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Betch ,
@Betch@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah I really hope other car makers follow because I fucking hate touch controls in cars with a burning passion. It’s idiotic and not safe at all.

Halcyon ,
@Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Same goes for kitchens. Give me real buttons and knobs and not these abhorrent touch panels that refuse to work every third time. A good quality kitchen appliance is identified by high quality knobs that last for decades.

ultra ,

I like touch panels but don’t mind physical buttons.

0110010001100010 ,
@0110010001100010@lemmy.world avatar

I pumped gas at a brand new Shell station over the weekend. The controls for the pump was one GIANT touchscreen (I’m talking probably 12 inches wide by 36 inches tall). It was fucking PAINFUL to use. Every touch took 2-3 seconds for the action to happen. Da fuck is wrong with a regular pump and regular buttons that just work!?

CluelessLemmyng ,

It was slow because all of the memory was allocated for the ads they show you.

567PrimeMover ,
@567PrimeMover@kbin.social avatar

Because then they don't have a display the size of a living room TV to shove ads in your face

the_post_of_tom_joad ,

And to sell to the station owner when their proprietary hardware breaks. Oh what am i saying, they’re all service contacts these days. So more expensive service conrtacts and the ability to shut them down for non-payment

ripcord ,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

Were the old ones not the same...?

the_post_of_tom_joad ,

Were the old ones not the same…?

The contracts? Pumps? Im kinda talking out my ass here but currently there’s no ability to shut down the pumps themselves as far as i understand it (in l understanding coming from being a cashier at one once. The touchscreens outside just process the customers payments. Without those they can still be run from the other system inside. The pumps are not connected to Wi-Fi.

My hypothetical assumes more and more control left to the touchscreen outside i guess, and i ran with it. If it doesn’t make much sense then just reread my first sentence ;)

ripcord ,
@ripcord@kbin.social avatar

The conversation was about locking in the owners to their expensive proprietary pumps as a reason for switching to this new style, and I was asking if lock-in was actually a new thing or not. Otherwise the comment doesn't really make a lot of sense in context.

Edgarallenpwn ,
@Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social avatar

Reminder to try and press any of the buttons on the side of the screen to mute if possible. 2nd right or bottom right works on all the pumps around me but I dread the day we get touch only

orphiebaby ,

This is the reason.

FaceDeer ,
@FaceDeer@kbin.social avatar

In Canada it really sucks having to take your gloves off half the year. I hope this gets taken into account when touchscreens on gas pumps are considered.

aniki ,

Try wearing very thin neoprene under your bigger gloves. It’s been a game changer for me. I have a horrible habit of taking my gloves off from years of snowboarding and those have been awesome.

lolcatnip ,

It should be illegal to connect a touch screen to a computer that runs like a potato. Even computers in the 80s could respond to keystrokes and mouse clicks in real time.

capital ,

If it keeps getting broken they might reconsider.

Buddahriffic ,

It seems to be a very popular mindset in software development that efficiency isn’t as important because of how fast hardware has gotten.

This sucks because I don’t get better hardware just to make up for worse software (not that it even does; a lot of browser-based apps are painfully slow), and some of these devs end up working on weaker platforms that don’t make up for their shitty programming. They might not ever touch the platform it is actually supposed to run on and instead work on a dev machine that is powerful enough to make it look good. It’s possible that neither them nor anyone hiring/managing them realizes that they aren’t the kind of programmer they want.

Though it’s also possible that the programmers are fine and have told their managers that the CPUs just aren’t powerful enough for what they want them to do but some assholes are only looking at the bottom line and have low standards for these kind of things in their own life (my TV is slow, so it’s no big deal that our car interface is slow).

Worst thing is it’s probably less than a $50 difference in cost to switch to something that could handle it fine, assuming it’s not programmed in JavaScript and HTML or slow because it’s backend is on the cloud or some shit like that, which also wouldn’t surprise me.

lolcatnip ,

It seems to be a very popular mindset in software development that efficiency isn’t as important because of how fast hardware has gotten.

How’s this for irony: I was hired at my current job as part of a team whose whole mission is to address performance problems in a large desktop app…that’s written entirely in Typescript!

Buddahriffic ,

It’s kinda funny how some are willing to develop a skill to great depth (you’d have to know JavaScript/TypeScript very well to write a full deal desktop application in it, and it probably involved a LOT of frustrating debug if performance is the main issue with it) but don’t spend any time on breadth to understand that some depths aren’t worth it.

psud ,

We used to have a rule in computer system design that if an event would take more than 4 seconds we had to show a “waiting” icon like the hourglass.

