Return of Physical Button controls

Not their first......

 

"Physical Buttons" needs more qualification?

Our '10 has physical buttons, one being the vent mode. Which you'd like to access, on a twisty road, nighttime, raining, because the windshelds starting to fog up. It's here:



Ensconced in a row of similar buttons, uniform and flush, with a wee text ID. Ok, you've found it, after looking down 3~4 seconds, got a finger on it.

Now, just one hand on the steering wheel, you glance up to ensure you're not going off-road yet, push the button once, glance down, squinting to see the LCD display for a reaction:



Ok, it shows this:



Glance up at the road again, one-handing along still, another push of the button, glance down:



Dang, glance up at the road again, another push:



Dang, glance up at the road again, another push:



Eureka! And that's as good as it gets; no directing all the air to the windshield, at least not with the regular modes.

Then there's the base model Honda Fit, long since discontinued for North America, and this dash style likely long since discontinued, everywhere:



^ There's only two actual "buttons", they're distinct, on the lower left and right corners, and for largely set-and-forget functions. The other functions, recirc/fresh, temperature, fan speed and mode are all tactile, easy to find and adjust by feel alone. IIRC, Honda's mode dials had intermediate detents that you could feel as you rotate, so you've got the two extremes, and 3 detents for the intermediates.

I hope VW does it right; I'd be interested.

 

I think Hyundai did also. The problem is cost in terms of competitive models, and what do the next generation of buyers want.

 

When buttons, knobs and switches were standard, there were a lot less things to operate

 

Concur.

 

It’s amazing we still can’t make voice commands work

 

Toyota used to have a system where there were three ball-shaped switches in a row to control air and heat. Once you learned it you could just tap your way along the dash, know exactly how you had set it, and never once look away from the road.

The capacitance switches suck.

 

BUT....they're cheap.

 

In my ideal world, the physical buttons would have an OLED screen embedded in them that changes with context.
Currently, too expensive except for airliners and slot machines.

 

In MY 'ideal world' the only OLED screen inside a car would be on a phone that is charging in the center console.

 

The Gen 5 has a wireless charger in the center console, but the reception is not good in there, so I don't use it.

 

So I still have to look at them? Yuck.

 

Don't look at anything then. Less driver fatigue.

 

... intended for hinterland farmers, a means of keeping their livestock productive, in the field, mass produced automobiles were supposed to be engineered nibble, practical, serviceable, user-friendly, lightweight, far more efficient, practical a means of rural to urban locomotion, than their horse-drawn, oxen drawn ladder-framed carriage antecedents.

How could it be? How is it possible a contemporary 2-door, two-wheel drive Corvette or Mustang, weights more than my 4 door, 4WD station wagon?

Epitome of absurdity? No engineer worth his salt, given a clean sheet of paper, would mandate an SUV profile wheel diameter, to the Subaru/Toyota BRZ/GR86 platform.

Current offerings are fat, overweight, overloaded, over-optioned, woefully overpriced, poorly designed. Over reliance on electronics for functions better suited to an honestly mechanical refinement, we're asking too much of contemporary vehicles, heaped upon a preponderance of over-electrified nonsense.

Not one current offering you could point to, where form follows function. Iaccoca's original Mustang, weighed 2,445 pounds, more than a thousand pounds less than its 21st century postceedent. A BRZ would be 5 seconds a lap faster, with an optimized 15" wheel diameter. Engineer a Tesla properly, reduce ride height and reciprocating mass with a 14" wheel diameter, that alone, you'd increase its range circle, a hundred miles.

Goo-goo gah-gah? Baby wants a really-big touch screen, in their toaster oven car?


Samuel, '04 Ruthiemobile