[nesky]

I have a 2021 Mazda and I can't say enough good things about it's infotainment interface. The dial and 5 buttons on the center console behind the shifter is wonderful, I can glance at the screen while using the dial and I know what each of the 5 buttons do across the system. I've been in a few vehicles from Honda, Toyota and Chevy and the Mazda is multiples better at interacting with the system while driving.

[lacker]

Yeah, the Mazda physical interface is great. More car manufacturers seem to be adopting the wheel to control CarPlay which is a lot nicer than reaching over to use the touch screen.

I just wish the Mazda software was similarly well-designed. They have so many on-screen popups, for everything from "Warning, screens can be distracting! Select okay to acknowledge." to "Your XM radio has lost connection" when I'm not listening to the XM radio. And they display their own popups over CarPlay while CarPlay is active, which I basically never want to see.

[cramjabsyn]

It’d be nice if there was more control out of the box but the HN crowd would probably appreciate that it can be customized with a little hacking https://mazdatweaks.com/

[dtgriscom]

Oh, yeah! I'd love a car with this kind of after-market tweaking.

[calamari4065]

My 2015 Mazda has a lovely feature where if I get a text message while backing up, the screen is covered in a warning popup prompting me to download the message.

Honestly the head unit is one of the worst I've ever used, though the interface is at least moderately well designed. They clearly had at least one intern try using it while driving. It's just the rest of the entire operating system that's garbage

[pa7ch]

I got a mazda because I liked their interface design. Owning it for a bit, I agree the software design is horrible. Obnoxious seat-belt warnings while in park is also frustrating.

[agloe_dreams]

> More car manufacturers seem to be adopting the wheel to control CarPlay which is a lot nicer than reaching over to use the touch screen.

Who? Virtually all makes are moving to all-touch infotainment systems, even VW here. The VW change is that they were using weird touch-sensitive 'buttons' for volume and steering wheel control and you literally couldn't rest your fingers on the steering wheel. The only reason touch suckls on Mazda is that the display is placed too far away to be reached on purpose.

[lacker]

Well, I can see it being a personal preference. I rent a bunch of different SUVs when I travel so I have some experience with most of the different companies' alternatives. Some of them have rotary knobs / scroll wheels, some don't.

I prefer using the knob to touching the screen. It's much faster, primarily. You have some touch feedback so you don't really need to be looking at the screen for very long. You don't need to move your torso, so you can manipulate the wheel while you're driving normally with your left hand.

I can see it depending on what you're doing with the system. Personally I'm either using Spotify or Google Maps, both of which work quite nicely with the scroll wheel.

[xethos]

> the display is placed too far away to be reached on purpose.

... because there's a dial, obviating the need for touch. Beyond that, without needing to use touch, the screen can be placed further up and forward - meaning there's less "travel" for your eyes between looking at the road and glancing at the centre display.

[JohnFen]

> The only reason touch suckls on Mazda is that the display is placed too far away to be reached on purpose.

Well, that certainly makes it worse on Mazdas, but those touch screens are terrible on everything.

[wlesieutre]

> And they display their own popups over CarPlay while CarPlay is active, which I basically never want to see.

What year/model is this? I've never had a popup on top of CarPlay, except for the volume bar that appears along the bottom of the screen.

I got a Carlinkit wireless adapter so I don't even see the Mazda UI except for a couple of seconds while the adapter boots up, or if I want to put it on the clock screen because there's nothing on CarPlay that I need.

[lacker]

2019 CX-9

[wlesieutre]

Definitely been improved since then, 2023 Mazda 3 doesn’t have pop ups over CarPlay.

There’s the usual “screens are distracting” notice when the car turns on but after that it uses the speedometer screen to say things like “Service due” or “Safety and Driver Support Systems Temporarily Disabled. Front Radar Obscured. Drive Safely”

[thisismyaccoun7]

When I bought my 2015 Mazda 3, there were already articles on how they had found buttons and the dial superior to touchscreen only. They were quick on that and now have a decade more work going into it.

Every few years since then there has been an article like this that another brand "discovered" the same thing.

