- Hyundai is slowly backing away from the all-screen approach to interior design.
- Hyundai Design North America Vice President Ha Hak-soo said that people “get stressed, annoyed and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so.”
Honestly. I’d be fine with a touchscreen for things you wouldn’t likely be adjusting on the go anyways - but basic stuff like the radio and AC/Fans should always be easy to distinguish, don’t need to look away from the road to operate buttons. Making basic stuff require touchscreen is inconvenient at best and outright dangerous at worst.
I recently got a Kia Niro and it has buttons on the wheel for most of the basic functions of the touch screen. Really handy
Yes same here. Still reach for the volume control occasionally though. Moving up and down the cruise control and what have you is a bit fiddly as well, so I usually don’t bother.
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Give me a manageable handful of physical buttons with defaults but that I can customize. The pendulum swung too far. There is a Place for touch screens and buttons in cars. They can live in Harmony. Personally, I never want to see a climate control physical button except maybe for my passengers microclimates. I set a setpoint and set the fan to auto like I do in my house. Let the car adjust to the preferred setpoint. Heated seats / heated steering wheel? Programmed parameters. Stereo controls? Hell yeah, let’s get tactile - don’t make me look at anything for that. I don’t mind the idea of voice controls too, but I’ve never met one in a car that wasn’t frustrating AF. Prefer to leave that out until the tech improves.
My wife’s Ford Edge has the worst of both worlds. It has buttons for the stereo and AC but they’re all flat capacitive buttons so they barely work when you touch them and you still have to take your eyes off the road to find them.
Conversely, I want the ac controls on physical buttons because when I’m in driving and am in direct sunlight, or when I’ve just jumped in the car after doing some heavy work, I want ice cold Antarctic air blowing on my face. The ambient temperature of the general cabin is irrelevant to me. I do not want to be hunting around through menus to find the ac fan control slider.
I’m not opposed to a big Max AC button. Use it rarely because the car usually knows to crank it up, but sometimes I agree this button is nice.
I don’t want my car to know anything. I want it to do what I say and only what I say without question. I’m thinking of getting a 70’s truck.
Go for it! Just please figure out a way to try to compensate for your carbon footprint with that thing.
Not having kids.
Slap a pair of truck nuts and maybe a jd removed sticker on that 70s clunker and I’d say you’re pretty safe on that one.
Good. This should be forced via regulations. Touchscreen controls are provably more dangerous than buttons due to the distraction.
Haptic feedback like knob clicks or button presses are much easier to use without taking eyes off the road as often.
Shhh, don’t call it “haptic feedback” or they might make them flat, unmoving buttons that have a vibration motor behind them.
They already have started doing that
I got a new BMW 5 series as a loaner a few weeks back and it had that shit all over. I’m happy with my 2020, thanks BMW.
Don’t you still have to look at it to find it first? Edit: sorry i thought you were talking about touch screens
You can wave your hand at a dial and find it easily just by touch
Even if you have to look at it first, once on it you can go by feel where as i find i struggle to do the same on a fully touch control.
No. All the knobs are in roughly the same area, so you can find and manipulate them by touch without looking.
Some have tactile markings for location reference, like keyboars have
I regularly manipulate my 2008 Toyota matrix’s radio and HVAC controls while never taking my eyes off the road. I won’t buy any car that forgoes the physical controls.
I’m sure removed and his new auto industry advisor, Elon Musk, will get right on that. 😔
And Lina Khan will be right there!
Oh, yeah!
That’s going to be a whole thing soon. Yay.
Congratulations on taking a fucking DECADE to realize what should’ve been FUCKING OBVIOUS from the start.
Design is science, they fail and go back. Doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome is the definition of insanity… Oh wait.
I just got a new Hyundai and I think they already have the perfect amount of touch vs buttons. Everything you need to access has buttons, the things which would be too annoying to do during the drive are touch
a screen is good for navigation and music, basically it
Pretty much. Give me a screen for Android Auto so I can interact with my preferred navigation and media apps, and then just let me control the car.
Like, if you want to add a menu for low-level tweaking of stuff I don’t need(or shouldn’t change) while driving, sure(like suspension settings). But for everything else, AC, seat warmers, forward/reverse, windshield wipers, headlights, etc, I want a button or knob.
The problem is not touchscreens. It’s the awful implementation. I have a Tesla(never again, ugh) and a Hyundai Ioniq5.
The Tesla has a fantastic touchscreen that integrates well with the car. Also no display behind the wheel. I’m tall, I can’t see it.
Hyundai the rear seat warmers are buttons. My passengers are happy. The driver’s warmer is buried in a touch screen menu. Which would be fine but the shitty screen takes a minute to boot up which means I can’t adjust my seat until I’ve already driven off and now it’s dangerous and fiddly.
In summary: I don’t mind if it’s touchscreen or not, it has to be fast and reactive.
Disagree.
Personally, I feel the problem is absolutely touchscreens.
I’ve only got five senses, and taste and smell aren’t helpful in a driving situation.
Of the 3 left, sight is the most important for the most important task: driving.
For other tasks, sound is best used to alert or remind about something, and is frequently diminished as a driving aid by music.
