Think about it Is a big screen really a hard indicator for you to buy a car?

Nowadays, when choosing a car, many consumers will pay attention to whether the car has a center screen or not, because it directly determines whether we can have fun in the process of using the car in places other than driving. Since Tesla, the trend of big screen has been officially started. Nowadays, what people care about is not the question of whether the screen is there or not, but the size of the screen and the functionality of the car system. Their idea of more screen size is also forcing manufacturers to find ways to make the screen bigger when building a car. But certain car companies don't want to catch the trend.

Small-screen retrogrades

For example, the new-generation? Honda Fit (a.k.a. JAZZ), will return to the traditional physical buttons, eliminating the design of features such as the air-conditioning touch panel. Not only that, but the much-anticipated 2020 Fit in China will also follow the overseas design, eliminating the touch-control air-conditioning buttons.

According to Takeki?Tanaka, Honda's Fit chief, the main reason for this is to avoid on-board functions interfering with the driver while the vehicle is in motion. And said: "air conditioning or seat heating function if you use the touch screen, you must be distracted to look at the screen to complete the operation, not conducive to driving safety. This return to physical buttons is to minimize distraction while the user operates."

Not coincidentally, in the matter of canceling the large screen design, Mazda is also in the clear positive points. In the automobile circle Mazda will always be the existence of the most maverick, do not follow the trend to insist on their own way, when the turbo has become the trend, but it insists on the development of naturally aspirated; when everyone is changing the touch screen, it still retains the physical buttons in the newest listing of Mazda3 Enclave, we have been able to see Mazda's small screen of this kind of perseverance.

Mazda officials say that according to their research, when drivers touch the touchscreen interface in any vehicle, they unintentionally apply torque to the steering wheel and the vehicle drifts out of its lane position. The driver must also look at the screen when using the touchscreen, which also increases the risk of a crash, making physical buttons more convenient and safer than touch screens.

Mazda's "small screen" design may seem outdated and untechnical in the eyes of some people. In fact, the most ideal human-machine interaction in the car should be voice control, not touch screen control. Only voice control can completely free our eyes, so that we can concentrate more on driving.

But in the current environment where voice control is not yet perfect and mature, the physical keys are a second best option, as they can be used to achieve "blind typing", just like our computer keyboards, which can also be used to achieve the "no look" effect.

Consumer Choice

The choice of touchscreen or keys has always been divided among consumers. Some users favor the touch screen. A car that is not equipped with a touch screen but button control, there is no sense of technology. In recent years, with the gradual popularization of smart phones, tablet computers and other electronic devices, large-size touch screen seems to have become the "standard" of the car. Many young consumers are "value-control", that the design of the touch screen high-end atmospheric upscale.

The biggest advantage of the touch screen is that the display of the navigation system is very intuitive, for some "road blind", "road idiot", the touch screen can be a good solution to this problem. Now many models, the use of 10-inch center control screen has been the norm. In the new generation of Mercedes-Benz A-class sedan and other products, the touch screen is even connected to the full LCD instrument panel, the larger size of the "Siamese screen" has become one of the trend design. Larger LCD screens are the favorite of the new car-making forces, which cater to the "appetite" of some young consumers.

However, there are still a lot of car users who are attracted to push-button controls. In fact, many car owners are not completely resistant to touch screens, but do not recognize the risk of distracted driving while driving to control. "Some car companies integrate all functions into the touch screen for control, believing that this move can replace the owner's cell phone. Designing to ensure safe driving with increased safety risks is the exact opposite of what's needed.

Of course, there are some car companies that have handled the situation better by integrating some of the less frequently used functions and setting interfaces into the in-car entertainment system, while still retaining the physical buttons for the commonly used functions.

5G makes big screens a necessity

In fact, it's only in the last two years that big screens have become popular in cars. Especially after the Tesla fire, the host factory in order to cater to the market popularity, have to modify the model to put more and more large screen. At first, the big screen did seem a bit chickenish. In addition to the navigation display map information is more complete, looks convenient, in the operation is really not as direct as the buttons to dry.

