Steering wheel heat icon hard to decipher

A "simple" software fix: make the steering wheel climate display icon red when steering wheel heat is on, rather than just increasing the linewidth. I have a hard time telling whether steering wheel heating is off or on by looking at the display. The seat icons change to red or blue when heating or cooling; why doesn't the steering heel icon?

DeaneG said:

A "simple" software fix: make the steering wheel climate display icon red when steering wheel heat is on, rather than just increasing the linewidth. I have a hard time telling whether steering wheel heating is off or on by looking at the display. The seat icons change to red or blue when heating or cooling; why doesn't the steering heel icon?

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Wait, what? It changes the color from grey to yellow when it’s on… am I nuts? I’ll test it tomorrow!

Tested this morning in chilly Phoenix. Steering wheel heat off and grey in the photo on the left. Steering wheel heat on and yellow in the photo on the right. UI elements seem consistent with seat heaters, which show yellow when engaged, with red indicating intensity.

lsbuffs said:

Tested this morning in chilly Phoenix. Steering wheel heat off and grey in the photo on the left. Steering wheel heat on and yellow in the photo on the right. UI elements seem consistent with seat heaters, which show yellow when engaged, with red indicating intensity.

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Your photos show red seats, but a yellow steering wheel, when heat is on. Why isn't the steering wheel red? I don't use this function often and found it unintuitive.

DeaneG said:

Your photos show red seats, but a yellow steering wheel, when heat is on. Why isn't the steering wheel red? I don't use this function often and found it unintuitive.

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The photo shows a yellow left seat heat icon, indicating seat heating is on, and a yellow steering wheel icon, indicating steering wheel heat is on. There are three red bars to the right of the yellow icon, indicating the selected level of heat intensity. If the steering wheel was red, in my opinion it would be using a design element inconsistent with how they're showing the seat heaters are activated.

lsbuffs said:

The photo shows a yellow left seat heat icon, indicating seat heating is on, and a yellow steering wheel icon, indicating steering wheel heat is on. There are three red bars to the right of the yellow icon, indicating the selected level of heat intensity. If the steering wheel was red, in my opinion it would be using a design element inconsistent with how they're showing the seat heaters are activated.

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Then there should be red heating marks adjacent to the steering wheel icon, just like the seats.

DeaneG said:

Then there should be red heating marks adjacent to the steering wheel icon, just like the seats.

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But there are no different levels of varying intensity with the steering wheel. What would the red heating marks next to the steering wheel heater represent?

Lucid is using the same design cues for every button in the interface that can be show an active or inactive state. Doing it differently just for the steering wheel wouldn't make much sense.

Having said that, if they do ever offer levels of intensity (fingers crossed) I imagine they would use the lines, similar to what they did for the seats.

Speaking of heated steering wheels, am I crazy or is the top of the bottom of the wheel supposed to be heated? I mean the inside of the bottom of the wheel. Mine feels cold compared to the outside edge and I could swear it was heated before.

As someone from a cold climate who has used the heated steering quite a bit, I agree that at times I've questioned if it's activated or not. If you see the side by side above it is obvious, but I agree that in practice over time, you may not immediately know if it's on or not. This is particularly the case as the steering wheel heating does not usually persist across parking stops (sometimes it does if the stop is short), whereas the heated seats do.

lsbuffs said:

But there are no different levels of varying intensity with the steering wheel. What would the red heating marks next to the steering wheel heater represent?

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One mark: red if heat is on.

DeaneG said:

One mark: red if heat is on.

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Can’t say I agree here. There are many other buttons in our interface. Could you imagine if they all turned different colors when they were on? Perhaps the wipers should turn black because the blades are black. Or the fog light should turn red because it is red. The interface is very uniform in every panel. If something is on, it is a brighter amber color with a background. If it’s off, it’s light grey. It makes perfect sense. The only reason the seat heaters have red is the show levels. But the buttons themselves follow the same interface.

Yeah, I have to disagree here. Making it red would be inconsistent with the rest of the UX/UI, imho.

DeaneG said:

Your photos show red seats, but a yellow steering wheel, when heat is on. Why isn't the steering wheel red? I don't use this function often and found it unintuitive.

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The red on the seats themselves indicate which zones are heated. There are no zones on the steering wheel.

Pete

GearHead said:

...There are no zones on the steering wheel.

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There's one zone: the steering wheel.

Looks like I'm 100% in the minority here! I'm just used to a simpler but IMO more functional UI

DeaneG said:

There's one zone: the steering wheel.

Looks like I'm 100% in the minority here! I'm just used to a simpler but IMO more functional UI

View attachment 18339

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I hear what you’re saying.

I would agree, *if* the steering wheel had heating levels. But it doesn’t - it’s binary. In the image above it has levels, at which point I agree the Lucid UI would have the levels next to it as well, similar to the seats. But it’s not - it’s just a toggle for on/off, which means it should act like any other toggle in the Lucid UI, imho.

borski said:

I hear what you’re saying.

I would agree, *if* the steering wheel had heating levels. But it doesn’t - it’s binary. In the image above it has levels, at which point I agree the Lucid UI would have the levels next to it as well, similar to the seats. But it’s not - it’s just a toggle for on/off, which means it should act like any other toggle in the Lucid UI, imho.

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Sure, but something in the UI should turn red when the steering wheel is being heated.
As an aside, it "should" be very easy to give the steering wheel have two or three levels of heating via duty cycle modulation in software - it the car can turn a blinker on and off, it can turn the heater on and off several times per minute.

DeaneG said:

Sure, but something in the UI should turn red when the steering wheel is being heated.
As an aside, it "should" be very easy to give the steering wheel have two or three levels of heating via duty cycle modulation in software - it the car can turn a blinker on and off, it can turn the heater on and off several times per minute.

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OK, we disagree. I don't want three levels of heating, lol. I just want it on, or off. I don't care if it's red.

This might just be a nitpick I don't care about haha - but it's totally fair to. I bet there are plenty of things that bother me about the car that you wouldn't think twice about.

This whole thread took me by surprise. I have never had the slightest problem knowing whether it was on or off, both by looking at the icon and feeling the heat in the wheel.

The UI 'button' states make total sense for their design component library... but for whatever reason, I also need to double-take/study the screen too long to see if it's on or not. Yes, this is not an issue if the wheel itself is hot. But if it has cooled and has remained enabled after I parked, I look to see if it's enabled because the wheel is cold and at a glance sometimes do not know if it is on or not without taking a longer look.

I had this issue Wednesday night! Not some earthshattering problem, but I don't think the sentiment that it can be confusing should be so rapidly dismissed.