That leaves touch and sight for all remaining tasks.
Touchscreens are, despite the name, effectively 100% reliant on sight, since there’s no real tactile feedback to enable the user to make eyes-free adjustments. To use a touchscreen, you have to take your eyes off the road to see what the screen says and make your selections.
While some are better than others, I also feel like touchscreens are still embarrassingly and frustratingly prone to errors, missed touches, and generally not doing the things the user intended, requiring even more eyes off the road to undo whatever actually happened, get the interface back to the place you want it, and try again, hoping that this time it’ll work.
My mid-teens vehicle has a mix of a medium sized touch screen for the entertainment unit but physical controls for climate, driving, and a few of the entertainment adjustments, and while I was all about the adremovedd new touchscreen when I bought it, I find it’s my least favorite part of the controls this far along in ownership.
taste and smell aren’t helpful in a driving situation
How else will I know when I forgot to release my parking brake?
They get really spicy!
To have to navigate a screen to find a control is a traffic hazard. Also if it’s just to play music.
Physical buttons are always ready to be pushed.There’s a limit to how many physical buttons before it goes the other way. Hyundai are already at ‘enough’ and the Kias I’ve looked at have way too many.
I mean, it’s all very subjective, so “too much” for you seems to be what is a good amount for everyone else…but realistically, I don’t think this is a legitimate complaint since you still need to be able to make all these adjustments anyway… it’s just a matter of the way the adjustments are being made.
All a touch screen changes is that it can play host to multiple functions depending on context…but it loses much of the visual recognition and almost all the tactile feedback of a physical control.
And while vehicles keep getting more and more complex for sure, I feel like when I’m riding in a more touchscreen heavy vehicle, that screen is displaying the same static set of controls 99% of the time…and at that point, the flexibility it offers is largely irrelevant, and the tradeoffs mean giving up a lot to get very little in exchange.
Tesla Model Y owner here (never again, either). I hate the touchscreen, and also hate the way they’ve shoehorned functionality into the button/scroller controls on the steering wheel to try to address complaints.
When I first got the MY, the only way to control things like the wipers was through menus in the touchscreen. A software update introduced the ability to control them from the steering wheel controls, but even that “solution” sucks. You have to press & hold the control down while simultaneously scrolling it with your thumb. And most times you can’t scroll it from all the way off to all the way on in a single motion, so you press, scroll as much as you can, release & press again then scroll the rest of the way. A real PITA.
Not being able to quickly change wiper speeds sounds like a bad idea.
The bathrooms in hell all have automatic sinks where you can’t tell where the sensor is and an inconsistent delay.
I was in an airport bathroom and somehow the auto soap dispenser managed to squirt soap into my open cup of coffee. Fuck those things.
I have questions about why you’d take an open cup of coffee into a public bathroom.
Exactly, where was the coffee whilst the poster was using the toilet?
There’s a nasty little goblin of a bloke where I work. Toilets for all offices on the floor. He takes phone AND coffee. Splashes everywhere, doesn’t flush.
I’d like to flush him instead.
It was one of those one person family bathrooms. I had a 3 hour wait and a bottle of rum.
Because the people at the coffee stand complained when I tried taking a shit there.
Tbf they only complain about the removing your pants part. Keep your pants up, and you can take a shit there before they complain about the smell.
this is disgusting I’d rather have soap in my coffee then take an open cup into the bathroom. I’d say that the dispenser is justified in its actions
I was pouring rum into it.
that’s even more disgusting why would you ejaculate into your own coffee
Also the faucet hole is 1 centimeter from the back edge of the sink.
Not having touch anything is a selling point for me. Bonus points if I can roll up the window too.
Personally I prefer a mixture of both. Touch screen for anything you don’t need to operate while driving and physical for everything else.
Android Auto navigation, car system/audio settings, clock and system management, etc should all be a touch screen so you aren’t navigating through turning knobs and pressing up and down buttons to go through various menus like your programming a microwave.
Knobs and dials and buttons for anything to do with audio volume, skip/reverse tracks, etc. and air conditioning.
Automakers will read this comment and think that everyone wants voice control instead of touchscreens or buttons.
My Prius has a voice control option built in already. The only time I’ve ever activated it is by accident because it’s a steering wheel button. It’s a 2016 Prius so I doubt it’s able to do a whole lot anyway. Thankfully, most of the controls do not require the touch screen or voice control. None of the essential ones do.
Just to be completely clear then (and I’m sorry for yelling):
WE DON’T WANT VOICE CONTROL IN OUR CARS. AND IF YOU ADD AI WE’LL BURN YOU TO THE FUCKING GROUND.
Please unlock the door
Voice can not be authenticated please run calibration in the phone app
Open the door
Voice can not be authenticated please run calibration in the phone app
Ooopen theeee dooooor
Voice can not be authenticated please run calibration in the phone app
Unlock the door
Turning on cabin warmer
The door unlock it
Voice can not be authenticated please run calibration in the phone app
Open the door!
Voice can not be authenticated please run calibration in the phone app
Voice can‽
Oh god, not this again…
PLEASE DRINK VOICEIFICATION CAN
More importantly, they are dangerous.
