memes @lemmy.world

2w ago

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149 comments

This one sparks joy.
- This one (ETA: my '97 Prelude) sparks so much joy.
  
  The best looking dials on a dashboard I have ever seen is the dashboard from the Saab 9000 CSE.
  This isn't exacty what I remember, but close enough:
  
  I love the green and orange colors, the car diagram, the turbo, temp and fuel dials are just great.
  Granted I was a kid when we had that car, but the colors were beautiful
  
  That looks just like my Sunfire's dash, other than mph being more prominent than km/h and it redlining over 7k rpm.
  Is that an S2000?
  
  I had a 97 prelude sh 5 speed. Great Lil car and a lot of fun to drive. But then I got my hands on an 02 s2000. Funnest car to drive I've ever owned.
  
  I so very much preferred speedometers like that which had every 10 marked rather than every 20 like so many seem to do
- !cassettefuturism@lemm.ee
- So does this one.
  
  So does this one.
  
  Used to love Super Pursuit Mode.
  Even made the cars on the overpass go faster.
- There reason this one and the analogue dials spark joy is because there's something tangible happening in front of us. Either needles are moving or lights are being lit.
  The modern iPad display just feels... disconnected, I guess
  
  Also, a digital display may be quicker to read a value, but an analog dial is infinitely superior for displaying both range and rate of change, which for rapid readouts is much more significant.
  
  Mine's a fully digital one but they have animations on the sides that give that sort of feedback... Without it, though, yeah, I think it would make me feel more disconnected from driving, which isn't exactly a good thing
- Oh wow, what car is that!?
  
  C4 Corvette!
- 🥵
- Rad

Touch screens have no business in dashboards. I don't care how sleek it looks to replace all the physical buttons. You have to look at a touch screen to use it. That alone makes them entirely unfit for the purpose. Physical buttons that can be identified by touch and provide tactile feedback are the only interfaces that make any fucking sense at all.
This fees like something so obvious that I cannot understand how we got here.
- You touch the gauges behind your steering wheel?
  
  How else should a blind man know how fast he is travelling?
  
  There often is a button or too within the dash cluster to change things like the trip meter or cluster brightness
- Yep real knobs and buttons make more sense, but i guess touchscreens are cheaper these days.
- E: whoops wrong comment

I love the potential of a digital dash.
\ I hate the wasted potential of actual digital dashes.
Let me fuckin customize it.
\ Let me put whatever gauges I want wherever I want. I know that the data is available over the CAN bus, let me fuckin see it.
\ Dynamically change the layout if something important happens I need to keep an eye on, but wouldn't normally need to worry about
- Even more infuriating when not only is it not customisable, but they layout they do use is just... bad in a thousand different tiny ways.
  For example, the tachometer and speedometer on my vehicle have two display modes. The traditional looking dials and a more compact vertical wheel that leaves more room in the middle of the display for other things.
  ...but those other things are almost always either useless (I don't need to see a little picture of the vehicle I'm driving), or actively worse (the media info screen actually shows fewer characters in the larger mode).
  It's not unusable, it's just varying levels of awkward or useless in dozens of little aspects.
- On the canbus
  
  Is this a new porn series?
- My Seat Leon has a digital dashboard, by pressing the "VIEW" button on the steering wheel it rotates between several different layouts, which can be customized.
  I normally just have two normal dials, with a GPS map in the middle, fuel gauges to the left (because the standard place doesn't line up properly) and a media display to the right (shows what song/podcast is playing and the progress of it)
  I can make my entire dash be a giant GPS map display, with only a small digital speedometer readout, but that is annoying.
  These new digital dashboards offer plenty of customizations, but the formfactor should be the same as a normal dash
  
  Some can, especially aftermarket ones. But it's usually not simple and usually OEM don't offer a lot of customization options.
- My Audi typically displays the outdoors temp on the digital dash, which is convenient. Except when there is any warning light on, which takes its place. Want to take a quick glance at the temp? Well right now it's "low on windshield wiper fluid" degrees outside.
  Also why the fuck does this shitty dash scream at me about warnings when I get in the car but not out. By the time I get home I will have completely forgotten about the windshield wiper. How is "also display reminders after shutting the engine off" not the obvious implementation?

