Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the inappropriate-touching dept.

Honda bucks industry trend by removing touchscreen controls:

Honda has done what no other car maker is doing, and returned to analogue controls for some functions on the new Honda Jazz.

While most manufacturers are moving to touchscreen controls, identifying smartphone use as their inspiration - most recently seen in Audi's latest A3 - Honda has decided to reintroduce heating and air conditioning controls via a dial rather than touchscreen, as in the previous-generation Jazz.

Jazz project leader Takeki Tanaka explained: "The reason is quite simple - we wanted to minimise driver disruption for operation, in particular, for the heater and air conditioning.

<no-sarcasm>
It seems to me that neither physical controls nor voice controlled operation are fundamentally incompatible with cars being both smart and connected.
</no-sarcasm>


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:29AM (4 children)

    by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:29AM (#977938)

    While I agree that recent autos make it near impossible to control the AC while driving, most of the newer cars I've driven lately are way to complex to drive and deal with the audio adjustments too. A couple of weeks ago I used a one year old Chevy pickup and I had to find a place to pull over just to try to change the radio station. After 10 minutes I gave up and turned the volume control all the way to quiet. And don't get me started on windscreen washer controls.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:57AM (3 children)

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:57AM (#977970)

      Touch screens in cars are idiotic and dangerous.

      I drive an "old" car where I can adjust the AC, headlights, wipers, radio, etc, without even having to take my eyes off the road. I can just feel the controls. The thought of having to buy a new car eventually with touch screen shit forced down my throat scares the shit out of me.

      Recently I had to ride with someone using a shared company vehicle. The AC was controlled by a retarded touch screen, and between the both of us, we never could figure out how to make it work. The real kicker was the touch screen still had the plastic protective sheet over it - the stuff you are supposed to remove after you purchase the vehicle - and it had gotten nasty. I would have pulled it off, but those screens are so bright, that dirty sheet was protecting my eyes from getting raped.

      Which brings me to the problem with moronic blue lit controls. It used to be a well known fact that lit vehicle instrumentation should usually be a dim red. They eye can see/read such controls, while not scattering excess light, impairing night driving. But some jackasses out there think blue-lit crap is cool. Don't even get me started on excessively bright LED headlights.

      It is just sadly hilarious how consumetards think touch screens are "better" somehow. A while back I was flipping channels on TV and came across some recent sci-fi-ish show - whatever was going on in this show, the characters were using some fancy car that was supposed to be "futuristic" and "high tech" with all kinds of sci-fi-ish features. The only visible hints there was anything different about the car was some blue-LED glow below the car (like stupid decorative shit some redneck would install), and all the sci-fi-ish features were controlled by a Fisher-Price toy looking touch screen. When they activated one of the features, they had to scroll past a bunch of options, taking 10x as long as pressing a button would have. But we got to watch hypnotic scrolling, so it must be good!

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:11PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @12:11PM (#978002)

        Car and Driver and a few other major auto review magazines and websites have been bashing the push to touch screens too.

        I suspect for the automakers, touch screens have three purposes. First, consumers perceived them as high tech. Second, instead of having to make one dashboard button and knob layout for your little sedan and one for your midsize sedan and one for your compact SUV and one for your pickup truck, you just throw a touch screen in all of them. I wouldn't be surprised if mass producing the same touch screen for all of a product lineup was actually cheaper than engineering and producing those knobs and dials for each unique product. Third, starting some time in the past few years - 2017, maybe? - backup cameras were mandatory in all new US market vehicles. So if you need to stick a screen in the middle of the dashboard anyway, half the cost of your touchscreen system was already mandated.

        The killer trade off between old and new cars is crash safety. Now first and foremost, buried in the fine print in most crash safety resources is the fact that mass is critical. A top crash safety rated 2020 model year Honda sedan won't fare as well in the majority of crashes with other vehicles as a 1995 Ford F-150 pickup truck because all the fancy engineering in the Honda can't offset a 1000 pound difference in weight. There are exceptions, like in rollover crashes or if you slam into a tree. But generally old and big is safer than newer and smaller. But if you're going to choose between a 2005 Toyota Camry and a 2020 Toyota Camry, or a 2002 Chevy Suburban and a 2018 Chevy Suburban, there are a huge class of collisions that will hurt or kill you in the older model but won't even scratch you in the newer one. So my suggestion to anyone that wants to preserve their privacy without sacrificing safety: get a job that lets you telecommute or move very close to where you work, and then get an old large SUV or pickup. The old Ram-3500 that travels 2,000 miles a year is better for the environment than the new Nissan Altima that travels 12,000.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:29PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:29PM (#978145) Journal

        Regarding red dash lights: It astonishes me how much blue light is inside most cars these days, especially on the touch screen garbage -- it would be nothing to give the user the option to select a decent night time color palatte.

