Tesla Model X Owner Has Had Enough Of Minimalism, Adds Physical Buttons::Tesla Model X owner from China has attached a panel of physical buttons to the vehicle’s main control unit for quicker access to some key functions.

  • JackSkellington@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Anytime I need to click on a touch button / non physical button I need to take my eyes off the road so I don’t click on other buttons wrongly… physical buttons in car is the way !

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I still misclick. It’s so dangerous.

      Back when I was a teen I’d text and drive with T9 on a Nokia without needing to look at anything but the road. Now I have to concerntrate and time bumps to get try turn the demister on.

      Physical buttons are just so much safer and easier since you don’t need take focus off driving.

      I’ve thought about making an APK I can get going through Android Auto that simply converts my requests via LLM to commands for the car. But I imagine getting the manufacturer’s command lists is near impossible and then there’s all the shit blocking an APK permissions to control car components. It would otherwise be super easy.

      • r00ty@kbin.life
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        1 year ago

        I’d be very surprised if they let an APK that wasn’t signed in some way by the manufacturer access any vehicle functions. A rogue app could do silly dangerous things. Wait a second, it’s Tesla and Musk we’re talking about here. No, I’d actually not be surprised upon reflection.

        • eric@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I had my rebuttal locked and loaded until those last two sentences. What a ride.

      • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You could have an ESP32 connected to your phone. The ESP could control some relays or simply raise/lower pins to connect to whatever this physycal board is connected to. You make your own API from there.

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        1 year ago

        What car components would you like to be able to voice command?

        Texting, calling and maps are already in android auto, and those are usually the ones in the car OS too, so I doubt they even have commands for other stuff. Maybe the AC if it’s even connected to the computer.

        • SmashingSquid@notyour.rodeo
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          1 year ago

          The next generation of CarPlay is going to be able to control the AC and integrate with the car enough to take over all the panels. I haven’t seen Siri mentioned but I’m guessing Siri would be able to control it too.

          I don’t really follow android so I don’t know if they have similar in the works.

    • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I want jackknife switches for every function, all wired to go chokBZAK and throw sparks at me every time I use my turn signal. Mad science maximalist aesthetics.

          • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m imagining a dashboard bristling with these, to control everything from door locks to wipers.

            Maybe a few big red buttons and flashing toggle buttons too, case depending.

            It’d be a horrible experience to drive, which is itself a net benefit.

            • Nudding@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It takes like 4 switches and a button to get the power into the back to open the trunk, all while you crackle maniacally in the grocery store parking lot. Also it needs to be struck by lightning first.

            • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              So, in the future when self driving is a thing, you have most people napping or watching their favorite drama in 2 second clips between 5 second commercials, and then there’s you. Fully entertained you, cackling while randomly flipping hundreds of switches that aren’t quite aligned, each one making a spark on contact and doing something innocuous like changing the color of the interior accent lights.

      • Bo7a@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        This hits so close to home. I have had multiple experiences where phone-starers pull up so close to my bike while they are not paying attention that my wife could slap their hoods, and once I had a guy pull so close behind at a red light that his bumper was UNDER my rear fender.

    • OrgunDonor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I dont think removing the screen complete is the right way around this. Having something that can display maps and more information is good. But it should have never become the only thing.

      You need buttons and easy access to functions that are always available in easy to remember places. So that you aren’t spending attention away from the road when you want to change the fan control.

      Fuck this bullshit touchscreen only nonsense, actual physical buttons are superior in a car.

        • thejml@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Agreed. The screen should be an OLED so the blacks are actually off, and overall dim solely using easier colors at night, low intensity red hues are proven in Astronomy to not screw with your vision, for instance.

          One of the first things I changed on my TLX when I got it was getting rid of the “blue everything” setting on the screens and going with a red interface and it made a world of difference.

          • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            It also does that in teslas, it automatically goes in to “dark mode” so it’s not a large white screen, reduces blue light and dims backlight on the screen when it’s dark outside.

      • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Physical buttons are better for everything that you want to be able to control without looking at

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Personally I think a good tactile display could fix this but I would prefer a voice control that really works more than any buttons. I’ve heard Teslas voice control is pretty good, but I have yet to be satisfied with any automobile voice control.

    • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This aesthetic minimalism and there’s minimalism as lifestyle philosophy. Those two are not related and often contradict each other.

  • terry_ducks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    (author) "…but it obviously defeats the whole purpose of minimalism. "

    Fucking dumbass, A single button to do one thing IS minimalism. A screen area to many ISNT

  • LegionEris [she/her]@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    Ngl I want my dash to look like a fucking airliner. I love that my MINI interior looks like a personal space ship from a 90s movie. Give me moar toggles!