[LawnGnome]

Agreed! I have a 2021 CX-5, and it's not just the infotainment controls (which are great, and work really well with Android Auto), but also just having real buttons — some with indicator lights, even — for all the heating/cooling/demisting controls.

I've rented several other cars in the last couple of years that have been touchscreen only (or, at the very least, very heavily biased towards touchscreens), and the amount of extra time needed to orient where you're pressing is honestly kind of terrifying when you need to, say, demist a windscreen quickly.

[VBprogrammer]

The worst I've come across for this was taking the MG4 for a test drive. The whole thing felt like it consisted of programmer art (mismatched, inconsistent, ugly etc). I quickly found the windscreen misting up on a cold evening - and had to stop to figure out enough of the interface to find the correct button.

[agloe_dreams]

Fun fact - Mazda actually ranks pretty poorly in this category in consumer surveys. https://www.torquenews.com/sites/default/files/j.d._power_te...

^ Check it, dead last in the industry according to people who bought the car.

The system is coated in buttons...but most units do not allow you to use Carplay with touch. That's right. You need to navigate the UI as if you were using a keyboard to use windows. 'spin spin spin, highlighted?, select, spin spin spin highlighted?, select' The outcome is considerably more time spent looking at the screen no matter how proud they are about killing touch. Carplay and Android Auto are both noted by customers as the number 1 technology priority in new cars.

The system is virtually unchanged in UX since 2012 with only a UI refresh in 2019. They claim it as if it is an intentional design when they really are just selling 12 year old tech on $60K CX-90s.

This is no rebuttal to you, if you love it, that is great! But here and reddit both seem to think that Mazda's UX is amazing when customers truly hate it.

[Supermancho]

This reads that the innovation score is lowest. It makes sense, because the innovation is basically zero for physical controls. I don't think this is the same as ranking UX overall, nor do I think it is indicating that users "truly hate it".

[Etheryte]

That graph does not mean what you think it means.

[evanreichard]

> The outcome is considerably more time spent looking at the screen [...]

Quite the opposite. The wheel has discrete clicks while rotating so muscle memory becomes a thing. I've got half a dozen "workflows" memorized so I don't even need to look at the screen to do things like love a song, add it to my favorites, switch between apps, report an accident, etc.

[lacker]

For what it's worth, the CX-9 since 2019 at least does allow you to use CarPlay with touch, or the scroll wheel, either one. Personally I strongly prefer the scroll wheel but it sounds like peoples' opinions differ on this.

[dalyons]

Wow yeah, nice clarification. I would be furious if I bought a new car in 2023 that made me use one of those fiddly wheels for CarPlay. That’s terrible.

I had a BMW with a wheel and it was insanely annoying. But that was 10 years ago!

[mattgreenrocks]

No offense, but is a JD Power survey what you're citing here? :)

Seems like my 2016 CX-5 ignores touch inputs if the car is moving, and CarPlay can't override this.

[a-french-anon]

I agree that the navigation is pretty well done (in my MX-5 ND2), but one horrendous thing is this Gracenote thing that tries to guess music tags and covert art on external media (i.e. USB drive), but in the process completely ignores AND mangles the tags I've carefully put in my Vorbis files. Of course, you can't disable it.

I also think that the whole interface is quite sluggish in general.

[llamaInSouth]

> The dial and 5 buttons on the center console behind the shifter is wonderful

One of my favorite feature on Mazdas... never seen anything like it before

[woobar]

Mazda copied BMW's iDrive. iDrive was derided when it was introduced in 2001 [1], but it has turned out to be a good compromise.

Unfortunately BMW moved to eliminating a lot of hardware buttons in the latest version of the iDrive with a giant curved screen. They still have dial and buttons on the center console, plus few additional buttons under the main screen. But they have removed one of another great features - eight programmable buttons in the center. These are great and you can assign any function from the touch screen to them.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_iDrive

[sizzle]

Thought it was called Commander or was that Mercedes?

[woobar]

Mercedes had COMAND, now MBUX.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_COMAND

[bobbytables1]

I’m not sure, but what’s being described sounds a lot like BMWs iDrive which I love and has been around for a while(15+ years).

