Advanced Driving Hub

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/112 ... s-vehicles

About time too. Amazed there isn't legislation banning them, or disabling them while the vehicle is in motion

What I'd like to see and have is total voice control of all vehicle settings and functions.

hurrah, will be good to see a change to this trend...

Good. Let's hope others follow.

I'm glad my car still has real buttons for the main functions. You need something tactile if you are to use it while on the move.

In similar madness to the rush to put all controls on a difficult to use touch screens, the move now on some bikes is to illuminate buttons on the handlebars. You should be able to use them by touch/feel alone and shouldn't need to look or search around for them.

as an interesting example though - I have recently changed the M5 audio system from a very button based system to a modern Apple Car Play system - have to say it works well, however, I only use it for two things - satnav (which I set before I go) and music - which tends to sit on a spotify play list / classic fm / etc. so tends to be set once and leave - all other controls in the car are still on buttons... as it is modern tech. it also comes with things like Whatsapp built in - which will read you a message, and allow you to dictate a response - it won't show you the message though - quite well thought through...

Alasdair

WhoseGeneration wrote:What I'd like to see and have is total voice control of all vehicle settings and functions.

I wouldn't like that - I have a bit of a 'deaf accent' caused by my failure to pronounce my consonants, and this makes it an absolute nightmare when I'm trying to get voice activated things to understand me. I cannot use Siri, or any of the other voice recognition based controls, and my car's voice recognition doesn't understand me either!

It ought to be obvious to anyone, but I'll just point out that as a deaf person, I cannot understand speech without lipreading - so no way of understanding whether the voice recognition stuff has actually understood what I said!

I'd rather just have buttons and none of this infotainment nonsense, give me a big old sat-nav, climate control, and heated things, and that's all the technology I need in a car! I honestly would prefer to have a coffee machine like they had in the Fiat 500L!

WhoseGeneration wrote:What I'd like to see and have is total voice control of all vehicle settings and functions.

Also see the reviews of the latest Mercedes - journalists getting annoyed since every time they mention the manufacturers name, it triggers the voice assistant

Wonderfull, afraid any voice recognition in my car wouldn't work too well unless it was familiar with "tarretts syndrome"

I've got a Mazda and it has the most simple controls, but everything I actually need. I can use my phone or navigation if needed. It is mind you a 19yr old MX5.
I have never felt I needed any more buttons with one exception. I would prefer if it had air conditiong - but that's it that all.