These Car Settings Have No Business Being Controlled Through A Touchscreen

Literally anything that you need to adjust while the vehicle is in motion.

[...]

I’d like to add that in addition to confusion, you are in a moving vehicle — a vehicle that bumps and jiggles, and your fingertip is connected via a long device called an arm which acts as a mass spring damper. So keeping your fingertip in a fixed place while trying to touch something that has zero tactile feedback to let you know you are touching a button is impossible. This means you have to focus your eyes on where your fingertip is touching the screen, and therefore those eyes are not on the road.

Once I know the location of the control, I can adjust my audio volume, turn on my wipers, adjust my lights, change the climate control, and do most other things on a non-touch screen button or knob without ever taking my eyes on the road.

Submitted by: Bongo

*.* and get off my lawn.

I understand moving switches that never get used, but some of us still use them.

And why there aren’t many interior standards is crazy to me, NHTSA. Confusion is distraction and distraction causes of death on the highways (right behind drunk driving and speeding which probably includes distraction and confusion).

Submitted by: fredschwartz

And...

It is crazy how lightly this is all taken by the regulators. I remember someone explaining to me ~12 years ago (I think) that with the standardization of HD radio, we could have all of that cool info readily available on the screen like the song and artist and whatever else the radio station wanted to broadcast. BUT because there were regulations on how must text could shown on the screen to the driver (because it’s distracting) a lot of cars would show you just a tiny portion of that (so all you see is “HOT 101.9 - Staying Alive - The”).

Oh, and how you can’t set GPS while driving on most cars?

But now you can be forced to use a touchscreen menu if your windshield is fogging up. And maybe it’s fine that it’s on a touch screen, but is it REQUIRED that the button is always visible regardless of what else the screen is doing? Or is it up to the manufacturer?

Submitted by: Bags

And... And...

Phones bad and distracting. Laws must be passed to punish people that use them while driving. Large screens that run across 90% of the dash and control everything in the car - selling feature by auto manufacturers. Logic need not apply.

Submitted by: Cal67

May anyone who puts too many heating controls (HVAC, heated seats and steering wheel) through touch screen be forced to sit in the cold weather testing room with ski gloves duct taped on.

Submitted by: Maymar

Engine start stop, Headlights, defrost (and preferably heater and AC controls), wipers, and door locks. Gimme a button or switch that’s always available, and always in the same place, gives me physical feedback, and that I can use while wearing gloves without having to wonder if I actually hit it.

Submitted by: PeterVWJetta

Glove box door. It just seems inane to the extreme.

Submitted by: Along with Martin, Dutch Gunderson, Lana and Sally Decker

Anything that directly affects visibility, like windshield wipers. You can probably react quick enough in most situations when rain starts, but what if something unexpectedly splashes across the windshield? Even if a sensor exists that turns them on and off automatically, I’m not going to leave my forward visibility to the decision of an algorithm.

Submitted by: paradsecar

So as someone who has one of those teslas that puts most things on the screen, the only thing in my car that I find absolutely unacceptable to be behind a touch screen are HVAC controls. Turning the temp up and down while driving is a very normal thing I really shouldn’t have to dig around a touch screen to work. And in the winter, suddenly windshields can start fogging up and I should be able to access the defogger setting without having to look at the screen.

I have a Model S so my glovebox is manually operated, but newer cars like the 3 and Y and I think the post facelift S and X require you to use the screen to open the glovebox and thats also unacceptable. Dead batteries are a rare occurrence but they can happen. If you keep any vital documents or materials in your glovebox, you will need to use workarounds to open your glovebox to get them Really dumb.

Headlights? Nah that doesnt bother me. The headlights were set to auto when I got the car, and they’ve been on that setting for 4.5 years without issue. If you need to adjust the headlights, that means the car is powered and adding 1 extra step to go to the menu to adjust them isn’t going to impact you much. As long as you can activate high beams without the screen, you’re fine.

Volume? As long as there are controls on the wheel for that, volume has surprisingly not been as much an issue for me as I first would have thought.

Submitted by: Atomic

Side view mirror control.

I’m not sure if any automaker has migrated side-view mirror controls to a touch screen yet, but it seems like something that may come if/when regulations allow camera and in-door screens rather than mirrors.

IMO, it would be a bad idea, especially since the little touchpad on the driver’s door is so intuitive.

Submitted by: Earthbound Misfit I

This weekend we drove my GF’s new Mercedes GLA250 to Chicago. Neither one of us could figure out how to simply search for radio stations. There’s no tuning knob of course and the “arrows” on the screen would only jump from preset to preset. Finally gave up and put on Apple CarPlay.

