Pushing your buttons (car content)

Buttons are easier than trying to look where a 'button' is on a screen. You just 'feel' where it is.

My old car has two command buttons that switch modes, a joystick and 6 other multi function buttons, be they radio stations, heating controls, CD (remember them) controls. They just change function depending upon which 'screen' the display is in. It's much harder navigation the Sat Nav on my wife's car with the touch screen.

Not even slightly surprised. Having to operate a screen with no tactile feedback (therefore having to take your eyes off the road) at arms length is one of the dumbest things car companies have done (to save a few ££)

I really don't how most people cope with all the new tech in cars when they can't even operate the indicator switch.

^ 😆

My car is an absolute button-fest.... I love it!

Not really related but it occured to me the other day that I'd you took all the unnecessary crap out of a modern electrical vehicle could you get improved range?

Electric windows all-round, motor driven seats etc

None of that is necessary.

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I had no idea new cars were getting like this. Man, thats horrendous! Isn't it obvious that screens should just be for radio/sat nav and anything else should be kept simple. God, I hope my Passat lasts til I die! I ****ing hate cars.

Blows my mind that there’s zero control of touchscreens in cars. They’re cheaper to make. That’s it. Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

Yeah I wonder how some of this stuff can be legal.

I'm struggling to think of an OEM in-car "infotainment" system in a car I've had in the last, oh, 10 or 15 years, that wasn't gash. I'm all for tech but it's a truly stupid idea badly implemented.

Current car is a Seat, there's a soft button to take you to Android Auto (or I suppose its fruity equivalent for deviants) but no easy way to get back to the native system. You either have to go into the satnav and then cancel it, or start wading through several levels of menus. This is one of several annoyances. When you put it in reverse the rear-view camera kicks in with a screen overlay showing all the car's proximity sensors; great and all, but it's on the left of the screen which I'm sure is great for a left-hand drive car but on a RHD it just covers up where the kerb is rendering the entire system pointless, you can't see shit. You can close it if you can manage to hit an on-screen toggle about 2mm wide (miss and it fills the screen entirely) but if you come out of reverse and go back in it pops right back up again. I could go on, it's one of the most user-hostile interfaces I've ever known.

Prior to that was a Honda. That had a top menu which had touchscreen options for other features but there was no consistency. So you could go, say, from radio to phone, but not from phone to radio.

Before that was Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half (so BB1 or whatever). If instead you hit the button to type in an address rather than search then there was an innocuous button in the bottom corner of the on-screen keyboard, not present on the near-identical keyboard offered when searching, labelled "p.code". This understood full postcodes perfectly.

I swear, the people who design these things never have use them.

This is so frustrating because around 2015-2018 we reached peak car UI IMO. We had a touch screen for stuff that required it, e.g. setting up navigation before you start your journey and physical buttons for stuff like heater controls, skipping tracks/changing radio station etc that you use while actually driving.

Then some bean counters came along and realised they could save £1.50 per car or whatever by eradicating the buttons, never mind that it made it a metric shit-tonne harder to use the controls safely.

Before that was Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half (so BB1 or whatever). If instead you hit the button to type in an address rather than search then there was an innocuous button in the bottom corner of the on-screen keyboard, not present on the near-identical keyboard offered when searching, labelled “p.code”. This understood full postcodes perfectly.

Oh - god - yes! Soooo frustrating that system!

...until you realise you can just plug a phone in and use google maps! It never got used again.

Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

The dead will probably someone small, sharing the road on the left side of the car, because the driver is trying to focus on something low down on the right...(hmm, I've been looking at a pic of a left hand drive car, but it still stands that the screen isn't anywhere near in eyeline with the road!) But it won't matter cos it'll just be another one of those off the road and it won't be the driver's fault cos they'll just be legally fiddling with a screen in the car...

I used to ride with someone who worked for a very high end car company in the Woking area, who was an 'engineering psychologist' or something of that ilk. With a role to not only design user interfaces like buttons, knobs, handles, etc. that worked, but also that felt like they belonged in six figure price tag cars. Of course, form over function won every time.

Conversely in my first car when a switch failed we got a cheap toggle from RS and just soldered it in instead (or was that the aftermarket rally fog lights we fitted in a vain attempt to make my beige Escort Popular look more like an XR3i). Jeez, I was a prick back then.....

Yeah I wonder how some of this stuff can be legal.

Me too. Cars have been getting steadily safer places to be for decades, but this screen fetish can only be setting that back.

Also, aside from being crap to use, they will no doubt cause the scrapping of many otherwise good vehicles.

Everything is tied into this central bit of tech, imagine that one pictured above conking out.
'How much for a new screen thingy to get my car going please?'
Eleventy million pounds please....

I'd like a blank screen to mirror apple carplay/android auto and buttons for the rest.

steering wheel controls can do radio volume and cruise speed.

touchscreen is ok if it's well designed but buttons are clearly better.