But when the 5G era came, the car screen was given a very important function, namely human-vehicle interaction. For example, the Audi e-tron uses Audi's proud virtual cockpit - a three-screen interactive system. Do you think this is already very pushy? No, the techiness is even more explosive.

HiPhi?X, the first production vehicle recently announced by Chinese Express, also features an intelligent digital multi-screen interactive cockpit. The new car, positioned as a supercar SUV, has a number of displays, including a 16.9-inch center control screen, a 14.6-inch instrument screen, and a 19.9-inch IMAX scale large screen on the passenger side, in accordance with the concept of the space capsule interaction planning, which enables multi-screen linkage, and it is really quite sci-fi to see the actual picture.

In order for these screens to truly realize effective linkage, HiPhi?X reconstructs the position of human-computer interaction, so that every passenger can enjoy a dignified and comfortable driving experience. The HiPhi?X also adopts a 360-degree surrounded panoramic driving environment sensing system with more than 500 sensors deployed throughout the vehicle to fully sense changes in the road and environment while driving, and is based on 5G+V2X technology, which realizes high-speed information transmission over Gigabit Ethernet. In addition, HiPhi?X car is equipped with six computing platforms, with "super brain" thinking ability, to automatically analyze and make decisions on massive information, so as to realize the L3 automatic driving ability.

Obviously, Audi and China Express have depicted the specific shape of the future automotive cockpit for us, and the large, full-encompassing heterogeneous screen, after being y bundled with the 5G technology, will not only bring a lot of practical functions, but also realize the realization of a higher level of artificial intelligence and self-driving technology.

Hidden worries in the name

However, in the automotive industry, any aggressiveness will lead to "catching fire". After all, compared to the smartphone life cycle of 2-3 years, a car at least 10 years of service, and the car is more complex large-scale machinery, a small problem may cause the tragedy of the car crash, so the application of the big screen is not all smooth sailing.

Complaints about possible malfunctions in the center touchscreens of some Tesla models have recently caught the attention of U.S. safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a filing that they are investigating malfunctions in Tesla Model?S built from 2012 to 2015. In the past 13 months, the agency has received 11 complaints against the large center screen that is between 3.9 and 6.3 years old.

The investigation covered 63,000 Model?S, the document said, and the cars' screens are controlled by flash memory devices, which have a finite lifespan depending on the number of programs and erase cycles, and the screens can fail prematurely. Since Tesla's large center screen integrates traditional control interfaces for infotainment, navigation, air conditioning control, charging, and other functions, if the screen fails, the air conditioning control defaults to automatic mode, and battery charging current limits are affected. It may even affect brakes, steering, speed control or other critical safety control systems.

This brings us to the central question, what do you do when the big screen doesn't work? You'll find yourself suddenly a driver who can't perform any of the operations. Tesla smart in advance of the problem that all future OEMs will encounter, which is a new feature of the smart electronics era.

In my opinion, in order to solve this potential problem, the host factory in addition to the design and assembly in the strict quality control, to ensure that the large screen leakage of this physical problem will not occur on a large scale, but also for the system to set up a "security door".

Car big screen era, many of our information will be recorded in the form of data, car network problems: downtime, network paralysis, car screen black screen, etc. happened one after another, unencrypted files may also exist hacking risk. OEMs should consider intelligent application performance management, security and vulnerability management in a holistic manner, such as with intelligent systems to build new network architectures, unified management platforms to view all traffic in different environments (physical networks, virtual networks and cloud platforms), and a clearer understanding of the various requirements in terms of security, network and SIEM monitoring for comprehensive visualization to ensure consistently high performance and security.

Only by ensuring both physical and system security can the in-vehicle big screen truly see its heyday, rather than being a vase full of tech aura.

This article comes from the authors of Auto Home Car, and does not represent the viewpoint position of Auto Home.