Now though, people are sensitive to half a second between tap/click and something happening. Incidentally there’s no reason for a fuel pump control to be slow, even running on a potato. The engineer who designed it wasn’t given time to make it efficient

ZiemekZ ,

What do you need a touchscreen for? You just take an appropriate pump (E95, Diesel), fill the fuel and pay at the register.

lightnsfw ,

Because it’s way faster to pay at the pump and not have to go inside. I’ve only been inside a gas station like 4-5 times in the last decade.

topinambour_rex ,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

Your experience remembers me those old touch screen we had at the library in the 90s. The screen was monochrome, but touch sensitive. It took several seconds for react.

MonkeMischief ,

Also it probably was crustier than a toddler’s iPad. 🤢

Betch ,
@Betch@lemmy.world avatar

Agreed, it’s true for most devices. They’re often finicky, don’t offer anything in terms of feedback (Except maybe for a beep that is identical for all button presses) and they don’t last.

LastYearsPumpkin ,

Biggest problem is that they cheap out on the tech parts. Nobody complains that an iPad has a touch screen, cause it works. But an appliance tends to have a crappy UI, running on a crappy touch screen, powered by a crappy CPU.

If they just used quality parts, it’d probably be fine, and the only issue would be expensive replacement for an entire assembly, instead of small, cheap parts that can be fixed.

Halcyon ,
@Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

A smartphone or tablet screen has the function to have multiple buttons and responsive functions on one and the same place.

A kitchen appliance doesn’t have or need that. Absolutely no need for digital or so-called “smart” gimmicks.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah! Instead of having a knob my idiot stove has “touch areas” - good luck cooking if you’re blind.

At my old place, if I wanted to set the bottom left plate to the hottest setting, I’d put my hand on the leftmost knob and turn counter-clockwise until it snapped once.

On this thing I usually have to start with turning off the child lock. We never turn it on, but every time we wipe off the stove there’s a like 95% chance the child lock activates due to the lingering moisture.

After turning the child lock off you have to hold the power “zone.” Then you have to select which burner by holding its zone - if you don’t you’ll start changing the timer when you hold down the - button to cycle from 0 to keep warm, to 9, and then press + to turn it from 9 to boost.

I’m legit not joking. Mind you this example is when the piece of shit behaves. I’ve an absentmindedly placed lids on the off “button” before and had the piece of junk refuse to turn back on for half an hour.

What does the touch controls add to my experience other than frustration? A knob doesn’t activate from water splashes. A knob doesn’t turn from residual moisture from a slightly damp cloth. A knob is tactile and pleasing to hold, and can be used by anyone of appropriate age, even if they’re blind.

Four knobs could pull the weight that these NINE touch “buttons” fucking struggle with.

BearOfaTime ,

Oh ffs what a fucked up convoluted mess.

We need to find the engineer that designed this, and their managers who pushed it, and shame them People of Walmart style.

How is it people can willingly violate fundamental UI/UX rules?

As mentioned, how do these things pass Accessibility regs?

aniki ,

WHO CAME UP WITH THAT?! Holy shit that is a fucking crime against humanity.

ZiemekZ ,

Holy shit, it’s like User Inyerface, but for stoves!

CherenkovBlue ,
@CherenkovBlue@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I can’t believe I wasted five minutes of my life on that hell. Whoever constructed that is an evil genius.

ZiemekZ ,

JUST FIVE?! Holy shit dude, how much of bad UI/UX have you been through?

IMongoose ,

Holy shit, I could not imagine someone who cooks a lot to put up with that. If you have a few things you need to start and stop at specific times and change heat levels and stuff while cooking several things at once… it takes me .5 seconds to operate my dials when doing this. I would be livid using your stove.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah it drives me bonkers every time I have to use it.

It’s worse than that too because I grew up with gas and electric hot plates. I’ve 20 years of ingrained habit causing me to move pots and pans off the plate to quickly adjust temperature. I’ve legit lost count of the amount of times I’ve absent-mindedly pulled a hot pan over the controls causing the stove to become unusable for a while.

These are the most sensitive touch controls I’ve ever experienced. They’re triggered by moisture and even putting pans or groceries on them.

Wrench ,

Touch screens especially don’t make sense in the cooking context, where your hands are likely to be wet / damp.

