# Reconfigured Touchscreen



## BobHeisler (May 2, 2019)

*I've been frustrated ever since Tesla reconfigured the touchscreen on the Model 3 early last year. The biggest issue for me is the inability to adjust the text point size. As someone of a certain age, the point size is too small and 40% of the screen area on the left side is wasted by an image of the vehicle and a lot of blank space. Without that, there would be sufficient room to increase the point size to double or even triple. I know what my car looks like and don't need to look at the screen to see passing vehicles. Information that is important to me such as the current time, temperature, navigation info and details of my music is hard to read with the naked eye. Not only is this an inconvenience, but it's a hazard when I need to take my eyes off the road to read it. If you feel similarly about the touchscreen configuration, let's all speak up and bombard Tesla with messages to request improvements to the screen. Who's with me? *


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

I don't necessarily have an issue reading the screen, but I agree that functionality took a back seat for every driver just so Tesla can use more screen real estate as an advertising platform for FSD.


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## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

shareef777 said:


> I don't necessarily have an issue reading the screen, but I agree that functionality took a back seat for every driver just so Tesla can use more screen real estate as an advertising platform for FSD.


Good observation - I'm still trying to find the value in spinning my car around on screen vs more map or quick-nav instructions always up top vs just when an app over the map etc

The change kinda has the reverse effect for me, even less likely to get FSD now


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## TrevP (Oct 20, 2015)

I’m older now and need reading glasses and without them I have a tough time reading the screen. I too wish for larger text. They did bold some of the text elements which is welcome but street names in particular on the map could be bigger


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## Mr. Spacely (Feb 28, 2019)

With or without FSD I find the visualization to be important. I always look at the screen prior to a lane change.


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> With or without FSD I find the visualization to be important. I always look at the screen prior to a lane change.


So do I, but I haven't tried the new blind spot camera view yet. That may make the visualization superfluous for lane changes.


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## PiperPaul (Oct 31, 2018)

Mr. Spacely said:


> With or without FSD I find the visualization to be important. I always look at the screen prior to a lane change.


I would if it would help. I find my 2018 2.5 hardware is too slow to be useful. What I see re: traffic on the screen has already happened.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> With or without FSD I find the visualization to be important. I always look at the screen prior to a lane change.


So you're looking away from the road??


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## PiperPaul (Oct 31, 2018)

TrevP said:


> I'm older now and need reading glasses and without them I have a tough time reading the screen. I too wish for larger text. They did bold some of the text elements which is welcome but street names in particular on the map could be bigger


Agree. I wear progressive lenses and have always had difficulty with the smaller indicators. I'd rather not stare at the screen and then discover I'm in the ditch or the ocean.

The big question is how to get Tesla's attention to all the concerns being raised. I know people have suggested Twitter but in 3 years I've never had any reaction from Tesla / Elon.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> With or without FSD I find the visualization to be important. I always look at the screen prior to a lane change.


That's a habit you should break. The screen on numerous occasions has had vehicles pop on/off at random times. And no, the vehicle next to me did not enable their cloaking device . You don't want to merge into an adjacent lane based off what you see on screen if the FSD computer just hasn't processed things correctly or is lagging.


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## TrevP (Oct 20, 2015)

PiperPaul said:


> Agree. I wear progressive lenses and have always had difficulty with the smaller indicators. I'd rather not stare at the screen and then discover I'm in the ditch or the ocean.
> 
> The big question is how to get Tesla's attention to all the concerns being raised. I know people have suggested Twitter but in 3 years I've never had any reaction from Tesla / Elon.


Tesla is rather quiet but I can assure you they're aware of the blowback from this, they read our forum and watch Tesla twitter very closely for feedback. I still wish there was a way to submit feedback formally but they're get inundated for sure.

This update was a rare misstep on their part which I'm confident will get rectified in the coming weeks and months.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1476656306610216960


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## PiperPaul (Oct 31, 2018)

TrevP said:


> Tesla is rather quiet but I can assure you they're aware of the blowback from this, they read our forum and watch Tesla twitter very closely for feedback. I still wish there was a way to submit feedback formally but they're get inundated for sure.
> 
> This update was a rare misstep on their part which I'm confident will get rectified in the coming weeks and months.
> 
> ...