Submitted by: mnmrosen

I’m curious how many people actually fiddle with their HVAC controls on a day-to-day basis. With auto climate control, I set it to 70 degrees and then literally never touch the controls again. The fan stays low while the engine warms up and once there’s actually warm coolant going through the heater core it turns the fans up, gets the cabin to the set temp, then goes back down. In the summer, it blasts the A/C until the cabin is cool then goes back to regulating.

It measures temperature and humidity in the vehicle and outside of it and can know when the windows are fogging up, so it turns on the defroster automatically when needed.

Heated seats start up with remote start when the outside temperature is below a certain threshold. If they get too hot I have to lower the setting, but that’s all I ever have to do.

My wife is one that likes to crank the fan way up when the car is cold even though all it does is blow extra cold air on you, and then it’s loud for no reason and eventually it’s blowing air that’s way too hot so she turns the fan down and probably forgets to put it back in auto.

Assuming your touchscreen vehicle has good-performing auto climate control, what is there to constantly fiddle with?

Physical, moving, tactile buttons I require include safety items and settings that have to changed while driving and need to be done with minimal attention split:

- Cruise

- Volume (dash knob for fast, large changes; steering wheel buttons for fine control)

- Previous/Next track

- Traction control/drive modes

- Hazards

- Anything traditionally on a steering wheel stalk - wipers, fluid, blinkers

Submitted by: MikaelVroom

And...

How often you have to play with the HVAC is down to the individual car and the climate you live in. Even the best auto systems are not really that good if you are fussy, or Dog forbid you have a woman in the car who needs a radically different temperature and airflow setting than you normally do. Just go for a ride with my sainted mother or female bestie sometime - you had best have a car with at least dual-zone.

Ultimately, I don’t care if the car has auto HVAC (and my BMWs and Mercedes have VERY good systems) - if the car isn’t doing what I want it to do, I want to be able to adjust the system easily without digging around in a screen. And all of those cars make it VERY easy to do so.

Submitted by: krhodes1

Auto Start/Stop

Submitted by: mentec

And...

Once all new vehicles are fully electric, start/stop buttons aren’t going to be a thing at all anywhere.

Submitted by: Cam

And... And...

I think the pedal is going to serve that function.

Submitted by: DGUTS

I have a very specific example because Tesla did this to everybody two winters ago:

Window defrost control.

Yep. Two holiday updates ago, Tesla moved the seat heaters and defroster control to inside a menu. It was on row of onscreen buttons at the bottom, which sucks, but not as much as trying to find an icon in a menu.

So *in December* it became next to impossible to turn the defroster on *while driving in a Canadian winter*. There might be people here unfamiliar with driving in winter, but I assure you the defroster is essential, and can be needed at a moments notice. It’s easily the dumbest tech decision I’ve ever seen in person. I legit hope the entire product team responsible for that was fired. I recorded a complaint with Transport Canada (who investigated very quickly).

Months later an update made it possible to configure where the button was located. A very Tesla way of saying “Opps” IMO.

The right answer IS the one response that anything you need to adjust while in motion. But this specific example still makes me mad.

Submitted by: dolsh

Brakes.

Submitted by: 17 Seconds

And...

“Yes.”

(Now get offa my lawn, whippersnappers!)

[...]

Okay, more seriously:

* ignition/start

* gear selector

* throttle/brake/clutch/handbrake (seems like “well duh”, but you never know these days with some of these manufacturers)

* cruise control, related settings like lane following, Autopilot, etc.

* turn indicators

* windshield wipers

* headlight controls

* defogger and fan settings (I can maaaaybe accept environmental controls on a touchscreen as long as defogger and fans can be controlled by a physical control that you can find by touch)

* seat warmer

* seat position (wanna be able to adjust when car is off)

* mirror position (ditto: wanna adjust when car is off)

* door locks

* window up/down

* wipers/wiper fluid

* stereo volume/on-off or mute button

* hood/trunk/door handles/glovebox/console/etc (seriously, the latch on the glovebox has POWER??? whyyy?? that makes as much sense as a pregnancy test with an LCD screen — useless waste of technology)

Submitted by: Calli Arcale

I agree with Bongo. But volume/mute is one that might get overlooked. There are situations where you immediately/quickly want to turn the volume down.

Submitted by: iblameRichardScarry

And...

I love the fact that I have buttons for volume up/down on my Toyota steering wheel. I don’t control much on my radio while driving (I need to stop for any serious mucking around), but volume is a MUST.

Submitted by: Calli Arcale

Speaking as a former automotive electrical engineer... literally all of them.

A knob or a button is always more reliable.

There is literally no control whatsoever that should be with a touchscreen. Somethings such as mirrors and windows, are also better as direct control devices (knobs and winders).

There is no case for a touch screen in a car, except if you are the marketing department. Everyone who wants a touch screen, needs to give themselves an uppercut and jam a katana up their clacker. You caused this.

Submitted by: Rollo75