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Possible Solutions for the New User Interface UI 11?

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Many of the complaints about the new UI 11 focus on the controls that were removed from the main screen:
  • Driver Seat Heater
  • Front Passenger Seat Heater
  • Charging
  • Wipers
  • Windshield Defroster
  • Rear Window Defroster
  • Trip Odometer
  • Dashcam Recorder
  • Driver Profiles
  • Tire Pressure
To make it worse, Tesla then disabled the Voice Commands needed to reach these basic functions.

What if there could be a simple way to still access our controls?
  1. Restore the Voice Commands.
  2. Enabled a way to get to the controls removed from the main screen.
Maybe long press Controls to get a popup menu like this:
2021.44.25-Simplified_Controls3.png


This is far from a perfect replacement for what was lost, but a start?
I don't think Tesla will ever go back to 11. So how can they move forward?
What are your ideas?
 
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I am waiting for delivery of my MS LR. My wife and I have had many discussions about the UI and whether or not we wanted a car with such a ugly UI. We are used to much nicer appearing screens/controls available in Lexus and Mercedes Benz (even though those have limited area that is customizable). There are displays we want to see in front of us and have the options to be heads up without being distracting or requiring redirecting our attention. We will NEVER play games nor have kids/grandkids that will do that either.

The screen in front of the driver and the UI should be totally customizable by the user. For example, I think the car in the road view is distracting - may change my mind. Would rather see things in front like: range/%, Speed, cruise control settings, road speed limit, next turn distance, important notices, tire pressure, navigation. At different times, I, or my wife, want a different set of views. E.g., when on long trips, winter driving. As our experience changes, we may want alternative choices (side cameras when using turn signals).

We also do not like that we need to take hands off steering wheel to push some control on the side. This can be an extreme issue for someone with mobility issues in their right arm making it difficult to reach the far side of the screen. Better to use one of the scroll wheels and buttons on the yoke (right or left based on person's dominate hand) to select instead of limiting those buttons to a few actions.

Definitely have an issue with voice activated commands requiring celluar service. I live in the mountains and 1/2 of my normal driving area is outside of celluar service. This will also cause issues with navigation screens. I will need to do more investigation to the limitations associated with mountain driving and streaming/celluar behavior.

Another thought is the screen appearance. It would be nice to maybe allow user to customize color/background of specific displays/controls. All black background or all white is too limiting. Some people have issues with some colors. Let them choose colors and backgrounds in different areas as desired to guide quick focus or accent.

I also have a question on how the user community can request/force feature operations. I have worked with many companies that have user community meetings to discuss features and what should be in the next patch/releases. How can we push for this?
 
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I sympathize with you because a lot of what you discuss were my concerns when I got our car. Having instrument cluster display is a must for me and any other display should be integrated (not a DYI style iPad). That automatically removed 3/Y from the list, even though they were better value (MS was overpriced when we bought it; now it is even more overpriced).
Despite all that you hear, Tesla has limited customization - maybe on par with other luxury brands (although Tesla is _not_ a luxury car - you pay for the EV technology, not luxury experience). In fact, I think their software is extremely limited, given the possibilities they have. It is almost like an afterthought which is a pity.
Another thing you will notice is that the interior is very Spartan. Minimalistic means functional with minimum resources/distractions; they actually removed a lot of things and compromise usability. Also, they constantly change the package, so two cars from the same model year may have different equipment. My car, for example, came without a dead pedal despite the fact that the same model year that I test drove had it. Some people here will say “not a big deal”, which in the overall picture it is not, but that will not happen with other brands. So, I think the “minimalistic” claim is more about cutting corners/reducing cost than a design statement.
I actually like the car icon in the instrument cluster, especially if you have the so called FSD (another seriously overpriced feature that, given its current functionality should come standard). It is super useful in adverse conditions. If you live in the mountains you will appreciate that even in thick fog, snowstorm, snow covered road, etc. you will be able to see where the road and lines are. But don’t be tempted to use FSD in such conditions; it is just an aid, not a replacement for a driver.
Overall, I think you will like the car but there is going to be an adjustment and moments that you will question your decision - when you see the quality, when you see surprising design choices, when you experience the service (and you will, believe me), when you realize that your opinion does not matter, etc. Don’t forget that you bought a very technologically advanced EV, not a luxury EV. Those will come in a few years - just in time when your warranty expires. I would not own a Tesla a day after its warranty expires.
 
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Time for some legislation ,, sadly ,,,, that limits what UI changes can be made without customer permission.
I'm all in favor of updates to fix bugs but the last update sucks. Need a list of minimum 100% full time
1 touch accessible features.

I want all the normal car switches locked on the screen in place of the stupid animated car cartoon.

I'd pay a lot to have a unit that snaps on the bottom of the dash display that had 6 assignable buttons for most used features.
Lights/heat/Wipers

As well as a button that turns the dang car OFF so I can pull in to my driveway and leave the door open and not have it run the battery down trying to heat or cool the universe without a multi menu interface wrestling match..