I am partial to the windshield projection style. It is truly fantastic for keeping your eyes on the road while seeing your speed
- I'm dying for good windshield HUDs
  
  Volkswagen has a pretty awesome one but it costs like 10k more for that level of trim.
- The two-tiered cluster of my Civic really grew on me. The speedometer is up really high so it's almost always in your line of sight.
  
  The Civic's split dash was apparently generally hated, but I really liked it, for just that reason... The year after mine they switched it back to a single cluster, which I think is unfortunate
  
  Oh my SIL had one of those for a while, it looked pretty nice.
  Our Mazda projects the speed, cruise control status, and icons for vehicles next to us on the windshield. It really is very nice - one of the few things about that car that I actually like.
- Don't they sell add-on projector Huds which snake a wire down to OBD-ii port?
- I love my HUD, I'm currently driving a rental without one and I hate looking down at the speedo.

I get having a digital cluster, because you can display way more information than using analog gauges.
Put it in front of the driver.
- Also, make the text bigger.
  So many displays have tiny, hard to read text that could easily be twice as tall and wide without even impacting the blank space that separates them.
  
  Heh, it's not digital, but our pickup has small km/h speeds printed on the speedometer, like most cars. But when I was driving in Canada, I found they were nearly illegible (my eyes just weren't good enough to read the small print). I had to switch to the digital speed display in the dash so I could read my speed in km/h.
- I'm looking at you, Tesla.
  
  And the Volvo EX30.

108 in a 30. Someone speeding that much has no time for a ticket.
- Someone speeding that much won't be having much time left in general.
- Marques Brownlee?

I guess I'm in the minority: I prefer to see my speed as a number instead of a dial.
Yes, it does need to be in front of the driver.
- An advantage of a proper dial is that you can instinctively see the change in speed by how quickly the needle moves.
  
  Also, range. You don't even need numbers on the RPM dial to know it pointing past 12-o-clock is not good.
  
  Different people have different considerations.
  When I've rented vehicles with a digital speedometer I haven't felt like I'm missing anything without a dial. I haven't found myself in situations where the movement of the needle helps me.
  When I get into rental cars with a dial, I feel like I need to watch it closely because I'm not familiar with where the ticks are. It doesn't work for me at all.
  
  The Citroen C4 had a the speed right under the windshield which was a lot easier to read than a analog speed gauge in the dash.
  A picture:
- Renault have been doing this for ages. I had a 2009 Mégane which gave the speed as a digital number. Fuel and oil temps were bars to either side. Revs was a physical dial.
  It was such a great car, just a shame about the engineering...
  
  Before I bought a new car, I assumed digital speedometers would be available as a setting, not apparently not.
  It's the kind of thing that I didn't realize I wanted until I had to deal with the alternative.
- Chevy 15-seaters from 2012+ you can turn the status screen on the dash and display numerical rpms. They are a bit slow to update but it’s kinda cool.

watching 80s and 90s anime has given me a soul-deep admiration for mechanical dials of any kind. I like high-tech shit, but it's gotta have low-tech dials, or I'm out.
- Windows with a hand crank saved me when I was stuck in a car as a kid. Now you get out, you gotta smash it.
  
  You wouldn't have that problem with Linux. 🤓
- Do you have any recommendations for older anime?
  
  OG Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z.
  
  Are you specifically looking for anime with a gorgeous retro-futuristic aesthetic, like I was talking about? If so, this channel will help you explore some you might be interested in.
  https://youtube.com/@hanahakiblank
  
  Well you didn't ask me nor did you provide parameters other than age so here's a list (mostly in the order I remember them, varying genres and ages, all pre-2010 many pre-2000):
  undefined
  
  Cowboy Bebop Samurai Champloo Ruroni Kenshin Devilman (OG 1976, NOT reboot) Mazinger Z Galazy Express 999 Golden Boy Trigun Cat Soup (movie) Berserk Big O Samurai Pizza Cats Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo Shin Chan FLCL Dragon Ball (OG, Z, ignore GT) Fist of the North Star Yu Yu Hakusho Inuyasha Golgo 13 Ghost Stories Hare and Guu Lupin III Sailor Moon
  And I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

I don't understand how anyone can buy a Tesla. The lack of a dashboard + the only interface being a tablet alone are a deal breaker for me.
You're being sold a feature that is really just massive cost cuttings playing impostor as a luxury feature at a premium with 100x worse usability.
- And on top of that, at any moment, they (Tesla) can remove pretty much any feature they feel like in a push update, which they have done... Personally, I think removing existing features from already sold products should be illegal, flat out

I hate that cars are just smart phones on wheels now. Do any auto makers still make cars with the old style and not all these screens and crap?
- I was so happy when I saw some modern KIAs use analog controls.
  Then I checked KIAs reliability and safety score and died.
  
