Volkswagen Will Bring Back Physical Buttons In New Cars | Down with touch screen controls.::Volkswagen says that it has heard the feedback from its customers. It plans to bring back physical buttons and controls in future models.
There’s so many fewer points of failure when you use physical buttons as opposed to touch screens. I hope everyone follows suit.
Physical buttons have wiring harness failure, mechanical failure, and software failure…pretty much exactly the same amount as the touchscreen solution.
What boggles my mind is that cheap, snappy, easy-to-use touchscreen interfaces have been a solved issue for well over a decade with the proliferation of smartphones…why the hell do car manufacturers suck so much at implementing it!? They’re all slow bug-ridden shitshows.
It’s because car manufacturers are loath to change microcontrollers in their vehicles because they’ve got decades of processes, tooling, and debugging with the (Atmel) chips they’ve been using since forever. When they decide to make a new car they basically just look at the latest Atmega(whatever) “automotive” chip (using really old chip tech) and choose that.
Atmel has “automotive” chips for everything! From regular MCUs to beefy ones with boatloads of pins and (slow ass) LCD controllers. They’ve made it so that car manufacturers don’t even have to think! The engineers probably get an automatic OK to use whatever Atmel “automotive” chip they want but anything else requires a lengthy and expensive certification process.
Some cars are using STM32 chips made for automotive but they’re not as common as you’d think!
Basically, the car manufacturers are extremely risk-averse because of low margins and something like an ECU recall can totally ruin the profitability of a new car. They’re also lazy and don’t want to try new things! There, I said it 😁
He’s talking points of failure when it comes to a person interacting with it. At least that’s my take. Imagine you’re reaching for a volume button instead of a volume slider on the screen. You’re going to hit that mofo basically every single time. Whereas with the touch screen you’ve got to look and pay attention. Make sure your finger goes in exactly the same place etc etc.
VW really marketed their way into every feed on every site by making a big deal about… putting buttons in their cars. All hail our corporate overlords, who give us our buttons and dominate our feeds.
They need to make it clear they understood they messed up and are backtracking.
Just not with emmisions, or government supported market manipulation.
The last thing I want to do is navigate a tablet when I’m operating a vehicle. I don’t know how it ever made sense in the first place.
Finally, a good decision. I’ve nothing against touchscreens, but not for everything.
Also, generally their software is so bad. I’m using a new Skoda Kodiaq at work and its GPS is a nightmare compared to older cars.
Yeah software in most cars is really underdeveloped and neglected, leaving it in a horrible state. Manufacturers have handled the transition to a digital interface extremely bad.
Fuck the buttons, I want brass-handled pull-ropes.
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I own an ID.4. The capacitive steering wheel buttons were probably my biggest fear when we bought this car.
But, they work great. In a year (with 23,000 miles) I’ve only had a miss-touch a couple times. Swiping to change volume is way better than button pounding.
The capacitive temperature and volume controls under the screen work just fine, too. Now they do need to be illuminated, which they will be in the 2024 model, but it’s great to swipe to the temp or volume you want.
The capacitive buttons on the dash to the left of the steering wheel work the worst. They are for the fog lights and defroster controls. It just doesn’t seem to register where you press, so that takes a couple tries, but they aren’t used often.
I’d honestly be sad to see them go.
Thank god.
What’s this a computer-car for ants?
It’s made for adults who can’t drive good and who wanna learn to do other stuff good too.
Ouch heehee ;) Too much bad thinkings while bad drivings