FireRetardant ,

Touch controls for burners are very dangerous in my opinion. What if i spill oil on the stove and touch screen? Now the oil might stop me from turning off the heat and the situation could quickly turn into a fire.

xthexder ,
@xthexder@l.sw0.com avatar

That’s a thing? Holy shit… And here I thought the worst offender was Tesla’s yolk steering wheel with a capacitive touch horn “button”.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve had similar situations happen before. Moved into this apartment in September. This stove will be the death of me.

joe_cool ,

That’s why they have spill detection. Try pouring water over the touch controls. It should beep, then turn off. It’s not a good solution or better than a knob, but better than nothing. Except your spill doesn’t flow over the controls. Then good luck.

ominouslemon ,

Omg I feel that. The oven in my apartment has touch controls. When I’m baking stuff with lots of moisture inside, water evaporates and is expelled though a vent JUST BELOW the touch controls. The condensation makes them completely unresponsive. Smh

CancerMancer ,

You have to wonder if the engineer who designed that was a complete dumbass because it seems remarkably obvious that you’d want to keep moisture away from electronics.

dojan ,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

I was boiling pasta earlier and my fucking stove turned itself off and engaged the child lock because water splashed onto those controls. THREE TIMES!

I’ve had this piece of shit literally ruin dinner before. It’s amazing how it can be both really nice and really fucking useless at the same time.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

In general high quality things tend to have physical buttons and knobs as opposed to touch screen devices.

Instead of turning into e-waste after 5 years or less they can last for the next 30 to 50 years.

How many smart thermostats have become obsolete because their service providers stopped providing cloud services for them?

I just tore apart a working thermostat that almost 80 years old now (to understand how it works) and in perfectly working condition. It uses the physical properties of the materials inside to measure temperature (a coil of metal expands and contracts causing a pendulum to move clockwise or counterclockwise). Suspended at the top of this pendulum is a small vial of mercury containing two electrodes. When the pendulum is far enough counterclockwise the Mercury slides in the vial and bridges the electrodes, turning the furnace on, when the pendulum is far enough clockwise the mercury slides to the right and no longer bridges the electrodes.

When you set the temperature on the thermostat you are changing the default position of this pendulum. Meaning that it has to move more or less distance for the bead of mercury to bridge the circuit.

It’s brilliantly simple and will continue to work essentially forever. The physical characteristics of the materials involved won’t change.

itsprobablyfine ,

You should read Exhalation by Ted Chaing if you haven’t already. It’s a quick read

kent_eh , (edited )

How many smart thermostats have become obsolete because their service providers stopped providing cloud services for them?

Same goes for pretty much every IoT device that people seem to be filling their homes with.

capital ,

This is why, going forward, smart home products I buy have to be zigbee or zwave so I can integrate it with home assistant.

silkroadtraveler ,

I thought this comment was trolling then I realized that zigbee and zwave are real brand names. You can’t make this shit up.

capital ,

lol from the outside I can see how you’d think that.

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah that’s how things are now.

I was looking for kitchen scale and not a single recognisable brand was there on Amazon. No Phillips, Bosch, Siemens, Panasonic etc.

Don’t know if these companies even make things like that anymore.

silkroadtraveler ,

Yeah Amazon has opened the door to the lowest quality hardware out of China to put most name brands out of business for lower priced goods.

MonkeMischief ,

Haha yeah they’re IoT protocols for smarthome stuff. But an open source software called Home Assistant can talk to it, so you can self-host your home automation without your home being subject to the whims of some fragile tech startup and by extension, their investors.

silkroadtraveler ,

Oh I see, that’s helpful and makes sense. I’m one of those newbs who took 15 hours to set up my own Jellyfin. Self hosting Home automation is a ways off in the distance for me haha.

MonkeMischief ,

Hey, same! Glad it was helpful.

And hey it sounds like after 15 hours you DID get it set up, so congrats! The skills learned will keep transferring to your next projects. If you’re having fun, you’re winning. :)

Home Assistant has a pretty rad community and guides on which devices it can use and stuff. They’re trying really hard to be accessible to the curious. So hey, never know!

freebee ,

But it can’t run DOOM.

Squizzy ,

Nah I just got new ovens and a hob and they are sleek and easy clean and work like a charm.

barsoap ,

I’m really on the fence when it comes to kitchens because a) you actually have time to look at what you’re doing – if you need to lower temperature suddenly the better option is to take your pan off the stove, anyway and b) touch controls are trivial to clean.

What I can’t stand though is scales manufactures being so cheap as to not even have capacitive buttons but re-use the front left/right feet as sensors for the interface. On the upside the thing was dirt cheap and actually comes with an USB-C port to charge its LIR2450 cell.

kent_eh ,

It’s idiotic and not safe at all.

Not to mention completely useless in places where you need to wear gloves when driving.

NIB ,

Volvo car touchscreens work with gloves on.

