My car can only turn AC on and off. What about me then?
I'm mostly arguing having AC controls on a screen aren't that big of a deal, because chances are if they're on a touchscreen they're auto, and if they're auto you really shouldn't need to ever really mess with them while moving. The only real exception to this would be defrosters, but I do agree there should be a least a physical defrost toggle button.
Functionality that might be needed when you drive (fogging up, change audio src, increase temp) should have physical interface.
So if you have auto AC it could go behind the screen.
But what I am afraid is that cars are sold with premium features as upgrades. So features that are fine behind screen would suck in cheaper models. And when looking at what BS automotive industry is pushing now (subscription services for physical features that are present), I am not hopeful this would be addressed.
I generally agree. Safety critical features need physical control options close to the driver's normal inputs.
> But I feel like we already had it with early screens and infotainment.
I have two cars. One with a big screen and few physical buttons, and one with a small screen with lots of physical buttons.
Because of all the physical buttons, the screen had to be a lot smaller. The vast majority of those buttons relate to actions I really shouldn't be messing with when driving or are connected to the auto AC system which as mentioned doesn't really get used. So it is a ton of wasted space on the center console.
On the other car, the screen is very large. There's still important physical controls related to driving and defogging and adjusting media and what not, but they're all immediately around the driver's area not the center console. This allows for the maps for navigation to be very large and easier to glance at. The interface for changing media a lot easier to use when stopped and wanting to actually look at what choices I have or have my passenger make changes.
At least to me, I'd much rather have the center console be filled with the map and actually used input surface rather than just have it filled with tons of buttons which generally still shouldn't be used when driving.