[pivo]

That's funny because as I recall the BMW iDrive was widely derided when it came out. I have one on my old BMW and I like it, never understood the objections.

[eesmith]

Here's an NYT article at the time, from https://web.archive.org/web/20150527202158/https://www.nytim... :

> Car enthusiasts were not smitten with iDrive; many found that the system had the opposite of its intended effect, requiring more, not less, visual attention. Automobile Week wrote that iDrive ''turned the 'experience' of driving the car into a computerized affair.'' And even experts who sympathize with the impulse behind iDrive note its shortcomings. ''I spent an hour experimenting in a simulator, and I got lost in the menus,'' says Don Norman, the author of ''The Design of Everyday Things.'' BMW countered by including a cheat sheet that can be affixed to the steering wheel for befuddled parking valets. Eventually, some initially skeptical reviewers have conceded that once accustomed to it, they find the iDrive indispensable; however, that acclimation has taken as long as three months.

Norman wrote more about it at https://jnd.org/design-as-communication/ .

> By logic, the iDrive was a superior device. Alas, people function through stories, not logic. Moreover, people are spatial, we remember where things are in space, whereas the iDrive destroyed spatiality. And finally, the stories we remember and the conceptual models we prefer have to do with how a particular device functions: heating and cooling the automobile, changing the station of the radio, checking what distance remains for our trip. Each activity requires a separate story, separate control, and a separate location for operation. Alas, the iDrive collapsed everything into one location.

[llamaInSouth]

Basically, I can access it without looking while keeping my arm on the arm rest

[cmrdporcupine]

Audi cars used to have a system like this (dial based), but don't anymore.

[Arrath]

Straight up the best method of interacting with the infotainment system I've ever used. It was a breeze.

[cmrdporcupine]

I rented one with the last year of that system, and they'd integrated it with Android Auto, and I was surprised with how well it worked. Someone at Google was clearly thinking about this modality.

However I doubt Google has done the work in the interim to keep the UX in Android Auto working well with dial controls. Esp if only Mazda is doing this.

[freetonik]

It’s very similar to BMW’s iDrive system. I believe Mazda’s UX, in several areas, was inspired by several car manufacturers.

[bdavbdav]

Most other tier 1 manufacturers have had this - BMW, Merc, Audi, Lexus...

[moogly]

I have a MY2013 CX-5 and that's the only model CX-5 that cannot get Android Auto/CarPlay, which saddens me a bit. The infotainment system is actually completely useless.

It's a shame, because I can see the usefulness of the input controls.

I only use the back-up camera. It's super cool that Mazda actually managed to retrofit this in all the other old models though. I don't think many car manufacturers would bother with that.

It'd be a bit expensive to replace the head unit with an Android-based aftermarket one, so I'm not sure it's worth doing. Depends on how long I'll keep the car.

[ModernMech]

When I was 16 there was no other car I wanted more than an Audi A4. I vowed that when I got my first job I’d get one. Then came dieselgate, and I’ve never considered an Audi or VW since.

Instead I went with a Mazda and stayed with them since. Just great all around cars: safe, reliable, low maintenance, freaking fun to drive, and always good tech (Love the heads up display!), upscale fit and finish. Not super expensive but expensive enough that you’re getting a good car.

I would easily choose my CX-30 over an A4 any day.

[glimshe]

I have a 2023 CX-5 and I love using the rotary dial. But their infotainment needs some work - the eternal disclaimer popup when turning on the car and lacking the ability to go to the next folder directly when listening to music. Some minor tweaks and their software would be perfect, but that's not yet the case even on their latest models.

[throw7]

I drove a mazda cx-5 on a multi-day road trip and was pleasantly surprised with the interface. Clearly some thought was put into it and I appreciated it... and I'm one who hates the move to monitor screens in cars (not to even say touchscreens).

[rudasn]

Mazda had been consistently delivering good design for the last decade, if not more.

I find the newer Mazda red to be far sexier than Ferrari red. (Ferrari red is still best choice for Ferraris though)

[TYPE_FASTER]

Yes, totally agree. We just got a 2020 and it’s really nice to have physical controls.