I just put on full self driving while I mess with the touchscreen. I’ve only hit 4 toddlers max in the last couple weeks.
Ah, the mythical Democrat 4th trimester abortion.
Biggest button needs to be “Disable lane keeping assist” and that should sort most of the stress he refers to.
Goddamn right!!
The only thing I need on a screen is the GPS, everything else is an annoyance.
Personally I don’t even need that, just give me aux and usb ports for my phone. It’ll be multitudes better than whatever hardware they use for the “infotainment” system.
As someone who needs GPS a lot for work, having it on the large display is very nice. I think the sweet spot is around 7 inches; big enough for maps, but leave enough space for everything else.
The best is when they display the “next step” right on the dash. Too bad my work vehicle doesn’t do that.
The downside of building the phone/tablet into the car, though, is that phones change more quickly than cars.
A 20 year old car can be perfectly functional. A 20 year old smarphone is insanely outdated. If the phone is built into the car, you’re stuck with it.
Relative to a built-in system, I’d kind of rather just have a standard mounting point with security attachments and have the car computer be upgraded. 3DIN maybe.
I get the “phone is small” argument, but the phone is upgradeable.
And I’d definitely rather have physical controls for a lot of things.
A 20 year old car can be perfectly functional.
Not if the car manufacturers get their wish. They’d love to force you to buy a new car every few years. Having tech installed that becomes obsolete fast would help make you upgrade.
Yeah, but most manufacturers support CarPlay and Android Auto these days. Your car’s dashboard experience inherits whatever your phone’s OS projection system sends.
My old car’s onboard infotainment may be a decade behind, but when I plug my phone in, it’s 2024.
That’s why Car Play/Android Auto is the best way to go. The smarts are in the phone, but you can have a bigger display.
Exactly. These systems have been around for a decade and my new phone still works on an old Alpine CarPlay head unit from 2014.
Base alpine software may feel dated, but once the phone is in, I get the modern version of all my mapping, listening, and communication software.
Projection systems rock. I was an early adopter and I refuse to go back. Docking a phone on an air vent is janky.
Sadly, I still have an older car without Car Play/Android Auto.
Have you thought about upgrading to an aftermarket stereo or a one of those CarPlay / aa units that connects to your car’s existing auto inputs? I had CarPlay in a 2001 Subaru.
The best is when they display the “next step” right on the dash.
Ahhh that sounds awesome!
I would rather have just a dumb display with an open standard that will mirror my phone and send touches back. Android auto is great but it’s a proprietary protocol that support could be dropped at any time. Same with apple. Everything that is not infotainment should be physical buttons so if I want to swap out my display for something else it won’t neuter my hvac
There should be the mandatory inclusion of a set of open APIs that pass info like:
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display and audio signal (duh)
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microphone audio (to pass voice commands)
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whether the headlights are on (to offer auto dark mode switching on the display)
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whether the handbrake is engaged (so things like video playback can be a parked-only feature)
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crash sensor activation (so that a phone could, if the user desires, automatically alert emergency services)
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For EVs, battery SoC (so that navigation software can include charging stops seamlessly)
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whether the car is left-hand-drive or right-hand-drive (so on-screen buttons can always be close to the driver, not on the wrong side)
From there on, there can be actual competition in the space. You’re not just limited to Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. Any app would be able to use this API data.
Agreed, The left/right hand drive is a hidden setting in AA too. I found it and was happy to be able to have my media controls on the other side because I use them more than navigation. I set my destination and go, I change my podcast more.
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A monitor with HDMI over usb-c input
After rolling to CarPlay and Android auto for a while, I’d rather not use a tiny handheld UI when I drive. iOS and Android’s auto UIs have bigger buttons and are more glanceable. If I’m using a screen while driving, I’d rather the screen that was designed for peripheral vision and less precise button targeting.
Naw fam, gotta get that GPS in braille form
/sWait, are we still doing fam
Yeah fam, “fam” is hella lit.
Like Sluggo
To me it’s about balance and design. I’ve been in cars with too many physical buttons and those can be a distraction too.
This is true. I mean who ever needed the ability to dial a phone number manually from the dashboard? Among others.
As a 90s kid I’m incredibly good at T9 text input, which is what I use the phone buttons in my car for
GM loves it’s damned buttons. Their new cars look like a piano.
First good news I’ve heard in a while.
They aren’t just annoying, they’re dangerous and can’t be operated without looking at them
I have a UFO Civic and, out of all the cars I’ve been in, it has hands down the best dashboard. Everything is tactile and arranged in a way that I don’t have to look away from the road to adjust anything.
Beyond tactile vs. touchscreen, I wish more manufacturers payed attention to ergonomics so I wouldn’t have to reach into my ass to find the AC or the defogging button.
This is exactly why I love my 10+ year old VW
Hyundai Design North America Vice President Ha Hak-soo said that people “get stressed, annoyed and steamed when they want to control something in a pinch but are unable to do so.”
How many years it took them to figure it out?
Probably 10 minutes, but by that point they had to double down for the shareholders and as long as everyone copied, they were good.
