunch of button presses on a screen anyways so arguing you'd be less distracted is a moot point.

Speaking of things not supposed to be done while driving: We tested the Android car GPS thing this summer. The passenger is usually in charge of the GPS so the driver can concentrate on driving. But this darn thing says something like "touch input disabled while driving". So we still have to stop the car to do adjustments on the GPS. Very handy on the Autobahn, you can't just pull over and park... Who does things like this?

Sadly all other GPS navigators we used to use has gone downhill to the state of unusable so this is what we turned out using all vacation.

Get osmand on a phone and be done with it :D

Will try it again, was a while ago. Maybe it actually works on my new phone, thanks :-)

If in a VAG car you can just disable the driving detection via VCDS like any normal person would and have everything work fine again:-)

> But I'd much rather just quickly tap a checkbox instead of press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press, press navigating the giant array of settings.

If I was making such an interface, that would be a dial or knob instead of buttons.

Ok, so click click click click click click click click click press click click click press click click. In the end I'm still having to pay attention to the screen anyways, and once again the screen is probably going to be touchscreen anyways so it's extra hardware just to have a more complicated input system than just pressing the screen, taking up space in the cabin to have this redundant control scheme. Once again just to change settings I shouldn't be changing while driving anyways like how far back the seat should go when the car is off and I open the door or if the passenger side mirror should tilt down when reversing to help aiding in parallel parking. So critical to operate that with physical controls so one can change those settings while driving!

I've had far more rotary encoders fail than I've had capacitive screens fail, so even an argument of higher reliability is pretty moot. Most damage that would break the capacitive touch is going to damage the rest of the screen anyways.

Finally, if it's so I can change those settings while wearing gloves, wow I'm going to increase the complexity of the car and take up more space so I can change the settings on the secondary keys without taking off my gloves when it's really cold outside someday. So much stuff just so I can do that thing I rarely do anyways slightly easier for a few days of the year, assuming I'm changing those settings while also getting in and out of the car a lot so I wouldn't want to take off my gloves for a minute.

Just put the settings behind a touchscreen. It's fine.

> Ok, so click click click click click click click click click press click click click press click click.

That doesn't sound like a dial/knob. You'd give it a single big twist or scroll to get the cursor around the right spot first. Same as old-fashioned radios.

So a knob that doesn't even have the feedback of knowing when you've gotten to the next selection at all, you have to actually stare at it as it goes through the different choices. That doesn't seem better to me at all. Personally, in this idea of a dial I'd like one that can actually give some haptic feedback. Or even better yet just be able to actually tap on the option instead of needing to turn a dial to move a selector on the screen to choose it.

At least with an old-fashioned radio knob you got the feedback of if you were tuning into the station by hearing it. But moving a selector on a screen?

It's like you're arguing for the MacBook Wheel, as if a knob is the most optimal way to input arbitrary choices on a computer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

The commodore 64 had 4 large Function keys on the right. I think 10 strokes per second was normal (I was among 12-14 year olds tho) Menus were structured like

   [F1] FOO
   [F3] BAR
   [F5] BAZ
   [F7] BAL

Small enough to instantly absorb in the wetware. Depending on how frequent the choice was used one would push options further down the sub menus. Say, something like this for HN (I made a tree, they would normally be separate pages)

    [F1] Index
    [F3] Threads
    [F5] Comments
    [F7] More [F1] Ask
              [F3] Show
              [F5] Jobs
              [F7] More [F1] Profile [F1] View
                                     [F3] Submissions
                                     [F5] Logout
                        [F3] New
                        [F5] Past
                        [F7] Submit

After you've submitted 2-3 things you just know you have to bash [F7] three times. To view jobs you hammer the bottom button then the one above. The hands will learn how to use the menus really quickly. I was often surprised that my hands knew how to take me places before really reading anything. Every time one used such menu it went slightly faster and it kept going faster. Pointing a mouse or using a touch screen is really slow. Could say it gets slower every time by comparison.

(The use of odd numbers wasn't even optimal)

You're really going to memorize the menu layouts to adjust the different settings for the seat moving when you turn off the car and open the door? You change that setting enough you're going to get a lot of muscle memory for that setting? Really?

Yes, the lever to move the chair would be like a top level menu entry (It does only one thing)

It seems you're not getting what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the normal seat adjustment that you probably fiddle with a bit especially if you don't have profiles and change drivers a lot. I'm talking about the feature where your seat will go further back than normal to give you more space to get in and out of the car. It's often called something like "Easy Entry/Exit". Then when you start the car it goes back to where either the seat was last or whatever profile it was set to.

On this feature (which itself can be enabled/disabled), sometimes you can choose how far back it'll move the seat automatically for you.

Its this setting that you're suggesting you're going to mess with enough to have decent muscle memory to change without looking. That you'd want as a top-level feature setting option, practically a dedicated button to change it.

The video below shows what I'm talking about. Note in a lot of cars it's just a basic toggle. Sometimes you can set how far back you want the seat to go, if you want the steering wheel to move, how far you want the steering wheel to move, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhM-gJ5cIHA

But that's stuff you don't need to touch while driving.

We only need knobs for crucial things like fog lights, turn signals and skipping podcast ads.

The standard I was replying to was:

> I haven't found any pieces of the car functionality

Any functionality.

I agree though. Any critical driving function should be physical. Like the podcast ad skip button on the steering wheel, one of the most important control components in a modern car.

Do people actually use most of this stuff or is it just cruft? My guess is it is junk that almost no one ever looks at nevermind actually uses or changes with any frequency

I'm talking about important, everyday functions of a vehicle, like the radio, GPS, heating, cruise control, etc

I agree, controls drivers should be expected to use when the car is in motion should be physical and on/immediately around the steering wheel.

GPS? As in you're going to have like a whole QWERTY keyboard as physical keys or something for punching in addresses? I've got no problem with practically everything about the navigation be on a touchscreen, I shouldn't be messing with it while the car is moving. Just make it big.

Radio/stereo should have physical controls on the steering wheel. You shouldn't really be messing with the center console while driving. It's not like you should be swapping CD's or navigating folders on the USB drive or whatever. Anything past next/previous and volume is probably too much.

Cruise control should be on the steering wheel or stalks as well.

It's 2024. Thermostats have been a thing for a long time. Cars can make us comfortable without having to mess with the settings every five minutes. Every time I'm in a car that doesn't have auto climate I hate it, have to constantly futz with it to make it actually comfortable. Meanwhile even my 2000 Accord had a decent auto climate that I practically never had to touch. But whatever, put the basic AC controls and what not as physical controls. The only one I care to absolutely be physical is max defrost.

But my point is, there are a ton of controls you're possibly going to use sometimes, even if only to originally set up the car how you want it. It's asinine thinking every function of a modern car can have some physical switch and toggle to it. Loads of cars would look like the controls on the Space Shuttle if you forced every feature available to be assigned to a physical switch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com