ZiemekZ ,

wear gloves when driving

For example?
If it’s so cold that you wear gloves, then get your AC fixed because it should’ve been running by the time you drive off.

urist ,
@urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Hmm, that’s a strange comment you left. I’m not the person you responded to but:

When I get off work it’s just before dawn (coldest part of the day) and it’s frequently 10 Fahrenheit or lower in the winter (below freezing). I wear gloves in my car in the winter because cars don’t warm up enough for the heat to come on right away. I don’t want to walk through the cold into a cold car and grab a literal freezing steering wheel and hold on to it for 10 mins until the heat kicks on. My drive is about 35 min in good conditions.

I’m assuming you live in a warm place or don’t drive a car, good for you. Wish I had public transportation.

ZiemekZ ,

it’s frequently 10 Fahrenheit or lower in the winter

Fair enough, we don’t hit such temperatures regularly in Warsaw (Poland).

a literal freezing steering wheel

Is it that bad? Wow. Didn’t know that. I though the cage would provide at least some thermal insulation.

hold on to it for 10 mins until the heat kicks on

If my colleagues lived in a climate as cold as yours, they’d have mounted parking heaters (e.g. Webasto) by now. Electrics struggle in cold, but they can preheat themselves before the ride, using just the electricity.

I’m assuming you live in a warm place

Warsaw is at the same latitude as Edmonton in Canada, so shouldn’t be really that warmer.

or don’t drive a car

Winter 2022/23 was when we still were in our previous office. It was ½ hour long commute with my Xiaomi M365 electric scooter. This winter 2023/24 we moved to an office further away, so I was forced to change my daily vehicle to a motorcycle, maxiscooter SYM MaxSym 600i ABS. At least you have the goddamn cage.

Wish I had public transportation.

I miss having good alternative commute via metro and tram to our old office. Took almost the same time as e-scooter. But our new office? Public transit takes 2x as long as a motorcycle commute, according to Google Maps Timeline, so might as well not exist. So now we’re in similar situation. Wish you luck…

cestvrai ,

Warsaw, same as other European cities, is a lot warmer than North American cities of the same latitude due to warming from the Gulf Stream.

Gloves are not optional in cold climates.

CancerMancer ,

Warsaw is at the same latitude as Edmonton in Canada, so shouldn’t be really that warmer.

Reading a climate chart for Warsaw, it seems like January lows average out to -5C and your coldest days dip under -20C? Feel free to correct that considering you would know better than I.

In Edmonton, January lows average to -15C, and winter temperatures can dip down to -35C (or rarely even worse) along with nasty winds. It’s a surprisingly harsh climate.

I live around Ottawa, Canada and our winter experience is basically Edmonton with less wind and more humidity. You scrape the ice off your car and drive with gloves on because otherwise it would take 15 minutes to heat it up enough to be comfortable. Seat warmers are cherished here.

psud ,

They probably drive a car where they can tell the car to warm or cool the cabin remotely. My problem is opposite yours, even with the windscreen covered the car will heat to 50°C (112°F) and if sunlight was on anything, that thing will be too hot to touch.

So I tell my car to keep the air con on while I’m in the shops, tell it to start cooling when I’m returning to it after I’ve been away longer than I like to run AC

In your scenario, I would ask the car to be warm an hour before I needed it

lightnsfw ,

My car takes 15 minutes to warm up enough for the heat to work at all let alone get the interior to a comfortable temperature.

kameecoding ,

How about others leading?

From march 20

thedrive.com/…/hyundai-promises-to-keep-buttons-i…

poppy ,

I got a new car two years ago, and physical buttons were one of the determining factors.

d3lta19 ,

Now only if I could complain enough that my recall on my Atlas gets the passanger air bag fixed. Got told in April that nobody can ride in the passenger seat because the air bag might not deploy. Still no ETA on when a fix will be available. What a BS company.

VieuxQueb ,
@VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca avatar

I gotna letter from Toyota that says I will get another letter later because the car might be dangerous for my health and safety without saying what it is and now I have to drive my car not knowing what could happen.

It’s been more than a month and I still don’t have any other letter with information and/or resolution.

Thanks Toyota, I already am a very anxious person and now I have to rrive everyday with the knowledge my car has something dangerous to it but don’t know what.

squirrelwithnut ,

Good. Touchscreens are the most unsafe feature added to vehicles in decades. It’s honestly mind boggling how it was allowed in the first place.

highenergyphysics ,

Easy, because regulations don’t mean anything anymore.

