If you’ve ever spent time in a modern BMW, you’ve probably fussed about with the goofy iDrive controller. It’s a rotary knobbery slidery thing that just never really feels that good to use. [Garage Tinkering] was inspired to try and build a better version for his own car.
The first order of business was to choose the right knob as the core of the build. [Garage Tinkering] eventually landed on the Crowpanel 1.28″ rotary knob which integrates a push-button encoder, a round screen, and an ESP32-S3 all into one convenient package. He then set about designing a 3D printed housing that would integrate it into the vehicle’s interior, along with a diffuser ring for the knob’s inbuilt LEDs and some additional buttons for added control. The goal is to use the rotary control as the human interface for a broader system being implemented in the vehicle, which will feature a larger infotainment screen and multiple digital gauges. The rotary control will allow switching things like interior and underglow lighting, and display of other vehicle parameters.
The cool thing about building your own gear is that you can make it work exactly the way that suits you. We’ve seen great hacks in this realm before, too, like this rad car data display.
Maybe this will interest you: https://tube.ar.hn/w/v4S4oasAH2hkyUocMJpb3i
What is wrong with physical buttons I can use without really looking at them? Setting the temperature / fan of the AC, changing the stereo volume or the radio channel or whatever – all this should be easy to do wihtout taking your eyes off the road.
this is for controlling the infotainment with your arm on the center console
which is arguably an improvement over clicking on a touchscreen
while the HVAC functions can be accessed through the dial, the primary HVAC controls should still be physical buttons on these luxury cars (afaik)
Says who? Touchscreen: You glance at the screen, look back at the road, move the finger to the preplanned position from the glance, action accomplished. Repeat as necessary. Max of a few times.
Stuopid German push button weird thing: Glance, scroll, glance (figure out what is highlighted), scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll , glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll, glance,scroll take action (finally) (Please don’t make me do that again).
Its the absolute worst HID, and the most obvnoxious thing. When getting a rental I always say, no mercedes, no bmw. Mazda did this BS though, so it’s made the list of do not rent.
The only way I’d buy a car with this is if I thought I could hack a touchscreen into it!
100% agree with that. It boils down to re-assigning proper levels of importance.
What I really NEED to have (as opposed to what the radio makers think I should have) are maybe three dials in total, all three having the clickety option to toggle something on or off. One dial is the proverbial “climate control” (ha, the term implies I can alter Gulf Stream, aha, yeah, sure), clicking through should cycle “fan, ac, etc” and rotating the dial should set the temperature. Second dial is the radio on/off/volume and third dial channel/tune. Under “channel” it should go through “AM/FM/Bluetooth/whatevah”. Three dials. Not more than that. I believe some cars already have that part figured out, kind of, sort of (forgot the model, but I think one of the korean cars).
Also, return the analog clocks and make them automagically set via GPS or WWVB, it costs nada now, and GPS can also fetch calendar date as a nice extra.
Ah, one of my previous cars had this idiotic clock that turns itself off when the car was turned off stationary, so I bought a ~$16 (off them ebays) radio-controlled desk clock with the date and temperature (it also had a solar panel, aha, it run off solar during the day time, thus, conserving the battery) and taped it to the dashboard. Lasted very, very long while on one CR123 (if I remember right something like 5+ years), and I considered placing similar clock in all our cars, just perhaps finding a better spot, maybe taped to the back view mirror, but you get the idea. Entire purpose of a clock in a car that it TELLS TIME, not me querying “what time is it?”, ie, it is always on.
Customising a smartwatch for control: https://www.reddit.com/r/Audi/comments/1t6o0po/update_challenge_accepted_i_coded_an_invisible/
Back in the day (pre-idrive), I used a 3D Space Navigator for the purpose, worked great. Twist L/R for volume control, L/R for REV/FWD, press Enter, long press Add to Queue depending on the context.
Had tried a lot of things actually, like a shift knob with integegrated trackball, but the Space Navigator was much better. Virtually everything could be done without looking. Navigators were also relatively cheap then.
Good hack, if the knob has solid tactile feedback on each click bonus points. Vehicle operation is such a strangely neglected field these days for manufacturers. The standard should be tactile, eyes free, with the option of hands-free voice without vendor lock. So many of these lessons were learned the hard way decades ago.
I just wondered if Vim style “keybindings” would be a good way to control functions in a car. A set of say… 6 buttons behind the wheel that let you navigate through menus.
E.g. press L1, R1 is “play/pause”, L2, R1 is “increase temperature”, L2, R3, L1 is “decrease passenger temperature” and so on.
Accompany that with menus that show what the next buttons do.
First time using it will feel very awkward, but once you have used your frequently used functions it becomes second nature (see Vim text editor or Dwarf Fortress UI)