Skoda. If you tried to search the satnav on postcode it only understood the first half

We had a Pug 5008- going to Cardigan (from Kent) it came up with nothing on the Sat Nav. On a hunch I tried my Dad's old post code in the Rhondda- again nothing. Playing with the menus we then found there was a country option so we had to set that to Wales first. Never been an issue with other cars before or since- even travelling to Brittany one year, put the code in at home & it recognised it.

I have to say, I find that Google Auto with voice is replacing the need for me to touch the screen for many things.

I dislike the touch screen in the Leon. Far too many functions, and too distracting to use. And that is a small one, and I still have physical buttons for heating, car controls, volume etc.

Our old V70, despite looking a button fest due to the dialling pad(!) was in fact lovely and intuitive to use apart from two things - who put the handbrake button *there* and the stalk mounted info on dash controls were not obvious at first (although rarely used).

That screen above is outlandish- but I hate the screens that permanently stick out over the top of the dash like an aftermarket add-on. Why can't it be incorporated into the dash as part of the design? I guess it may be fore safety so when you're trying to adjust the temperature by 0.5 degrees you've got some view of the road.

God, I hope my Passat lasts til I die!

My Passat has a 'media disc' player in the glove box. It's part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen...it does. What's more ******* stupid is, it does not turn off when you select drive, or start driving. Absolutely chuffing ridiculous.

buttons are clearly better

Agreed, with a well laid out dash & controls in easy reach I find you can alter most button controls without looking.

I hired a new Golf last year as my car was in for a service. It had the worst heater controls I have ever seen in a car. They are touch sensitive and sit directly below the touchscreen, as a result if you're trying to change the radio or whatever it's really easy to accidentally turn the fan up to full. Also, they aren't backlit so you can't see them at night.

The Dacia I have now is a good mix of knobs and buttons for heater controls, heated seats etc, and a touchscreen for things like the radio.

it's an intermediate step. We'll be glad of the screens when the cars are driving themselves

Current car is a Seat, there’s a soft button to take you to Android Auto (or I suppose its fruity equivalent for deviants) but no easy way to get back to the native system.

Same issue with the Ford Sync3 system. It starts up Android Auto automatically and selects Spotify as the audio source when the phone is plugged in. If you want to listen to the radio you have to press the speaker settings button and then navigate out of that into the audio source screen and then into the radio screen...

In principle Sync3 is a decent enough system but it's like phone integration was completely forgotten about and they just shoehorned it in at the last minute.

My Passat has a ‘media disc’ player in the glove box. It’s part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen…it does

Thanks, I really do hope my 2011 Passat lasts til I die then!

In your Seat & Ford when you go to the Android Auto/Car Play menu screen is there not an app icon that is a Seat logo? When I use either in the Dacia there is one with a Dacia logo which takes me back to the native radio function.

it occured to me the other day that I’d you took all the unnecessary crap out of a modern electrical vehicle could you get improved range?

No, because you don't use it all the time.

Similar story to Cougar with my old car, a Renault Kadjar. It integrated perfectly with Android Auto but used to irritate the life of me when I'd been listening to BBC Sounds or Amazon Music and wanted to listen to the radio again, used to have to press home, menu, media, radio, all as 'soft' buttons on the screen. It would have been lovely to have a proper radio/media pressy button.

My new replacement (leccy new Megane) is awesome though. It is native Android, has real buttons (and soft buttons on the screen) but you can just press the mic button (or say Hey Google) and ask it to play the radio. Or turn the heated seats on. Or adjust the climate - although there are proper buttons too for that.

And worryingly for johnx2 it does drive itself with adaptive cruise and auto lane centering etc....

you can just press the mic button (or say Hey Google) and ask it to play the radio. Or turn the heated seats on.

Assuming you have mobile signal...?

My Passat has a ‘media disc’ player in the glove box. It’s part of the original specification. I wondered if it played DVDs and put the image on the dash screen…it does. What’s more ******* stupid is, it does not turn off when you select drive, or start driving. Absolutely chuffing ridiculous.

I had a 1-series (briefly and not by choice, don't judge me). The head unit had a web browser.

The signal thing doesn't seem to have been an issue so far. It has an Orange/EE data SIM in it from the factory but there seem to be folk on the forums that haven't enabled it. Took it from Darlington to Edinburgh and back on Weds this week and didn't have any issues even in places that typically I've struggled to make phone calls in the past. Elves/magic maybe??

don’t judge me

they can’t even operate the indicator switch.

Just leaving this here 😜

I think lots of electric cars have web browsers, mine does anyway. I'm assuming it's so you can watch Amazon Prime while you're waiting for it to fill up with juice.

In your Seat & Ford when you go to the Android Auto/Car Play menu screen is there not an app icon that is a Seat logo? When I use either in the Dacia there is one with a Dacia logo which takes me back to the native radio function.

Yeah. If I want the radio then it's the Google menu button, the Seat 'app' button, the radio button, swiping through to find the station I want, then trying to work out where in the menus I can call the emergency services.