Headlights that blind you in the day and literally block all vision of the road at night, road legal trucks which bumpers that START at the hood of my car, all around limo tints on literally every car, people disabling their rear lights for some idiotic reason…

And that doesn’t even begin to mention the drivers themselves, so fucking self absorbed, tailgating, cutting you off for fun to get to the same light.

I’ve literally had a stream of cars going around me on street roads and so many dumbasses just follow the stream that I literally cannot safety accelerate because they’re all cutting me off bumper to bumper.

You should start carrying a gun if not already. The conservatives have successfully rotted western society.

Sculptor9157 ,

While you have some good points, it seems you may be missing one in that if you are constantly getting passed in that manner, you are causing a problem, regardless of what is posted. Most western law systems have a provision against impeding the flow of traffic.

Pelicanen ,

Problem is when you get passed because other people aren’t driving legally. Even if it’s the flow of traffic, you’re still technically not allowed to break the law.

barsoap ,

Even if the people overtaking you on the Autobahn break the speed limit (yes those exist), you still have to keep to the right as much as possible. Hogging the left lane at exactly the speed limit is vigilantism.

Pelicanen ,

I’m confused, did I miss someone mentioning staying in the left lane on the highway?

barsoap ,

You mentioned getting passed which should only ever happen, in civilised countries with sane traffic laws, on the left. (modulo countries which drive on the left where it’s the right).

Like, breaking the speed limit gets you a ticket over here. Overtaking on the right can easily mean losing your license and having to undergo a psych exam as they take such things as an opportunity to accuse you of racing on public roads.

tias ,

They’re in the right lane and getting passed by cars on the left. I’m really confused by what you’re trying to say. What makes you think they’re blocking traffic?

Sculptor9157 ,

Yes, exactly. So try to realize that not keeping out of the lane to pass is still an infraction on your part and let traffic enforcement do their job. It’s actually easier for them to witness you impeding multiple vehicles and pull you over than to track down everyone passing you, so don’t get yourself into a completely avoidable situation. Nobody passes you and later on reflects on the point you were trying to make.

Pelicanen ,

Did anyone mention driving in the wrong lane?

Sculptor9157 ,

Can you differentiate staying out of the lane to pass from staying out of the passing lane? Don’t try to bring your petulant road anger to me, silly goose. You have even less power and impression here than on the road. Allow me to demonstrate with my next reply.

Pelicanen ,

What? What are you talking about? I’m confused, are you having an episode?

paradiso ,

Had me until the politics, but I agree. These fucking headlights nowadays are incredibly dangerous, especially on these lifted garage queens.

nsfw_alt_2023 ,

The government has literally prevented cars that prevent you from blinding another car on the road from coming to the US market. Cars come in with active LED arrays and they have to be disabled to sell in the US.

newsweek.com/nhtsa-roadblocking-headlight-technol…

HerbalGamer ,
@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works avatar

Headlights that blind you in the day and literally block all vision of the road at night, road legal trucks which bumpers that START at the hood of my car, all around limo tints on literally every car, people disabling their rear lights for some idiotic reason…

pretty sure all of those are illegal around here, with exception of the giant compensators.

barsoap ,

Headlights that blind you in the day and literally block all vision of the road at night,

Illegal in the EU, Xenon and later LEDs always needed automatic height adjustment (it doesn’t suffice to do it once because cars change angles continuously). Lots has changed in the last 20+ years, though, speaking of VW: How about high beams all the time unless there’s something that could be blinded, then switch them off locally but keep the rest bright.

road legal trucks which bumpers that START at the hood of my car,

Like this?

all around limo tints on literally every car,

Illegal.

people disabling their rear lights for some idiotic reason…

Illegal.

And that doesn’t even begin to mention the drivers themselves, so fucking self absorbed, tailgating, cutting you off for fun to get to the same light.

See the thing is that if you build your infrastructure in a way that requires people to drive cars you can’t just take licenses away from asshats.

MonkeMischief ,

It sounds like you too, might live in a heavily populated metropolitan area of Nevada, USA. Lol

Buddahriffic ,

people disabling their rear lights for some idiotic reason…

That might be people with daytime running lights not turning on the lights. My car will turn on the headlights as soon as I take the parking break off (MT, an auto would likely do it when put in drive), but the dash and rear lights don’t turn on unless I turn the dial.

jasondj ,

They are a lot safer now that we have LKAS and ACC and FCW systems. But that’s moreso in spite of the touchscreens.

flamingo_pinyata ,

The fact that they needed to receive a lot of complaints to reconsider makes me wonder - do they even do any kind of usability testing for their products? Anyone who even sat in a car with only touchscreen can tell you the experience is not comfortable.

