Comment by aftbit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aftbit | Hacker News Reader

They're getting better though. The first gen touchscreens were tiny and unreliable. The one in my 2024 Ioniq 5 is pretty decent. I am really glad I still have physical AC controls though, even if they're capacitive.

Touchscreens are modal. If I want to control the climate, I first have to press the Climate capacitive button or scroll through the screen to find climate. That takes my hands off the wheel and my eyes off the road for longer than just tapping the fan-up button.

As for the cost, I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior. Heck, I chose to step up an entire trim model to the top of the line trim just for the fancy LCD screen mirror. I'd happily pay extra for better buttons.

IMO touch screens are great for rarely used features, but anything that gets clicked on most drives should be a dedicated touch point (capacitive button, physical button, steering wheel control, whatever).

Give me multifunction displays from aviation. Touch screen in the middle, rows of modal buttons along the bottom and left side. You can use muscle memory to find the button.

> I will _happily_ pay the $100 more to have a more premium and tuned interior

I'm guessing the cost difference is greater than this. Which means the end-user price difference would be north of $1k.

Would be interesting to see if customers would pay $2 to 5k extra for a mostly-tactile interior. (I think back-up camera requirements make some screen unavoidable.)

I'm somewhat skeptical that the cost difference would really be that high, but honestly...yeah I probably would. If what I was getting was fully physical (not capacitive) media and AC controls, including pause/play, skip/tune, volume control, temp control, fan speed control, zone selection, etc? I interact with those systems multiple times every single time I get into a vehicle, which is essentially multiple times every day, for years. Improving the quality of those interactions even a little bit (and in my opinion the difference between good physical buttons and even a very good touchscreen, let alone a shitty one, is massive), is worth thousands of dollars.

While I was not presented with the option on a given model to go with buttons or touchscreens, when I was shopping for cars, I did eliminate models based on their interface options. The models I was willing to consider were probably cut in half because I wouldn't get anything that was entirely touch screen or capacitive for both AC and media.

That can get thrown into a tiny 2" screen in the instrument cluster.

Sure, I'd pay 2K or 5K or 10K more for a car with purely physical controls, no screen. It is so much better it is not a question.

Touch screens don't have to be modal, that's a UI choice. The 2020 Bolt we just got leaves the climate controls on screen at all times, even when CarPlay is open. I was also pleasantly surprised by the number of buttons it has, including both a volume knob and a temperature knob.

That being said, the touchscreen software is abysmal and laggy. CarPlay works great, but any time I have to navigate the car's built-in software is a headache.

> The 2020 Bolt we just got leaves the climate controls on screen at all times

At that point though they might as well be physical buttons! It's all the disadvantages of a touch screen and none of the advantages.

Actually it's an odd split. The temperature and fan adjustment are physical buttons, but the A/C, recirculation, and heated seat controls are on the screen. I'm thinking this is for two reasons: If a lower trim level lacks heated seats then they just exclude them from the firmware, and the AC and recirc controls require lighted indicators, which is probably a lot more expensive than just a button, so those were much cheaper to integrate into the display. That being said, I've heard digitizer failures can be an issue on this model so I dread that happening.

It also irritates me that there are 3 of those blank button placeholders on the dash and I wish they were actual buttons that were just mapped to A/C and recirc...

Do you not have muscle memory for screens too? I find my brain has an easier time visualizing all the touchscreen controls I use semi-often over buttons. Perhaps it's a generational thing.

> Do you not have muscle memory for screens too?

No, that's not a thing because there is no physical sensation to it.

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