Mercedes-Benz commits to bringing back physical buttons

> "If you want to connect to the customer, you’ve got to find a way to translate this digital experience from your phone to the customer."

Absolute brain rot. The customer already has a phone. They don't need your screen, they already have one.

I don't own an EV yet, but if I ever do, I don't want a single screen. I don't even want electric windows.

Good move. Nothing like mechanical buttons

They have more usability problems than that. Driving Mercedes Benz hire cars a couple of times recently in UK and Ireland was a shock - they have the automatic gearbox PRND selector on the right-hand stalk, and indicators on the left hand one. I could maybe excuse that on a LHD car, but on an RHD car, it is infuriating. Using the windscreen wipers instead of indicating is a trivial low-consequence mistake, bumping into neutral is not.

Whenever you add a touchscreen to something it makes the UI/UX a software issue instead of a hardware issue. You can ship updates. You can cheap out on UI/UX designing because you can ship it later. So you find commonly used features buried 4 menus deep. You also find that the positions of things in menus will randomly change by OTA updates.

Touch screens are (IMHO) terrible for cars because there's no tactile feedback that allows you to use them without looking at the screen. Dials, buttons and switches can be felt and used. It goes beyond being lazy. It's unsafe.

The only reason we got trouch screens in cars at all is cost-cutting.

Some years ago I owned a Mercedes CLA which had Android auto controlled using the rotating joystick with push down to select. The experience was perfect. It was fast, could be handled without any distraction, never misbehaved and never detoriated over time. Now I drive a car with touchscreen ... it's bullshit but I guess it looks fancier.

Too little too late. I was a long time advocate of German cars, owned a bunch of them but after this fuckery with touch screens everywhere I moved to other brands and I’m staying there for the foreseeable future. BMW, Mercedes and VW have really dropped the ball when it comes to usability. At least BMW has a decent OS that kinda makes the whole experience less dreadful than that of the other two.

it wont matter how many physical buttons you apparently have, if its not physical all the way through, that "button function" can be redefined, or taken away at any time.

Without physical buttons, it always seems risky.

What people really want on their dash are giant screens. So they can watch movies and automate having to manually have car crashes. I think the manufactures understand human drivers just fine.

StreamDeck exists for a reason ;-)

> He also explained that "I'm a big believer in screens, because I really believe if you want to connect, you have to make the magic work behind the screen."

This statement is logically on a level with something like "yesterday is colder than outside." ... he believes in screens - because if you want to connect - you have to make the magic work behind it? I mean what? This is Olympic level marketing bullshit. It's frightening that somebody blurting gibberish like that is heading a department. But then again this car company is anyway merely a pale shadow of its former self and about to get eaten by the Chinese and very deservedly so.

I'm still waiting for Volkswagen to do this after stating the same plan not long ago.

Also hate this digital odometers.

As an MB owner this delights me.

That’s another good step. I wrote about this last week < https://www.maxvanijsselmuiden.nl/blog/touch-screens-everywh...>. Touch screens are an unsuitable form of interaction because of the implicit requirement to ‘watch what you are doing’, inherently slower and more dangerous to use in a car.

I’m seeing some brands say they have physical buttons but they aren’t the same. They’re more like touch based buttons that are not in a screen. And I feel they’re just as bad. I want to be able to use the button without looking. Like one car had a touch based slider for operating the air vents. Ridiculous

they're following subaru's lead

There is another thing that reduces the safety of car - it is sunroof. In India, all top trims come with sunroof. I believe, sunroof can not provide the safety that of one without sunroof. More ever, it can absorb significantly more heat compared one without sunroof.

I don’t know, I’m driving a rental 2026 RAV4 coming from Tesla, and it all just feels so meh. The physical buttons are not less confusing. Apple CarPlay is just shit.

Solid, soulless vehicle though.

In the future, physical buttons will be considered a luxury.

'So what are we gonna do with those thousands of people, who changed the UI and could be fired? Let's make them roll whole controls idea back'

Physical buttons are another reason I absolutely love my 24 4Runner, absolutely huge and clear labeled knobs and buttons all over the place, I feel like being in a cockpit when I drive it.

Whatever is happening in car industry, it is so unexciting, over-engineered, and too glossy. I'm so happy I don't have to work for people who prefer new car toy over paying me a decent salary.

I imagine the buttons sunk deep into the panel only to come out wheen subscribing to the monthly premium package....

Company/State bends to the mindless whims of boomers yet again.

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Cool. But how about they also do something to help prevent the entire EV market going to China.