And I don’t think it’s just about the price of physical buttons. Buttons are a selling point right now, they could charge a small premium (not in the thousands but ~$200 certainly.

SkyezOpen ,

Or follow the BMW plan and put buttons in the cars but make them subscription only.

Ensign_Crab ,

Never read from a book that summons demons, even as a joke.

SinningStromgald ,

Never read from a book that summons demons

I know they said “What you do in High School will affect your entire life” but I didn’t think it would be this bad! It was only once! I swear!

Semi-Hemi-Demigod ,
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

It’s probably a cost issue. Running one wire harness to a touch screen is a lot cheaper than running a wire to every button in a car.

Ensign_Crab ,

It’s also a “We can charge $900 for this $80 touchscreen when it fails in 5 years because your car is a brick without it” issue.

DaDragon ,

I hate the fact that you’re probably right about that reason.

someguy3 ,

I wonder if it’s a planning issue. Buttons you have to actually plan out. Touchscreen? Plop it in.

psud ,

You have the software design costs, which are high but one-off, so they’re amortised over the entire production - and it’s either the same or nearly the same across each brand’s entire range

BearOfaTime ,

Oh they KNEW what they were doing and just didn’t give a fuck.

We need a People of Walmart equivalent for this bullshit. Start finding the designer/engineer/manager responsible for this garbage and shame them publicly.

How does this stuff pass any kind of Accessibility regs?

FishFace ,

Besides cost, we should probably at least entertain the idea that we are a vocal minority. I’d be completely unsurprised to find out that the majority of people hardly ever touch the controls that got moved to touchscreens and, if they do, they don’t really care - they can set them before they set off, or do it while driving and wobble all over the road, but hey everyone does it so what does it matter?

MargotRobbie ,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

Replacing the buttons with a tablet has always been a cost saving measure on Tesla’s part that was marketed as “futuristic”, physical switches and dials made of plastic and metal as well as the underlying components will never be as cheap or as easy to wire as a simple touchscreen control. Other car companies followed suit, because Tesla made a method of reducing their own manufacturing costs hip, so many of them jumped on it.

But, Tesla tablets were designed with the belief that this cost saving is possible because of the delusion that full autonomous self driving is possible with existing hardware through software updates. When self driving didn’t happen after a decade of trying, people realized how inconvenient and dangerous it is that the only way to adjust the AC, stereo volume, and sideview mirrors while driving is through a tablet with no tactile feedback. So now, we are finally seeing that trend reversing.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

I don’t think autonomous driving had anything to do with the initial choice. It might be a reason now, but I don’t think it was the initial driving factor.

You left off it being marketed as clean and minimalistic. I think that’s different enough from futuristic. Some people love that aspect, some outright hate it. (Edit and I mean this in a looks fashion, not a functionality one)

tias ,

Especially when the buttons move around in the GUI after an update so you accidentally press the wrong ones, or end up having to search the menus while driving.

Perhaps this could change when we have mainstream tactile displays, but until then buttons will always be better.

MargotRobbie ,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

I think using a car tablet is equally as dangerous as texting and driving. Voice control would actually be better for adjustments while driving.

tias ,

Indeed and it seems attainable now, if it weren’t for the expensive hardware and massive energy required for general pre-trained transformers. Don’t want my car to call home just to run a neural network on Azure, it needs to run locally.

SnipingNinja ,

There’s Gemini nano which will run on phones locally, so I think we can have that soon enough

magic_lobster_party ,

Realtime non-cloud voice control is still unreliable. Gonna be a while before that can replace physical buttons.

lightnsfw ,

I don’t want to have to talk to my car. Just have buttons and knobs. This shit was figured out 30 years ago.

mriguy ,

This shit was figured out 30 years ago

More like 100 years ago.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Horseshit. My Pentium 133 could do it in 1997.

The send-to-the-cloud thing just exists because tech companies have a pathological fetish for recording, analyzing, and storing every single little thing you say and do and then trying to sell it to advertisers. Or train AI’s with it these days, or whatever the fuck else. The only marginal benefit you might get is that they can update their algorithms server side and not have to update your car or other device. But the technology has been mature for literal decades, so I don’t think that’s terribly important.

That said, I still don’t want my car to have voice control. It’s just as stupid as a concept as making everything touchscreen.

magic_lobster_party ,

Speech to text is one thing. Actually understanding all the intricate details and variations of language is incredibly difficult. It’s good enough for some stuff, but I’ve yet to see a system a system that’s reliable enough for day to day use, especially in a car.