  R.I.P.
  
  I've put 80k miles on one Kia and just got a Hyundai with 100k miles on it. I've not once had something need replacement that wasn't an expected wear item at about the expected interval. I also witnessed a Kia get pinned against the median on the beltline by a speeding car that lost control and while it was definitely totaled, the occupants were uninjured.
  So my annecdotal experience has been quite positive

No idea what that bottom driver is doing, but it indeed does not spark joy
- Lmao, high beams, no seatbelt at 108kph for a 30kph speed limit. Ooof.
  
  Yeah, sparks a whole lot of emotions, but joy is not among them.
  
  Freebird is playing, let my man cook!
  
  Is it detecting a car in front as well?
- It’s a screenshot from MKBHD’s latest video.
- Wow, I didn't even notice the displayed values

In my opinion, the worst part about new cars is that they are essentially tracking devices and some of them can be remotely controlled.
Any suggestions on how to get a car that doesn't track you and was built post-2010?
- Mazda MX5. I have a 2019 and it's simple. Heated seats, blindspot mirrors, backup camera, led headlights. Absolute joy to drive.
  No other tech that tracks you as far as I'm aware.
  
  Thanks for the suggestion, it looks promising. MX5 has only 2 seats, but maybe one of the larger models is good too.
  
  Why do you think it doesn't track you? It has voice recognition in the infotainment, so it has microphones. I guess it probably won't have mobile data connection since they require you to connect your phone or take it to a dealer for infotainment updates. So might be safe as long as you don't allow it to use your phone data when its connected via Bluetooth or do over the air updates or take it to a dealer for repairs/updates.
  I'm not sure if car manufactures do it yet but samsung is known to require data dumps before providing spare parts for phones to 3rd party repair shops, so maybe car manufactures could do that as well?
- There is a website that you can opt out of having certain data tracked.
  But I imagine insurance companies will use it as an excuse to raise your rates if you opt out
  
  There is also the issue of companies pinky-promising that they won't track you but still call home.
  But if no other alternatives are available, this is good to know.
- Build it yourself? 😅

If dial gauges weren't what you chuckleheads grew up with (I'm 38 so I understand the nostalgia) you'd realize they aren't really all that well designed. There's no reason they go as high as they do, especially when they were "capped" at 85, and they display a terrible amount of information for the amount of space they take up.
I dislike many digital dashboards, not because they don't interface well or they don't look good, but because I can't customize them to my own liking. I want my average speed, instantaneous speed, average miles per gallon, instantaneous miles per gallon, range, engine temperature, music track, outside temperature, inside temperature, tire pressure, time, vehicle orientation, all at once. They're normally all available, but hidden in different menus and screens. Put it all out there, I'll learn where to look for the info I want. And let people who desire less info have the ability to set up their dashboard for that as well.
- A dial gauge can impart certain information that other ways cannot. I can notice a sudden change in movement without looking directly down, or see certain patterns of movement that simple numbers won't. An old example of the loss of that was found in some classic luxury cars (my grandmother had a Cadillac that I noticed it in). The speedometer wasn't a dial, it was an analog bar that would go right to left as your speed increased. It was very hard to judge change of speed by this, much like it's hard to see from a few digital numbers that rapidly change. I've also noticed that even digital dial gauges can suffer from this if their refresh isn't fast enough to simulate an analog accurately.
  Doesn't mean you can't get used to a display or find other ways to get the same input, but dials aren't just old nostalgia, they do have advantages. I would bet for some measurements an analog multimeter is preferred over a digital, and vise versa.
  
  Dials and digital displays are like clocks, the position can relay a lot of additional contextual information that doesn't come from a simple number.
  
