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Don't know about you all, but I miss knobs.
I'm half-heartedly shopping for a new car and I'm lamenting the lack of knobs. Buttons are fine, if pushed (heh heh). Touchscreens are problematic.
Even reliable knob-holdouts, VW, are nobbling their knobs.
Is this it? Is this how it happens? Am I so out of touch? Am I....gulp....old?!
This is the start of subscribing to your car - easier for them to hide options and charge for them to be unlocked!
Want heated seats - that’ll be a £10/month option squire!
I like knobs and buttons. My Golf has just the right amount, my ID3 does not have enough and it makes certain things a pain.
VW are apparently going back to proper buttons on their steering wheels, the haptic / touch sensitive things are awful.
Knobstalgia. Loving the word. Going to use it lots. Thank you.
It still erks me when rotary knobs are very notably indexed in what they control, yet sweep as if a continuous controller... especially volume knobs. When your options are either louder then you want, or quieter than you want... well, it's unsatisfying and less human in some way... it doesn't feel like things were designed to put you in charge.
As for touchscreen only driving controls... it's just cheapness... cheap and nasty cost cutting, yet sold as a premium to, er...
This is the start of subscribing to your car...
It's amazing (and quite sad) that it's more economical to produce 1 fully loaded trim level and block features, than just not fit the equipment in all models.
The ergonomics of knobs and, to a lesser extent, buttons is just far superior to touchscreens. Windscreen foggy, I know exactly where the knob is, I have touch feedback as to its current position, and I can adjust it without looking.
Sure connecting 1 screen with a ribbon cable is more straightforward, but the user experience is much much worse...in my opinion.
There are a lot of reasons I dislike my new Octavia. The lack of proper knobs to twiddle to control the heating and volume is high on the list.
Everything is done through the screen. If I want warm air on my feet it's 2 or 3 actions on the screen that require me to look at the screen rather than the road. It's just stupid.
I've deliberately bought an older car than I could for the remaining knobleledge and for lack of piss poor 'active safety features' such as lane departure and auto emergency braking from radar.
The new car arrives this week, I'll be sat twiddling my knobs with great satisfaction.
I've had over 10 vag cars in the last year as hire cars: I would choose never to buy one because of this. Some are worse than others: the 'touch type ' buttons on the steering wheel are the worse. Picking one up from avis in the dark and getting used to them is a pita.
I bought the world class guitar multi FX unit. A phenomenal piece of technology. Sold it after 6 months due to the lack of knobs. Everything was buried in menus that required a degree in computers.
There simply is no digital substitute for the feel of a proper knob
I’ve had over 10 vag cars in the last year as hire cars: I would choose never to buy one because of this. Some are worse than others: the ‘touch type ‘ buttons on the steering wheel are the worse. Picking one up from avis in the dark and getting used to them is a pita.
I had a hire Golf last year. Not only were the heater controls touch, they had no illumination and neither did the steering wheel things. It's like no-one at VW either drove outside a streetlighted city or gave it to a friend to try out...
I recently saw a really well defined and very well drawn knob in the gents toilet at the Coop in Finals Ligure.
Done with a biro above the sink. Should have taken a photo.
There is something satisfying, or maybe comforting, when you turn a dial in the car and you can hear something go klonck rather than pushing a button.... In my Ducato I press a button for air coming in from outside or circulating the air in the cabin. It used to be a physical, analogue action that you could hear. Now it's another motor hidden somewhere waiting to say "computer says no"..... Probably jinxed it now.
I’ve had over 10 vag cars in the last year as hire cars: I would choose never to buy one because of this.
So in summary, you've never had a knob in your vag?
My dog broke my knob off in my van and now it's wooden.
I spent a load of time, and in the end quite a lot of extra money, to find a car stereo that was entirely touchscreen-free and yet still had the features I want. It looks like something from Tron but every time a song I hate comes on and I can just reach over and click a button without looking, I remember why.
Touchscreens do have their place mind, I was reading a book the other day and absent mindedly tried to turn the page by poking it, because I'm used to kindles.
Knobstalgia
I thought that was standing in the shower and forgetting what your knob looks like as it's hidden under your old fat man beer belly...
Great I now have a good conversation starter to connect with some of my older, car driving, work colleagues: "Where do you stands on knobs in cars? ”
So in summary, you’ve never had a knob in your vag?
That got a proper lol!
One of the reasons I chose a Mazda CX60 as my company car - it still has knobs...
Also 320hp and cheap BIK...
It's not until I read this that I realised the knobs in my employers ComboE are fairly good. Volume and the traditional 3 for heating (they are a little small and a bit hard to read but they do have tactile feedback when they reach each setting.
I’m genuinely amazed that cars are allowed a touch screen interface for use when driving. I hired a Citroen once. I think if had bought it I’d dead by now. Say you wanted air on the window. Look press for air screen. Look press fan up several times. Look press for where you want the air. The list goes on. In my actual cars it’s familiar tactile knobs. The most that is needed is a glance
I love a good knob.
Fitted one of these to an old car. The ultimate overdrive gear knob. Flicking that toggle switch to use overdrive was damn near orgasmic.
Top knobbing!
There's a shop in Lincoln, right on steep hill, that sells old aeronautical doodads, controls, knobs, and switches. Every time I walked past I'd think about retrofitting the Fabia with a few.
I’ve just had a rant on this very subject on another thread about a red car. The obsession that the whole industry has with flat touchscreens is insane - it’s illegal to use a mobile phone, a device with a touchscreen in a car while driving, yet drivers are expected to use identical technology while driving on motorways at 70mph, attempting to make adjustments to climate controls, satnav, infotainment systems, often with items buried several layers deep in a menu system, and at the same time watching where they’re going. Citroen have all their screens set right in the centre of the dash, completely out of the driver’s line of sight!