There's alternatives of course. Alexa-style voice control isn't too bad other than having to learn yet another set on not-all-that-intuitive commands. In this car, is it "call" or "dial"...?

Given the premium you pay for this crap, I really shouldn't be thinking "I'll just use it to mirror my phone screen, it's far better."

No, because you don’t use it all the time.

That's true, but even when you're not using it it adds weight to the car which will have some effect on the range.
Isn't the weight reduction part of the reason that lots of cars stopped speccing a spare wheel and went for a tin of gunk and a mini compressor?

The Google-built-in approach in Renault/Volvo/Polestar etc. does seem better than the manufacturer's using their own software alongside Android Auto and Car Play.

Does it need a data connection, or can it work without if controlling car functions?

That’s true, but even when you’re not using it it adds weight to the car which will have some effect on the range.

Minimal, I'd say. The actuator for a manual window still has mass. And I wouldn't be surprised if adding touch functionality to a display is far lighter than a bag of buttons and their associated wiring, as well as cheaper. Less money spent on developing and manufacturing knobs and switches means more money for batteries at a given price point, which is a good thing from that perspective. Heated seats are heavy, but using them is much more efficient than heating the air in the cabin, in an EV. So I don't think it's a simple argument in that respect.

The Google-built-in approach in Renault/Volvo/Polestar etc. does seem better than the manufacturer’s using their own software alongside Android Auto and Car Play.

That's another potential win/win. The manufacturer can save money not developing their own software (that must be a big cost) and the customer gets a consistent interface developed by a specialist and with regular free updates. I mean when your car gets to be 15 years old you could still have the latest ICE tech, that's significant. Also less liability for the manufacturer. They don't have loads of angry customers complaining (to them) about shit design and they don't have to worry that they'll lose customers if they don't get it right.

The 'no buttons' approach also enables the subscription models that BMW was proposing. Fewer specs of car come off the production line, you pay upfront or monthly to enable features such as heated seats, steering wheel, sports modes etc.

The other contemporary issue to touchscreens is the choice available for in car entertainment.

A decade ago you had 6 radio stations and a CD for when you got to Wales and lost reception

These days if I'm setting off on a long drive it's 10 minutes to curate a playlist of podcasts and albums, set the sat-nav etc.

And you just know people are trying to do that as they drive as you watch cars weaving all over the white lines on the motorways.

I'm a petrolhead but I like simple cars, the less tech the better! Seeing the latest ones with essentially a home PC on the dash is exactly what I don't want. Party because it's uneccesary but mainly because a lot of idiots on the road can't be trusted to use it sensibly. From up in my truck cab I can see down into cars and the amount of them with a video playing, Facebook, Twitter, texting, video calling, watching grumble or playing a game while driving is unbelievable. Some on phones but others have hacked the infotainment screen so it doesn't disable stuff when moving.

Blows my mind that there’s zero control of touchscreens in cars. They’re cheaper to make. That’s it. Meanwhile people will die because of someone trying to turn their heating up.

Whenever I see a review of a new car, usually when Johnny Smith does it on his YouTube channel, it always shocks me at how long he's looking away from the road while doing something simple like changing drive mode or putting the heated seats on. I counted one for the new Golf at nearly 3 seconds on a fast bit of road!

When I was buying my SEAT last year, I test drove a lot of cars. I discounted most of them for the fact that everything was driven by the screen.
I even purchased an older car (a 2019 as opposed to 2020) due to the fact that I preferred the controls on the older car. I'm just glad I test drove it in the summer when I needed to turn the air con on while driving. On my SEAT its a simple button labelled AC, no menu's needed to go in etc.

@cougar - with my 2019 SEAT, I'm pretty sure its only ever one "real" button press to take you back to the main menu screen, even if you are using Android Drive, or whatever it is you non apple weirdo's use! 😉

But is it not just a case that we are generally all middle aged men who have been driving used to the old school push buttons for 30 years or so?

What about screen glare? or people who need reading glasses for screens and not for distance?

A decade ago you had 6 radio stations and a CD for when you got to Wales and lost reception

I think your maths are off. A decade ago I was shocked to find that the CD player was obsolete. Two decades, maybe.

@cougar – with my 2019 SEAT, I’m pretty sure its only ever one “real” button press to take you back to the main menu screen, even if you are using Android Drive, or whatever it is you non apple weirdo’s use! 😉

On ours there's a strip of touch buttons down the side of the screen. One takes you to whatever device link you've got, the next takes you back to the Seat system but it's the satnav button. I can count the number of times I'd want to leave Google Maps in favour of the internal navigation system on the fingers of one foot.

It is illegal to operate a phone whilst driving, but legal to operate an iPad-like device to change the heating. This makes no sense at all. We'll see a reversion to buttons for climate control and volume, with screen for things that do not need editing on the move. And Car Play. I won't buy a car without it next time.