Dont get me started ont eh dumpster fire the Audio system has become. 🤬🤬
 
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I have the same question about Blue and Yellow. When is it blue and when is it yellow? I also experience the high heat and high fan when I was trying to defog the window. The next time, I will try using using an unambiguous voice command like "defog on". I hope the video gamers did not program the "defog on" to some cute words that I would never think to use. Bigger font for the response to the voice command is needed.
Why all the hate for video gamers in these threads? Many games have very good UI, and most gamers have high standards for that sort of thing (and would rip to shreds a hack-job like V11) .
 
Why all the hate for video gamers in these threads? Many games have very good UI, and most gamers have high standards for that sort of thing (and would rip to shreds a hack-job like V11) .
I don't hate gamers - I hate the fact that Tesla seems to think it's more important to add video games and light shows to the car than it is to have a usable interface. I hate the fact that Tesla thinks it's more important to give you access to 'arcade' than to heater controls.
 
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Why all the hate for video gamers in these threads?

I don't hate gamers or games. It's just that Tesla seems to assume we have the top gamer skilz needed to tap a sequence of small targets while driving, the desire to play an annual game to find the hidden displays & controls, and the eyesight of young gamers to quickly refocus from the road to small, gray text on the screen.

Many games have very good UI, and most gamers have high standards for that sort of thing (and would rip to shreds a hack-job like V11) .

Agreed!
 
What previous voice commands have been disabled? The replacement voice command for showing the tire pressures is "show service settings". The only command lost, that I know of, is to show the now removed trip card, so they need to restore "show trip". Have any others been removed?




(A long press on the Controls icon is already assigned to saving a diagnostic report for display problems.)

Assuming the goal is to easily expose now hidden controls and indicators, without taking your eyes off the road for the additional press, I don't see how this is currently much of an issue. Addressing the functions listed in the original post (Known quick access techniques, such as pressing the wipers button, notwithstanding):

Charging:
You can still press the battery icon at the top, so it's still a single press.

Driver Seat Heater, Front Passenger Seat Heater, Windshield Defroster, Rear Window Defroster and let's add Steering Wheel Heater:
You can swipe up from anywhere along the bottom edge of the screen to bring up the climate control panel. You can easily feel for the bottom edge of the screen and swipe up without taking your eyes off the road.

Once the climate panel is displayed, the driver and front passenger seat heater buttons are then pretty much where they used to be. The defroster buttons are now higher up, so you don't have to look as far away to find them.

Driver Profiles plus the Bluetooth, Network, Alerts, etc. icons that used to be always visible at the top:
The Controls (car) icon is (still) located first, directly in the bottom corner of the screen. This location makes it easy to press without having to take your eyes off the road to look down. You can feel for the bottom corner and then it doesn't take long to learn how far the icon is away from there to blindly press it. On a model 3 or Y it's about a finger width from the side and one or two finger widths from the bottom. I find it easiest to find the screen corner with my hand and press the icon with my thumb.

Once the Controls menu is up (which you can verify by seeing its movement out of the corner of your eye, again, without taking your eyes off the road), the the profile and icons are along the top, pretty much where they used to be.

Dashcam Recorder and Sentry:
These are now farther down on the Controls menu but they're much larger, so easier to press, and the presence or absence of red color makes it easy to see whether they're active or not.

Wipers:
Wiper controls are in the middle of the Controls menu.

Trip Odometer, Tire Pressure:
Instead of a left or right swipe to bring up their cards, these are now a single tap once the Controls menu is displayed. Admittedly, these may a bit harder to visually locate and tap than swiping may have been (although there are people who complained that it was difficult to find the proper location to swipe from).


So in summary, since the climate control panel and Controls menu can both be brought up blindly, by feel, without taking your eyes off the road, items that are now hidden are just a single "eyes off the road" tap, as they used to be. I don't see how any of the proposals in the original post are an improvement on this.

It might be nice to have the driver profile and top row icons restored to being always visible but personally I really only used the Sentry icon to any great extent, to verify that Sentry mode was enabled before leaving the car.

What I would like to have changed is that bringing up the the climate control panel doesn't automatically turn on climate. If it's on, leave it on. if it's off, leave it off. Let me decide to manually turn it on or off (and the manual or automatic setting). This would address the complaint about not being able to activate or deactivate the seat and steering wheel heaters without having climate turn on.

Many of the complaints about the new UI 11 focus on the controls that were removed from the main screen:
  • Driver Seat Heater
  • Front Passenger Seat Heater
  • Charging
  • Wipers
  • Windshield Defroster
  • Rear Window Defroster
  • Trip Odometer
  • Dashcam Recorder
  • Driver Profiles
  • Tire Pressure
To make it worse, Tesla then disabled the Voice Commands needed to reach these basic functions.

What if there could be a simple way to still access our controls?
  1. Restore the Voice Commands.
  2. Enabled a way to get to the controls removed from the main screen.
Maybe long press Controls to get a popup menu like this:
View attachment 754007

This is far from a perfect replacement for what was lost, but a start?
I don't think Tesla will ever go back to 11. So how can they move forward?
What are your ideas?
I haven't driven my Model 3 since Christmas. I used the tire pressure voice command every day before I left our neighborhood. It worked flawlessly until one of the over the winter updates. The touchscreen has changed completely (not a fan), but for me, most aggravating is that the voice command i always used before, "What is the tire pressure?" no longer works at all. Is there a work around that does not require me to use the touch screen?