Good to hear. I still promote Tesla with everyone I talk to or asks me about the car, but with so little awareness in NS I feel like the voice in the wilderness. 
I'll crank up my patience flywheel some more.


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## Mr. Spacely (Feb 28, 2019)

Klaus-rf said:


> So you're looking away from the road??


Yep. Not any different than looking away from the road quickly to check the mirror. And as FSD progresses we will spend more time using the screen than actually looking out of the windshield-- just like a pilot flying in fog on instruments only.


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## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

Mr. Spacely said:


> Yep. Not any different than looking away from the road quickly to check the mirror. And as FSD progresses we will spend more time using the screen than actually looking out of the windshield-- just like a pilot flying in fog on instruments only.


Actually, it's way different. Because the screen is not very reliable at all.

On my way home yesterday, I was in two lane, moving but heavy traffic at about 50 MPH. As I was being overtaken, I was keeping very tight watch on when the car would signal an obstruction in the blind spot. It was really poor. By the time the "arcs" showed up on the side of the car, the car was already past my blind spot and nearly along side the car to the point where I could see it out of the corner of my eye without even turning my head. A simple head turn over the shoulder is WAY more effective than glancing at the screen.

So, I would not recommend using the screen as a blind spot monitor at all. The cameras are a good backup, but it is imperfect (Honda's system is better although confusingly it's passenger only) but relying on the screen sensors only is not a good idea, IMO.


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

Needsdecaf said:


> Actually, it's way different. Because the screen is not very reliable at all.
> 
> On my way home yesterday, I was in two lane, moving but heavy traffic at about 50 MPH. As I was being overtaken, I was keeping very tight watch on when the car would signal an obstruction in the blind spot. It was really poor. By the time the "arcs" showed up on the side of the car, the car was already past my blind spot and nearly along side the car to the point where I could see it out of the corner of my eye without even turning my head. A simple head turn over the shoulder is WAY more effective than glancing at the screen.
> 
> So, I would not recommend using the screen as a blind spot monitor at all. The cameras are a good backup, but it is imperfect (Honda's system is better although confusingly it's passenger only) but relying on the screen sensors only is not a good idea, IMO.


The "arcs" are from the sonar. Those of us who are using the visualization to aid with lane changes aren't relying on the sonar! The red lane-change warning the car provides also does not rely on sonar.


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## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

DocScott said:


> The "arcs" are from the sonar. Those of us who are using the visualization to aid with lane changes aren't relying on the sonar! The red lane-change warning the car provides also does not rely on sonar.


I have lane change warning and didn't get any red warnings. Did I need to put my blinker on? I will try at lunch but I seem to recall that the BSW system is awful compared to my other vehicles that have it.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

Needsdecaf said:


> I have lane change warning and didn't get any red warnings. Did I need to put my blinker on? I will try at lunch but I seem to recall that the BSW system is awful compared to my other vehicles that have it.


Yeah, issue is that the BSW system on Teslas is vision based which means software needs to decide if what's next to you is in the way or not. Other manufacturers use specialized hardware sensors to make that determination. On paper, vision sounds like a better idea. In practice, not so much.


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## Mr. Spacely (Feb 28, 2019)

FSD in the city is obviously still Beta, but NOA on the highway has been around for about 4 years. During that time Mr. Spacely has made literally thousands of lane changes without confirmation. And I have ridden (not driven) about 25,000 highway miles without intervention. I'd day the ability to see cars around it has been perfected. If there was such thing as "Highway Only Robotaxi" Tesla would be ready...


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> FSD in the city is obviously still Beta, but NOA on the highway has been around for about 4 years. During that time


ALL of FSD / AP / EAP / NoA / autosteer are STILL Beta (4+ years now). The limited distribution "Beta FSD" on city streets is not good enough, IMHO, to be called Beta. It's nowhere near feature complete.


