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Comment by sixtyj | Hacker News Reader

Imagine driving thru night with kids sleeping and suddenly car starts beeping.

Is there a way how to switch sensors off for similar situations?

You can switch them off but only until the engine is turned off again. Most manufacturers have a shortcut on the dashboard or steering wheel though. Eventually you just get used to doing that every time you start driving.

There'll be firmware hacks to force that mode soon enough.

You wouldn’t download a bookmarklet on your car

"Download NoBeepPro for Android Auto now! It silences all unwanted warning sound, and totally doesn't surreptitiously enroll your car into a residential proxy service or mine crypto currency using your main power or hybrid battery!"

That hasn't broadly happened yet, and it's even less likely to happen in the future with encrypted comms and locked-down firmware increasingly becoming the rule instead of the exception.

Depends on the car (and the regulatory regime, I'd imagine). My fancy pants 2025 car is happy to leave driver alertness detection disabled, which is handy because it's not good. Of course my ultra base model 1981 van doesn't have any features... it's a lot more fun to drive, other than the engine noise is pretty oppressive on a drive any significant length oh and the floor is missing where the accelerator pedal should mount :P

That works. I already got so used to disabling ESC on start that I do it unconsciously at this point, can't even recall afterwards that I did it. (My car is old and has a glitchy ESC)

I saw a mod where there was an arduino/lcd setup on the dash of an Audi to turn off the ESC and other annoyances on startup.

I turn mine off quite often. On dirt roads and snow.

Yeah, there are ways if you figure out the manufacturer specifics. Thought it'd be fun to try capturing and replaying CAN messages, gave up cause whatever cheapo CAN to USB adapter I got wasn't working with my Linux laptop. Probably could've figured it out but decided it wasn't worth risking my 2005 Quattroporte with something that was feeling increasingly jank. Autel scanner already gave me all the read-only access I needed, including clutch wear.

I recommend "the car hackers handbook".

Gives you all the info you need including software.

Great start to knowing what the CAN is doing.

That one is good. I did actually start there, just bought the wrong stuff :S

>...until the engine is turned off again

Modern electric Volkswagens (and some other brands) have this amazingly awful feature where lifting your ass off the driver's seat turns off the "ignition". The car just shuts off immediately, AC turns off, CarPlay disconnects, those driver settings reset. Even if I sit back one second later.

...even while driving?

Fairly sure that it won't turn off while the wheels are spinning at any speed -- with the engine off, you also lose power steering in most cases and can trivially cause an accident. Car manufacturers are not this dumb.

In my experience, rental cars are the worst. They are configured to make so much noise. My kids sleep in rentals more than daily driving too (longer commutes when traveling). My 2022 Volvo treats me like a adult and makes very little noise. Heads up display shows things that might be important.

If it makes someone put their phone down, or pull over when they are too tired to drive, perhaps the bigger question is if it prevents you all ending up in an accident - a lot worse of a situation than the beeping, in my opinion

If it beeps when you're NOT using your phone then people won't care about using their phone to begin with.

Maybe you should ask yourself why you are not looking at the road in the first place.

I think it was clear that the poster was distracted by all the useless bongs and beeps and that was what caused the extra distracted driving bong or beep

That does not justify not looking at the road.

The kids will wake up a few times, then just get used and grow up to ignore all the annoying beeps.

My boss sometimes drives without a belt while the car keeps beeping and he succesfully ignores it.

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