Scenarios like this happens way too often:

“Set alarm for fifteen minutes”

“Ok, setting alarm fifty minutes from now”

“No! FIFTEEN minutes”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean”

“Remove old alarm and set it to fifteen minutes instead”

“Playing song on Spotify…”

fosforus ,

I had huge reservations towards Tesla’s control system, but in reality, I got used to it in a week. And I’m loving how clean and sleek the dashboard is otherwise. What I don’t understand is the car makers who include a huge tablet AND a dozen gadgets around the dashboard. That’s worst of both worlds.

computerscientistI ,

Also, Tesla’s button replacements actually do work more or less reliably. The other manufacturers decided to save money by adding a potato instead of a potent CPU that powers the screen in the middle of the console.

MonkeMischief ,

“Finally a use for all these leftover 1st gen Kindle Fire CPUs!”

psud ,

In practice though Tesla has buttons for the controls you need while driving.

Cruise control/lane keeping/cancel is a lever

Indicators, flash high beams is a lever

Park is a button

Windscreen wiper single wipe is a button, same button is window wash

Set speed is a scroll wheel, volume is a scroll wheel (and a touch control on the passenger side)

Navigation is on screen keyboard, but you should stop to change navigation, or have a passenger do it

Climate control heats or cools towards your target temperature, heated seats and steering wheel are automatic or touch screen, but you know you need them before you get in the car

What more would you want physical controls for?

Gerula ,

This is actually very good news for car manufacturers.

Touch crap was cheaper but sold a new tech so => price increase

Buttons are old tech so no new investments or tech development but they are more complicated => price increase

MonkeMischief ,

Thank you! I’ve been making this argument a LOT with recent discussions on kids not understanding keyboards and controllers because their lives are full of touchscreens.

Touch isn’t “the future”. It just absolutely flooded the market.

NikkiDimes ,

You think they don’t just charge more because they can, like every other industry lately?

Gerula ,

They 100% do! But the marketing departments always likes to have “solid” arguments at hand.

How else can they organise fairs and conferences where they can lament about how poor the automakers are and how pressure from are pulling prices down so automakers cannot compete… how they have to fire people and move production in poorer countries where people can be treated more like slaves… how profits are so low that they have to use the same jets with the same bitches twice!

MrFunnyMoustache ,

I’m very glad, the lack of buttons are a safety hazard… Looking at these stupid TESLA cars especially… You can’t even adjust the AC without messing with the touchscreen, which means your eyes are not on the road…

Still not going to own a car, but at least it will be slightly safer by bringing back physical buttons, so hurray for small victories.

MeanEYE ,
@MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

For a while now I’ve been thinking about idea where flexible display can be combined with some sort of mechanism where a button on the display can be shown and underneath display in same place it would raise the display slightly. Just enough to be tactile and easy to find without looking. We might see these at some point as stars seem to be aligning that way.

Th0rgue ,

They’ve been working on that for a while now. It looks like those stars are not aligning anytime soon.

howtogeek.com/…/when-will-we-get-tactile-touch-sc…

tomshardware.com/…/feedback-tactile-heptic-touch-…

MeanEYE ,
@MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

Cool. I mean it’s obvious that’s going to happen at some point.

elscallr ,
@elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

I own two cars. The newest is a 2013 because it’s before touchscreens became standard equipment. I’m gonna limp those bitches along until either I die or that trend reverses.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Actually, I am wondering if these dumb things can be replaced with aftermarket stuff. I kinda have my doubts. I miss when you could just pull the stereo out yourself and slide a new one into the bay like a disc drive on a PC.

Joelk111 , (edited )

limp those bitches along

I hope you don’t have to limp them along. My newest vehicle is from 2007, and my oldest from '84. They aren’t limping, they run and drive quite well.

elscallr ,
@elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

Well one runs like a top. The other I need to replace the suspension on but the engine is sound.

Locrin ,

You have buttons on the wheel and voice commands. But it must be nice to stay in your little ignorant bubble so I will leave you be now.

little_hermit ,

I said the same to a Tesla owner who informed me buttons on the steering wheel provide all these functionalities. But upvoters don’t own a Tesla.

MrFunnyMoustache ,

Not all functionalities. You can’t even adjust the direction/power of the AC or open the glovebox without multiple presses on the touchscreen.

little_hermit ,

There’s no physical button to open the glovebox? Better not keep anything critical in there in case of a software failure.