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:21AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:21AM (#978222) Homepage

        First time I ever saw blue light inside a vehicle was my '78 F100 ... for the high beams indicator. Holy shit, good thing I was in the middle of nowhere first time I hit the switch. Had to pull over, root up some duct tape, and block it off so it would stop blinding me. (And just the reflection was still plenty damn enough.)

        Same piece of tape was still there when we parted ways, 38 years later.

        Every mechanic ever: Why is there duct tape stuck to your instrument panel??
        Me: DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jelizondo on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:47AM (3 children)

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:47AM (#977941) Journal

    Can we vanish, please, please, pretty please the “modern” GUI?

    People can and will develop muscle memory, with options that “hide” to “unclutter” the GUI, one muscles can’t remember where the fuck is the button we’re supposed to click. You have to look at the screen all the time.

    I still use keyboard shortcuts I learned 30 or 40 years ago; there is nothing like that in the “modern” GUI, be it smartphones, cars, computers, ovens or whatever.

    I want to keep my eyes on what I’m doing, like right now, I’m typing and NOT looking at the keyboard… Magic!

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:53AM (#977978)

      you should avoid the new office
      muscle memory? HA! the buttons move based on content for what you have selected
      good luck

      you can't even see or discover the full menu without actually knowing what you are looking for

      it's great for selecting things on the fly and seeing a preview of what it will do.. but it sucks big time for most tasks

      I still find myself searching for how to do things

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:30PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:30PM (#978060) Journal

      Configurable shortcuts are great. That way the shortcuts you just learned can be constantly changed so that they must be re-learned.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:07PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:07PM (#978129)

        Definitely keeps programmers and script kiddies busy, eh.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:15AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:15AM (#977945) Journal

    volume and channel should be proper buttons.
    Optional buttons on the steering wheel are fine, but only if they make sense.
    My car (Skoda Octavia) has volume spinner, track up.down, channel up/down, and mute buttons on the left, and six buttons on the left for the dash menu and phone

    I use the volume spinner. Otherwise, I use the buttons around and under the screen (which are proper hard, spinning knobs - and the volume works on everything, no matter which 'function' is on the screen - best UI I have seen.

    BUT control anything else requires stopping the car an navigating up to seven levels of menus.

    Alas, the one in my car has been replaced with 'normal' VW-group systems - screen touch buttons rather than clicky ones, "airplay" and google crap...

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:34AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:34AM (#977954) Journal

    Ages ago when smart phones first started coming out, they seemed pretty cool to me -- having an ultra-portable computing device definitely has a use -- still does. At the same time, it was obvious that everything about the UI was a necessary compromise due to the size of the devices. What surprises me is that these forced compromises have bled into places they simply don't belong. A phone touchscreen doesn't exist because it is a good way to interface with a device, it exists because lugging a Model M around with your phone is not practical. To put these forced compromises into places they don't need to be, and to call it a feature, is mystifying.

    Anyway, kudos to Honda for focusing on function not hype.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:37AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:37AM (#977957)
    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)

      by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @07:20PM (#978130)

      So how come they want you to white list their site when you go to the homepage?

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:31PM (#978146)

        I don't know. What I do know is the link in TFA blocked me from viewing the specific article and the one above did not.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @09:21AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @09:21AM (#977981)

    I have an older vehicle that has an aftermarket audio system with a touchscreen. All the important driving controls are mechanical switches and knobs. The quick audio controls, volume and channel changing, have buttons too.

    The touchscreen is useful. For setting up Bluetooth, for doing firmware upgrades, for setting up the XM radio, for configuring the backup camera. It would be pretty unpleasant having to do all this without the touchscreen. (Unless I could plug in a USB keyboard). On cars that have more features, there are more things to set up. The important thing is that all this stuff is nothing you would do while driving.

    Anything that might be done while driving needs a physical switch. The obvious reason is that it's not safe to look away from the road long enough to operate a screen. The second reason is that you can't physically operate a touchscreen while you're moving down the road because you will be bouncing around and might be wearing gloves. A control that's only accessible by a touchscreen might as well not be accessible at all if you're driving.

    I'll pass on voice controls. Voice controls mean some data center records everything that's ever said in the car. Miss me with that thx.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @02:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @02:35PM (#978039)

      20 years ago, I had electronics gear that was controlled via knobs and buttons. If you needed to do anything like that, you could scroll with knobs and go forward and backwards with the buttons. No touch screen required.

      In terms of the car, it works great as you can have buttons and knobs for anything that you're going to do while driving and everything else can potentially be behind a navigation system.

      This is just change for the sake of change. There hasn't been any positive changes to UI since sometime in the '90s. And yes, I mean '90s, Apple has been one of the worst offenders in this category. They are so focused on removing excess buttons and making the interface dumb, that each release seems to be less usable than the previous one.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:32AM (1 child)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:32AM (#977987) Homepage Journal

    It's pretty much all been said: touch screens for driver controls are a brain-dead idea, and evern generation of designers seems to feel compelled to repeat all the mistakes already corrected by previous generations.