    • oyo@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I want everything to be toggle switches. If I could get a keyboard made of 105 classic toggle switches it would be worth the effort to type with it.

      • Krzd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The question is, do you want them to toggle ‘on’ and ‘off’, meaning switching them on is like holding down the key, or send impulses in each position? (obviously with a master switch to reset then without triggering something)

        • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Thing is, I really wanted CarPlay / Android Auto support. Having had that with a 3rd party Alpine deck, I really got used to it. It’s hard to go back.

          But, having some of those controls behind several menus and screens is really annoying. Oh well, at least it’s not a Telsa and I can turn the air vents manually.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I usually just prop my cellphone in front of the car’s screen if I don’t want to bother setting the car’s NAV and I only play two radio stations when I drive so it doesn’t bother me, but I understand what you’re saying (although my experience with Android auto wasn’t great).

            Honestly I just wished the NAV could sync with my phone via Bluetooth even if it used Volvo’s map, that’s all I would need for it to be perfect.

            • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I’m mostly in CarPlay land. Personally, I like that the car UIs are much more glanceable, have bigger touch targets that are easier to hit on a bumpy road, and default to voice control UIs for a lot of stuff. All in all, it feels safer to me and helps me keep my eyes on the road.

              But once you get outside of controlling CP and AA for audio, messaging, and mapping apps, and you start talking about controlling the vehicle, I want physical buttons for common stuff.

              My Volvo has some annoying collision detection sensors that I have to toggle off on certain roads, and going through menus to get to that is stupid.

      • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At least they have physical buttons below the screen for media, hazards and heated windscreens & seats, plus all the steering wheel controls.

        • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          For now. The new Volvos are getting what they developed for Polestar. Android Automotive for the head unit platform, which is dope, but even fewer physical buttons on the dash. 😬

          https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/08/the-volvo-ex30s-interior-is-the-ikea-take-on-teslas-playbook/amp/

          My guess is that this will change though. I don’t even see hazards on the dash. I don’t think that’s even legal in a lot of places.

          Edit: also, the current generation setup on Volvos has physical controls for audio, hazards, window defrost, lights, cruise, voice control, seat position, drive mode, and vent orientation. Seat temperature is on the screen next to climate controls.

        • June@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          That’s totally fair and everyone has different preferences. But I really don’t think it needs to be a trade off at all. My ‘13 Focus has buttons for everything important in addition to the touch screen controls and they made it look nice too.

          If I’m gonna spend XC60 money, I want the styling to be something I enjoy as much as I enjoy the rest of the car. This console might actually be a deal breaker for me if I were shopping.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        2017 xc60 in my case, it’s not exactly like that (I’ve got a couple of blanks this one doesn’t have) but they still had it up to 2018 in the S60 and V60.

  • Chefdano3@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Honestly surprised that Tesla allowed him to modify his car without charging him a $30,000 fine or something.

  • Curious Canid@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    This seems like a great idea to me. Touch screens are a terrible way to operate controls while driving. Some car companies have begun backing off from the trend and are moving back to buttons for some functions.

    • phx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Touch screens are great for dynamic interfaces, but terrible for anything that involves feedback or a tactile experience.

      My vehicle - though not a Tesla - still pisses me off that all the stereo controls except the power button are touch-based (even power appears to be a software-activated button as it failed once when the unit locked up). The saving point on my vehicle is that the steering controls (volume, prev/next) do still exist as physical buttons.

      At the very least, they’re should be a physical on/off, and physical dials/controls for volume and heating adjustments so a driver can change those without taking eyes off the road.

  • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I fully expect that aftermarket buttons for dashboards will become a range of popular products, from things like this all the way up to a full dashboard replacement.

        • r00ty@kbin.life
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          1 year ago

          This was my first thought. I’ve never even been in a Tesla, so I didn’t know they didn’t have the basic functions on buttons. In terms of safety, having a specific button in a known location that does a specific thing is extremely important.

          How does it work on a Tesla, voice control? That might be good. If you have to scroll through menus on a tablet to turn the A/C up or down, that’s a severe safety issue (and likely illegal in many countries to do while the equivalent of the ignition is on).

          • ironhydroxide@partizle.com
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            1 year ago

            “hey Tesla, turn on the defroster”

            —“ok, indicating right”

            “No! I need defrost!”

            —“I didn’t get that, say again”

            “Turn on the windshield defrost”

            —“ok, wipers on high”

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Lots of cars today have this touchscreen nonsense for controlling everything.