MrFunnyMoustache ,

Either software or hardware failure of the big infotainment system can suck really badly, and TESLA is also an anti-repair company too…

mrmanager ,
@mrmanager@lemmy.today avatar

Judging from reviews, people are avoiding VW now because of really shitty infotainment systems…

Two2Tango ,

For me it was this and their build quality, I got the impression they aren’t cars you keep for 10+ years

barsoap ,

Have you tried observing the service intervals.

Two2Tango ,

I drive a Honda it just keeps going

barsoap ,

Yes. Different engineering approach. Performance, efficiency, no mandatory service intervals, choose two.

barsoap ,

It’s a thing Chinese manufacturers are focussing on to distract from the rest of their engineering.

gogogadgetfork ,

VW has made a lot of bad decisions

TexMexBazooka ,

I don’t want a touchscreen in my fucking car. That is all.

TheRealKuni ,

I don’t mind a touchscreen. Apple CarPlay/Android Auto are really nice.

I just also want physical controls for everything the car needs to do to be a car, like climate control or wipers or shifting. And also physical controls for play/pause, skip, volume, and tuning.

Touchscreens can do a lot to enhance the car experience, but they cannot replace physical buttons.

Electromechanical_Supergiant ,

The car experience

The car experience is driving.

We don’t need 6 different fuel efficiency visualizations and we sure as fuck don’t need games or videos in the car.

TheRealKuni ,

Sure. I don’t want games or videos (though I can see how that would be useful while waiting for an EV to charge).

I just want Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. Or, failing that, whatever controls are necessary to facilitate an infotainment system.

Electromechanical_Supergiant ,

How much entertainment do you need while driving? Can’t you just plug your phone in for some music?

Do you really need a maps app built into your car when you already have one on your phone?

I just can’t see a reasonable use for an infotainment system that isn’t already taken care of perfectly by the device I already have.

TheRealKuni ,

In my older car, I have a mount for my phone because it does not have GPS. But it does work just fine for Bluetooth.

CarPlay is a lot easier to use. As was Android Auto when I had an Android phone.

These also give me greater flexibility with regard to mapping. I can, for example, simply tell my phone to navigate to my wife’s location. (Obviously not a dealbreaker to not have, but convenient!)

It can also be really nice to have a side-by-side view of the media player and the maps.

I dunno, it’s not like I wouldn’t buy a car that doesn’t have CarPlay, but that car would lose some points in my mind. It’s the kind of thing I didn’t think I’d appreciate as much until I had it.

Aceticon ,

If it’s the kind of thing that it’s not reasonable to expect that people will stop by the side of the road to do, it should be buttons. The rest can be touch.

So for example setting a destination on your navigation interface is fine to do via touch screen, but starting/stopping swipers or changing audio volume is not.

TheRealKuni ,

Very well put.

deafboy ,
@deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

I’d go as far as mounting a full size qwerty keyboard on the steering wheel. Although we’d somehow have to deal with the shrapnel grenade situation as soon as the airbag hits it.

MonkeMischief ,

But if I’m gonna go out, having WASD forever embedded in my forehead is kinda metal.

EmergMemeHologram ,

And I’ll continue complaining about stuff, nothing will stop me, not even getting what I want!

girl , (edited )

as my dad would say, “you’d complain if you’s hung with a new rope”

Aceticon ,

The squeaky wheel gets the greese!

JackbyDev ,

and to add insult to injury, I couldn’t turn the heater on countless times because the climate portion of the OS was unresponsive. Other times, it would simply say that the function couldn’t be performed at the time. Why? No idea.

This is the main problem, not something about the UI being wonky. That my AC can freeze not because of the radiator but because of a shitty UI system? That’s insane.

AlexWIWA , (edited )

Infiniti not updating their interior since 2014 is starting to feel like a good thing as other brands abandon buttons.

Nice to know VW is returning to sanity

netburnr ,
@netburnr@lemmy.world avatar

Everyone else is going to start putting analog clocks in the dash again.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

God I fucking need that. One of my cars didn’t use a big enough variable to hold the GPS time adjustment. So it’s off by an hour randomly about 9 months out of the year. My other car is just old enough that they don’t have an update for the radio to fix the time since the last time they moved daylight savings around.

AlexWIWA ,

The analog clock is really nice, not gonna lie

AlexWIWA ,

God I miss the analog clock in my Q. The G feels so much fancier

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Real buttons in a car are good because you don’t have to fucking look at them to know what you’re doing, unlike a god damn touch screen, so your eyes can remain on the road.

kashara ,

Why have you said that VW is Putin?

elscallr ,
@elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

That’s a bad joke

havokdj ,

Your mom is a bad joke

elscallr ,
@elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

Well she’s at least as clever as that, so suppose you guys got a little in common.

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