    That said, no one so far has mentioned what is likely *the* reason behind touch screen interfaces: cost savings. You've got to have that screen anyway, so save the money of installing (and interfacing with) physical controls. You not only save on the hardware, you save on having an interface to that hardware, and you can hire cheap "app" designers instead of engineers who know how to make a computer talk to external hardware.

    If you kill all a few extra customers? Well, we already said that this was a "brain-dead" idea - they're just taking it literally... /s

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:30AM

      by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @11:30AM (#977998) Homepage Journal

      you can hire cheap "app" designers instead of engineers

      Have you noticed how buggy a lot of these modern UIs are as well? I can't speak for controls built into cars but I'm thinking of low to mid level monitors, TVs and car stereos for example. Particularly when the device does have a small number of physical buttons, I keep finding bugs where each button seems to change its function depending on where I am in the UI. For example, on a modern screen, which buttons move up and down the current menu, which button steps back to the parent menu, and which button applies the current menu item, often seems to randomly shuffle depending on which menu is currently visible! I wonder when they build these things if they just delegate each menu screen to a different developer, throw all the code together and perform zero testing before shipping the thing. It's insane. I mean, they can't really cut back on quality control much further before we get to the day where every product is a completely, utterly unusable and totally broken brick on arrival.

      --
      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:11PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:11PM (#978008)

    DannyB -- can you clear up what you meant by this (in tfa):

    It seems to me that neither physical controls nor voice controlled operation are fundamentally incompatible with cars being both smart and connected.

    Plea to submitters and eds -- strive for as many positives as possible. If using a negative, one at a time please.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:40PM (5 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:40PM (#978063) Journal

      Mabye I had introduced enough negatives and then rewrote that sentence enough to confuse myself into a state being confused about my own confusion. Or maybe not being not confused about how much I might not have been confused. It's difficult to say.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:54PM (4 children)

        by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:54PM (#978096) Homepage Journal

        Although I did find the post amusing, I just gave you a +1 Funny for your sig.:

        To avoid controversy about whether array indexes begin at 0 or 1, I propose a compromise: 0.5.

        It reminds me a little of the gender-neutral toilet seat, which naturally rests at 45 degrees.

        --
        If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:30PM (2 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:30PM (#978104) Journal

          Don't blame the editors. It's not their fault. They may have entered a catatonic fugue like state after reading what I wrote.

          At least they don't have to read my code.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:29PM (#978115)

            > Don't blame the editors.

            Just out of curiosity, do editors ever consult with a story-submitter, to clarify some point or another?

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:28PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:28PM (#978114)

          > 45 degrees

          What a great hack for 4/1! My SO happens to be away (supporting an aging parent) but if she's around next year on April 1, I'm going to slip in some kind of support so that the seat sits at 45 deg.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:44PM (#978016)

    i suppose it's a bit like writing with a pencil: writing with a touchscreen is like writing with a pencil but without your hand or side of your palm allowed to rest on the table, hovering. nothing good comes from it.
    on the other hand :) allowing to rest the mass of your hand "somewhere" and then writing mostly yields something more admirable. this is comparable with a "non-touch screen interface", yes?
    with a button or knob or switch one can "hold on" or "rest on" the input device before interacting with it.
    -
    on a "money-for-construction-went-under-the-table" road (bumpy), a touchscreen selection/input it totally a "eyes-off-road" and hunt-and-peck game.
    also, driving (still) requires visual input (looking) and then manual output (steering) 99% of time, so feed-back of any change should not require to identify if a tiny icon on the display has activated or not; the time for the eyes to refocus from short distance (screen, touchscreen) to long distance (driving) is bad.
    the "indicator" doesn't have to be a pretty icon. if it can be identified just by color (on-or-off) and location then peripheral vision is enough to acknowledge it (without having to refocus).
    however this "engineering" might be for nought since everything with 4 wheels is gonna drive itself and we can dedicate ourselfs 100% to deciphering tiny icon on a small handheld device ...
    the best switch and its "indicator" is still the amount of force your bum registered if you press that go-pedal ^_^

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:59PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @01:59PM (#978025)

    I want my car to be stupid and disconnected but it appears that is no longer possible.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:42PM (4 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @03:42PM (#978064) Journal

      I don't mind if the car is smart and connected. But must have physical controls. It might be nice to say "Alexa, turn up the A/C by 5 percent".

      Or to the garage door opener: "Hal, open the pod bay doors."

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:05PM (#978082)

        > "Hal, open the pod bay doors."

        Hope you have a spare key, you're never going to get HAL to open those doors!

