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A comment on Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to Use Than Touchscreens. Parent comment

Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by antiterra on Saturday January 07, 2023 @12:14PM (#34290162)
> also the B-brand, which has seen it fit to replace most of the controls in some of its cars with a single multi-function stalk (iDrive, I think?) that isn't good for anything, except as a reason to return your car for a refund

This is exaggerated and inaccurate. I have a recent BMW and it has numerous physical controls for climate, radio and various settings like auto-hold or disable engine auto-stop/start.

The multifunction puck in BMWs is fantastic, it even allows for text entry while looking at the road. I have trained myself to not use the touchscreen as much as possible and now feel very comfortable even navigating Apple Carplay with it.

I also have a recent model Audi, which is far more egregious with the touch screen. Disabling auto-stop/start cannot be done persistently and it is a touch screen button, along with hill descent. Climate controls have their own dedicated touch panel, and there is no real alternative to touching anything like iDrive. The exception is that it does have an actual volume knob with on/off and next-prev functionality.

It’s also worth noting that both cars also have audio controls on the steering wheel itself.

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Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by closeparen on Saturday January 07, 2023 @12:28PM (#34290327)
The 2023 3-series ditches physical controls except for the volume knob.
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Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by antiterra on Saturday January 07, 2023 @12:43PM (#34290504)
It is definitely worse, but there are also dedicated buttons for next/prev, max defrost and max rear defrost as well as the driving mode, parking guidance.
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Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by amelius on Saturday January 07, 2023 @12:45PM (#34290528)
Ok, but don't you agree that touchscreen controls look very cheap compared to real knobs? Shouldn't that be a factor too, especially in higher end cars?
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Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by closeparen on Saturday January 07, 2023 @12:53PM (#34290609)
The luxury automakers’ most modern glass cockpits were first incubated in their highest end models and are only now percolating down to the entry/mid levels, so no unfortunately I don’t think they read as cheap, they read as “oh awesome! just like an S class now!”
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Re:Study Finds That Buttons in Cars Are Safer and Quicker to... by antiterra on Saturday January 07, 2023 @01:55PM (#34291299)
I prefer real, tactile buttons and knobs, but from a visual aspect alone, you can definitely have too many buttons. https://rennlist.com/forums/attachments/997-turbo-forum/1136...
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