Physical knobs are here again!

my prius has all manual buttons for hvac, but still too small for heavy gloves, i'm constantly pushing two at the same time, especially the steering wheel controls.

hopefully toyota is paying attention. i'm sure touch screen controls are a big yen saver, and toyota is more about price discounting than honda.

 

The local Journalists said the same thing about the new CAMRY - something like "Great that it's got REAL knobs on the radio".

 

True, sadly- this is our button-less, knob-less piece of black glass:

 

Those old cars before seat belts had the whole dash filled with knobs. I wonder how many people cussed those knobs in a wreck?

 

I had an older cousin driving drunk back in the day ate one of those big chrome horn rings cars used to have.

He survived but his chest was all cut up.

Padded dashes, padded steering wheel covers, seat belts, seat belts with sholder harness, padded steering wheel covers, air bags, etc then all the knobs went. I don't know if the younger generation would miss the knobs as much though?

We can get rid of knobs and save money too.

 

I remember the TAXIs of the '50s - they had a grab bar across the top of the back seat. No seatbelts. Many (at least here) kids rode inside who didn't have cars, so stood up to the grab bar - and some lost teeth at the first hard braking. The dashboard wasn't so bad - at least it was sort-of flat with some buttons, knobs etc.


My Mum was paranoid about our teeth - she lost her front tooth as a child when the Morris Cowley Flatnose she was in (parked) decided to disobey the handbrake and go flying down the hill to hit a lamp-post:

(supposed to look like this

 

Buttons are not that good either. Tactile, substantial dials with detents, and few enough positions that you don't lose count, or similar sliders, I'd be all over that. The lower level Honda Fit has such.

 

What are these labels on?

If you need to take eyes off the road and read small labels, that's a fail.

 

Yeah a decent sized HVAC mode dial, with say 5 options, one at each extreme and 3 intermediate positions with tangible detents: no need for labels, once you've memorized it. And no need to take eyes off the road.

You do need the labels at the outset, before you've memorized them, and/or to refresh. And then yeah: it'd be kinda nice if you could see them at night.

 

Specifically:

Vent
High/Low
Heat
Heat/Defog
Defog

The latter is missing in our 3rd Gen Prius modes, no defog for you. Yeah, I know: there's the dedicated windshield defog button, but that thing's a beast, not really meant for regular use.

 

There's vent, high/low, heat and heat/defog (defog only is missing) in the "Modes" button. It's flush, indistinguishable from the rest of the row of buttons without looking down, and requires you to to keep your eyes off the road as you repeatedly push that button, to watch the tiny LCD display above. Go too fast,, you'll overshoot and have to repeat the process.

The dedicated front and rear defog buttons are to the right. The front defog does direct air only to the windshield, but also activates AC, and ramps up fan speed markedly. It's really not for regular use, just temporarily, say at start up. The rear button activates the rear window heater wires.