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday April 02 2020, @01:46AM (1 child)

          by anubi (2828) on Thursday April 02 2020, @01:46AM (#978210) Journal

          I have wondered about electronic safes... What happens if the battery goes dead?

          I might consider one if it had external charging and appropriate input power screening.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:28AM

            by Reziac (2489) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:28AM (#978223) Homepage

            IIRC the LockPicking Lawyer opened one rather quickly...

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:02PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:02PM (#978169)

        "I'm sorry Dan, I'm afraid I can't do that."

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:32PM (3 children)

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday April 01 2020, @04:32PM (#978090)

    This problem predates even touch screen controls. A random button and knob with an LED display to change the status is the same problem.

    My last car was an 06 Acura RSX (Honda Integra for those outside North America), made just before all the dumb screen controls started to become popular. It had three knobs for environmental controls. Fan speed, temperature, vent selection. With a couple of buttons for recirculate and AC on the knobs. That is it. I could adjust them however I wanted, even vent selection without looking away from the road. Even the buttons were look-free since they were in the middle of the knobs. If I want full heat or full chill or full vent flow, easy, turn the knob all the way to the left or right.

    My latest car doesn't have touch screen, it has rotary-encoder knob for temperature, and a bunch of fucking buttons for vent, ac, etc. All of the buttons are gathered in the same spot, so the only way to press them is to look down at them. There is an LED display that you have to look at while making the selection or you won't know how many times to push the button, or how far to turn the dial. It is miles better than a touch screen, but still not nearly as good as manual controls.

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:33PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:33PM (#978117)

      > ... but still not nearly as good as manual controls.

      Tell me again why you bought this car? You must have seen the control layout on a test drive(?)

      • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday April 03 2020, @01:55PM

        by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday April 03 2020, @01:55PM (#978693)

        > Tell me again why you bought this car? You must have seen the control layout on a test drive(?)

        Good question. I wanted a new(ish) suv with a towing package good gas mileage and handling and would last at least 10 years with little maintenance as a daily driver. I had mostly decided on Honda/Acura because of how much I liked my last car.

        And, come to think of it, environmental controls weren't on the top of my list of features as long as they weren't too obnoxious. If it was touch screen I probably would have taken notice earlier.

        --
        "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:38AM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:38AM (#978227)

      Your latest car sounds like my Mazda3. It has a digital display for the HVAC temperature setting, and buttons around it. You don't *have* to look down at them to press them; if you've memorized their positions, you can operate them by feel too, though it's obviously not as easy as the 3-big-knob layout (which cheaper versions of my car had; mine has the auto HVAC option). In practice, I rarely have to bother with adjusting the HVAC anyway: I just set it to one temperature and leave it. But when the windshield fogs up, I do need to hit the defrost button.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:37PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 01 2020, @05:37PM (#978109) Journal

    Two large physical knobs.

    First knob selects which value you wish to change. Second knob changes it.

    As you turn the first knob, you can feel the detents as you pass each setting. A small screen (for deaf drivers) and an audible voice (for blind drivers) both announce which setting you have landed on. It could be anything from radio volume to windshield wiper speed or interior light brightness.

    Then turn the second knob to increase / decrease, or for some settings simply change the on / off status.

    Now imagine that when turning the first knob, you cannot turn it to the next detent until the voice has completely announced which setting is currently selected to be changed.

    I just entered a tunnel, it's going to take quite a few seconds to get the headlights turned on.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:50PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2020, @06:50PM (#978122)

      > ...it's going to take quite a few seconds to get the headlights turned on.

      With my '09 Toyota, the lights come on automagically -- I think the sensor is on the dash, just below the windshield. While I can turn on the lights by rotating the left stalk, there isn't much point, when it's daylight I get DRLs, and when it's dark I get normal lights (high/low are push/pull on the stalk--still manual).

      More generally, what you describe is a "mode" control. Cars and other devices that need to be "realtime" should have a control for each major/safety-related function, "mode-less". No getting stuck in some unwanted mode. Nice overview here, https://www.nngroup.com/articles/modes/ [nngroup.com]

      And just to get everyone's juices going, this is why I like emacs--a key-chord for every function (although there are some global modes...)

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:33AM

        by Reziac (2489) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:33AM (#978225) Homepage

        First time I encountered one of those damn all-function stalks, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn on the headlights.

        "Lights and wipers on the dash, as the gods intended" joined my criteria for that new-used vehicle I was then seeking...

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:34AM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 02 2020, @03:34AM (#978226)

    Honda isn't the only one to buck this industry trend: the latest Mazdas are the same way. The screen is operated via a "commander" knob on the center console. The previous models were pretty similar, with the same knob, though the screen was also a touchscreen (but the touch functionality was disabled when the car was in motion).

    And for HVAC controls, again, Mazdas never did integrate HVAC into the screen.

(1)