I specifically chose my Ford because it suited me from a comfort point of view, but also, apart from the infotainment screen, all the controls are analogue dials and knobs that can be felt and adjusted by touch, and it has a mechanical handbrake, not an electronic one.
I have personally seen the full-width dash screen display on a nearly new Mercedes go completely black when the car was being driven out of the workshop after bodywork repair. Imagine that late at night on a motorway… 😳
VW are apparently reviewing their touchscreen obsession and returning to a more user-friendly analogue layout.
My personal experience of driving cars involved two-three different cars a day, five days a week, for two years, and 100,000+ miles of driving, and examples of the majority of commercially available cars and vans on the U.K. market. I’ve got a bit of experience when it comes to shit design choices.
My wife likes knobbage too! She deliberately chose the bottom of the range Seat Ibiza for her new works lease car to maximise knobbage and proper handbrake, and also cos we're tight.
It still has an infotainment screen, but the rest is atleast buttons, and the lane tracking easy to turn off, and is second nature to do as soon as you start the car now.
Amusing in the newly released Grand Tours Sand Job that Hammond's car has alsorts of electronic craziness going on due to the computerised interlinked systems. I do like nice simple things that work independently with knobs.
If your having knob withdrawal symptoms, just pop on a contentious looking post on the forum......there will be an abundance of them usually rhyming with big quitters😎
When your options are either louder then you want, or quieter than you want… well, it’s unsatisfying and less human in some way
even more so when the volumes are numbered, because even if 17 is just right what monster would set their control to 17*. 16 or 18 maybe, but if you were at 16 surely you'd use 15 because it's neater. 18 up to 20 is an option for the same reason but that'll definitely be too loud.
* my wife. Deliberately, because she knows it ****s me up. She even tells me not to look while she's adjusting the volume, but I still know. As per other thread, best part of 28 years she's been slowly gnawing away with this, she must know I'm going to crack one day and beat her to death with a stereo head unit.
Volvo here - great car but the big central touchscreen is a nightmare for getting simple things done simply, without taking your eye off the road.
i’m supposed to use ‘Hey Google’ as well but that’s slow, have to ask two or three times and even then not guaranteed to actually work.
Knobs and levers in cars are indeed great. However, when they get a bit old and start to wear out they can be a bit frustrating, as I’m experiencing in my 1986 Land Rover. But then again that may say more about Land Rover than knobs in general…
And just when I think I've sussed my wife's Skoda the Bluetooth evaporates...
At the other end of the scale may I present my 1988 Golf. A knob for fan speed and sliders for the heater/ventilation (no AC) controls, you can feel the cables pushing and pulling on the foam covered flaps in the dashboard, hear them when they get to a regularly used position, the cardboardy smell of the dash even changes with the temperature. Maximum knobstalgia 🙂
Knobs and levers in cars are indeed great. However, when they get a bit old and start to wear out they can be a bit frustrating
True but chances of a touchscreen lasting that well?
There does seem to be some indication, as with vw mentioned above, that car companies are starting to realise that it is a crap idea. Also as above its baffling we have laws, rightly, banning pissing about on your phone whilst driving and yet adjusting the temperature in some cars would make typing this response on my phone seem easy.
Knobs and levers in cars are indeed great. However, when they get a bit old and start to wear out they can be a bit frustrating, as I’m experiencing in my 1986 Land Rover. But then again that may say more about Land Rover than knobs in general…
How many touchscreens will still work at all in 38 years time?
One of my biggest gripes with the Skoda touch screen.... The radio favourites, why does it arrange them in a single horizontal scrolling line and leave the bottom half of the screen empty? So I still have to scroll along the bloody list to find radio 4. Which sometimes isn't there anyway because my 7yr old has been at it and accidentally replaced it several times with Tomorrowland or Heart dance.
And why does it beep at me telling me to put the car in "P" as I'm getting out. Just do it automatically!
My wife likes knobbage too!
Username checks out.
Have been teaching my 12 year old to drive on our driveway today. Great to have a proper handbrake!
Just recently bought a 20 plate Fabia, nice blend of knobs (heating and volume) and screens like 18 plate Mini. Then there’s the 62 plate California whose technological zenith is Bluetooth.
Not missing knobs or switches at all. They're just clunky clutter.
If the switches could be banished too that would be nice. Just grab the interior door handle when in park and the door pops open? That’d be nice instead of having to push a button or pull a lever.
Certainly not missing the old style knobs and sliders for controlling heat/cool/direction for ventilation. Awful then, avoidable now.
Another Mazda driver here - no touchscreen. Just one giant knob in the middle. Very tactile
Just grab the interior door handle when in park and the door pops open? That’d be nice instead of having to push a button or pull a lever.
Eh? I've never been in a car where you can't just open the door? What type is this?
Anyway, was just going to note that knobstalgia is partly behind the current modular synth craze. For £200 you can buy a software synth that can sound like any synth in history multiplied by any other synth in history. Or for £2000 you can build a modular synth that has knobs and no menus...
I understand the knobstalgia, but as a driver I prefer buttons when I àm on my own. A knob is better when there's a suitably dexterous passenger to twiddle it.
I'm very similar when it comes to my Bass, I fully understand that for a few hundred quid I can get an audio interface for my PC and a software suite that will give me every sound I could possibly desire.
But I look at screens all day for work, I play music to get away from that, so I'm currently building up a fine collection of knobs mounted to little metal boxes.