            By 2016, even Honda/Acura started using it on higher end models. Which is funny, because my early 2000’s Honda has nice, big, obvious, easy-to-use-without-looking AC controls.

            • r00ty@kbin.life
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, I was just looking at the modern version of my current car. Seems like it does still have 1 row of buttons. But most stuff seems to be on a teslaesque tablet.

              My current model (from 2014) l has a lot of stuff you can do in the menu system, but anything you need to do while driving has controls on either the stalk or dashboard.

              Oh and the current car has a touch screen radio and THAT is annoying on its own. So many times I want to just press a different station shown on the screen. Oh, you wanted to select that station? Well I thought you swiped and now I’m on a random page of stations you don’t want to listen to. Good luck getting back while driving!

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If Tesla doesn’t have voice control, they’re behind my 2016 Prius, which has it. You have to push a steering wheel button to access it. Of course, no-button Teslas could do an ‘Ok Google’ or ‘Hey Siri’ or whatever.

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        And if you don’t pay your monthly fee, the car will just ignore those buttons.

    • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      For the Tesla enthusiasts that want their car to feel like a real car.

      I’ll just get something else than a Tesla when EV’s get common enough.

      I’m also interested in seeing used car prices for EVs. Like how much is a 20 year old Tesla/EV worth, and what range do you get at that time?

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        It’s not a Tesla nor 20 years old, but:

        Before my Leafs battery melted (no active cooling, thanks Nissan) we were being offered 16k or so on the private market when it was 4.5 years old. Had gone from a max range of about 154 to 140ish in that time

        It has a brand new battery now so that changes things, I’ll admit. Newer cars will have longer lasting batteries in no small part thanks to cooling the fucking Things lol

    • Cosmos7349@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You just made me realize I want a standardized modular interfacing system for dashboards. Like a Framework laptop for cars. That would be so dope

      • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That would be so cool! Not proprietary enough to sell the idea to automakers, but if the things on a dashboard could be switched out like the accessories of a desktop computer, we would quickly see what people actually want in their cars.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    One of the biggest non-problematic problems I have with newer cars is the lack of physical buttons. I also really dislike the trend of everything becoming minimalist, so I 100% support these types of modifications so long as they can be safely implemented.

  • Chocrates@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Minimalism can be nice, but Tesla seems to do this just for cost savings. Didn’t they remove some “important” physical buttons from the steering wheel recently?

    • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Programming your Tesla would mean that you upload software that your car runs. I think you can’t do that, but you should be allowed to.

      As it’s a matter of public safety, and as part of a right to repair, all of the software that runs in cars should be open source, and should be able to be updated by the owner.

      • ante@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is a terrible idea. What stops me from uploading a broken piece of shit fork that puts others at risk while I’m driving?

        • ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works
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          The law stops you. Open source just means that you can access the code and modify it. Open source does not mean that you have automatically met the legal requirements to certify that software for use on public roads. That would be an additional hurdle that any automotive software would have to pass. But, most legal systems are stone age compared to software development and any sufficiently new technology. Still, right to repair and open source does not mean that you can operate outside of regulations.

          • PaintedSnail@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I believe the issue isn’t one of laws, but enforcement. If a person is physically capable of modifying the code their cars runs and then operating it on a public road, then someone will, illegal or not. That is what puts the lives of others at risk. Hell, I can already imagine websites where you can download untested mods to apply to cars that people will apply with no knowledge of how it works.

        • mwguy@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          The same thing that prevents you from putting in a piece of shit knockoff part that puts others at risk while you’re driving?

          You’re desire to not die.

        • logicbomb@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          A script is a type of software, so that’s not really a big difference.

          I don’t know about Tesla specifically, but if I was making a car that was intended to be moddable like this, I would have a hardware interface of some sort, and expect the mod to call a public API. This is similar to how cell phones can connect via USB and have some functionality.

      • IdealShrew@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Do you really think the average Joe has the knowledge to develop safe software for a car? Some things are okay to be proprietary imo, maybe with open documentation but not source.

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          You could absolutely standardize, certify, and isolate safety components

          • IdealShrew@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If the non-critical parts were scriptable like the infotainment system, then I could get behind it. Kind of like android I guess where you’re free to tinker, but you have to enable developer mode first so regular people can’t accidentally break something.

  • sucricdrawkcab@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No doubt in my mind they’ll remove you from the fast charge network if you plug this in the U.S. Even more now as this is making rounds online.

    • slayback@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You are right. It’s a model Y. I see no evidence of a Model X owner doing this in the article or video.