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## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

Mr. Spacely said:


> FSD in the city is obviously still Beta, but NOA on the highway has been around for about 4 years. During that time Mr. Spacely has made literally thousands of lane changes without confirmation. And I have ridden (not driven) about 25,000 highway miles without intervention. I'd day the ability to see cars around it has been perfected. If there was such thing as "Highway Only Robotaxi" Tesla would be ready...


It must have improved a lot in the last 2 years. Because as of March 2020, it wasn't worth a damn. Could it accomplish the lane changes? Yes. Was it at all in keeping with how a normal driver would do it? Not in traffic, no. Too aggressive, not aggressive enough, too fast, too slow, aborted attempts, you name it.

Again, it worked. And it worked ok if you were in very light traffic. But anything other than that, imo, it added way more stress than it took away.


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## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

Mr. Spacely said:


> Yep. Not any different than looking away from the road quickly to check the mirror. And as FSD progresses we will spend more time using the screen than actually looking out of the windshield-- just like a pilot flying in fog on instruments only.


Yeah, so I received some horrific news during the holidays. a guy I worked with for three years up until June of this year died at the age of 50. How? He was paragliding and was *hit by a small plane*. Both he and the pilot of the plane died. Still not sure how a plane runs into a man with a giant parachute attached in clear weather unless the pilot *wasn't actually looking out the windshield*.

Look out the windshield. You never know who's life you might save.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> FSD in the city is obviously still Beta, but NOA on the highway has been around for about 4 years. During that time Mr. Spacely has made literally thousands of lane changes without confirmation. And I have ridden (not driven) about 25,000 highway miles without intervention. I'd day the ability to see cars around it has been perfected. If there was such thing as "Highway Only Robotaxi" Tesla would be ready...


Uhm, I still have to confirm lane changes with a nudge of the steering wheel.


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

Needsdecaf said:


> I have lane change warning and didn't get any red warnings. Did I need to put my blinker on? I will try at lunch but I seem to recall that the BSW system is awful compared to my other vehicles that have it.


There are a couple of different features.

If your blinker is on, you'll get a warning if a car is in the blind spot that you're trying to move into. The car will turn red on the visualization; I don't recall if there's also an audio warning.

If your blinker is _not _on, you can get a warning if you depart your lane at all, whether there are other vehicles around or not. The nature of that warning depends on options accessible through the settings.

I find the latter to be much less consistent/reliable than the former.


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## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

DocScott said:


> There are a couple of different features.
> 
> If your blinker is on, you'll get a warning if a car is in the blind spot that you're trying to move into. The car will turn red on the visualization; I don't recall if there's also an audio warning.
> 
> ...


Yeah, tried the former all the way home yesterday, deliberately signaling when cars were next to me (the people behind me must have thought I was QUITE the moron). never got any warning or signal. Checked to make sure lane departure was on and it was set to "Warning".


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

Needsdecaf said:


> Yeah, tried the former all the way home yesterday, deliberately signaling when cars were next to me (the people behind me must have thought I was QUITE the moron). never got any warning or signal. Checked to make sure lane departure was on and it was set to "Warning".


Weird--but the feature we're discussing shouldn't have anything to do with how the lane departure warning is set. Lane departure warning is for when you're not trying to change lanes but drift over the lane markers, and has nothing to do with whether a car is in an adjacent lane.

Perhaps the blind-spot alert doesn't trigger unless you're signalling and actually start to move into the new lane, but I'm not certain. I do know I've had it trigger and help me out several times.

And no, I don't recommend testing that by intentionally trying to change lanes into another car! 😂


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## Mr. Spacely (Feb 28, 2019)

shareef777 said:


> Uhm, I still have to confirm lane changes with a nudge of the steering wheel.


Check your settings. Mine is set to rumble the steering wheel as an alert, then change without confirmation.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

Mr. Spacely said:


> Check your settings. Mine is set to rumble the steering wheel as an alert, then change without confirmation.


Mine is set to auto lane change, no notification. Still requires a nudge. I'll try to remember to record a video next time I'm on NoA.


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