  Car manufacturers could've used the example of an aircraft. Their primary flight display shows speed nicely with current speed, good indication of changes in speed, settings like cruise control and max speed all in one clean display. I'd prefer that one. But no, it's not even an option of course.
- If dial gauges weren't what you chuckleheads grew up with (I'm 38 so I understand the nostalgia) you'd realize they aren't really all that well designed.
  That's not actually true, studies show that analog dials (or digital imitations) are better than regular numbers or bars as speed displays.
  The thing about analog dials is that they offer a lower mental load than a simple number. Seeing the dial move is a better indication of speed change than a number changing, and the "wasted" space in the dial offers a comparative idea of how fast you're going.
  The human brain is just much better at perceiving relative changes than absolute ones. Seeing a 20 rise to 80 doesn't convey as much info as seeing a dial in the bottom rise to the middle.
  I want my average speed, instantaneous speed, average miles per gallon, instantaneous miles per gallon, range, engine temperature, music track, outside temperature, inside temperature, tire pressure, time, vehicle orientation, all at once. They're normally all available, but hidden in different menus and screens.
  The reason this information isn't readily available is probably because putting more information only serves to increase the mental load on the driver which might cause distractions, and consequently, more accidents.
  
  Yeah i have a background in human factors engineering and something like that is just asking for unsafe driving. If it can wait until you aren't driving then all you should see of it is a little notification telling you fo check it when needed.

Honestly I'd kill for a digital dashboard that easy to read. Most are way worse.
- Well tough luck, you're getting one with roman numerals!
- I’d kill for one that was positioned so I could see it. I keep my steering wheel low and my hands cover the speedometer.

Hard disagree. It is SO much faster for me to read a digital number readout than a analogue one.
This isn't touch screen controls (which are terrible). It's a readout.
- Yeah I thought since I'm old I'd be like gimme the old way, but I would actually prefer simplicity for regular commutes.
  But I feel like not even car companies want me to have simplicity so they can monetize more doodads
- I will never put a light mode display in my car. I will take an analogue dial over something that burns spots into my retinas when I'm trying to drive. Even with dark mode, the amount of ambient light coming off that thing is gonna bother me at night.
  We need to downgrade everybody's headlights while we're talking about personal preference too. If the car behind me has lights that are so bright they cast a shadow over my own headlights, they're too bright.
- Depends on the screen. I like the dull matte screen on those citroën picassos.

It does spark more though
- Does it spark as much as a Star Trek high-tech panel?
  If not, it's not futuristic enough.

Speak for yourself. I'd love an easy to read screen.

Yeah, but the second one is much cheaper to make and appeals to people that think it costs more, so now we're stuck with this useless, tacky shit.
- The second one is also far more readable. If it’s read only and behind the wheel, it’s strictly better imo.

My car doesn't have any of that fancy crap, but the fuel gage is an lcd and I hate it so much. Like it should be fine, except it just doesn't work at certain temperatures and I live in an area where that means half the year.

No, the top one sparks gasoline. And the bottom one sparks ... I don't know how electric cars work.

I love a digital speedometer but dials as back up feel important

I. HATE. TOUCHSCREENS!

Kia and the mix of two worlds

True and based

Gen Z: Can't read analog clocks. "What speed am I going? There are no numbers!"

Basically nobody actually needs a tach taking up as much space as the speedometer.
- RIP anyone that drives a manual, tows, or goes off roading.
  On a more serious note I’d imagine they stick around for diagnostics and inclement weather(forcing the car into a particular gear). Since the space is already there they generally have a bunch of other gauges and crap inside of them (all the warning lights that are usually off).
  
  I am not an off-road guy, but I drove a stick and towed heavy stuff forever. You don't need the tach if you have experience or ears. If you can't drive manual without a tach, you're a shit driver frankly.
  The only reason I've ever used a tach is for break-in on a vehicle or for hypermiling.
  Edit: before I went electric in 2017 and haven't looked back :)
  
  I mean, if you actually need an indicator, a shift light and a line of LEDs gets the job done better than a tach anyway, besides I've driven manuals that didn't even have a tach from the factory, it used to be pretty common. I'm pretty sure they stick around now because they make the car feel more sporty.
  About the only time I actually needed the tach specifically was.. I actually legitimately can't think of one, nearly everything is by sound/feel and the times I needed specifics, like when troubleshooting, I would use an obd tool / tuner to see the exact values and plot them.
- No, I'm building a replacement unified speedo/tach for my motorcycle, the tach is huge and analog, speed is digital in the middle.

Of course it doesn't spark, is electric

she is a very small and cute little sandwich

149 comments