I’m curious how many people actually fiddle with their HVAC controls on a day-to-day basis. With auto climate control, I set it to 70 degrees and then literally never touch the controls again. The fan stays low while the engine warms up and once there’s actually warm coolant going through the heater core it turns the fans up, gets the cabin to the set temp, then goes back down. In the summer, it blasts the A/C until the cabin is cool then goes back to regulating.
It measures temperature and humidity in the vehicle and outside of it and can know when the windows are fogging up, so it turns on the defroster automatically when needed.
Heated seats start up with remote start when the outside temperature is below a certain threshold. If they get too hot I have to lower the setting, but that’s all I ever have to do.
My wife is one that likes to crank the fan way up when the car is cold even though all it does is blow extra cold air on you, and then it’s loud for no reason and eventually it’s blowing air that’s way too hot so she turns the fan down and probably forgets to put it back in auto.
Assuming your touchscreen vehicle has good-performing auto climate control, what is there to constantly fiddle with?
Physical, moving, tactile buttons I require include safety items and settings that have to changed while driving and need to be done with minimal attention split:
– Cruise
– Volume (dash knob for fast, large changes; steering wheel buttons for fine control)
– Previous/Next track
– Traction control/drive modes
– Hazards
– Anything traditionally on a steering wheel stalk – wipers, fluid, blinkers
And…
How often you have to play with the HVAC is down to the individual car and the climate you live in. Even the best auto systems are not really that good if you are fussy, or Dog forbid you have a woman in the car who needs a radically different temperature and airflow setting than you normally do. Just go for a ride with my sainted mother or female bestie sometime – you had best have a car with at least dual-zone.
Ultimately, I don’t care if the car has auto HVAC (and my BMWs and Mercedes have VERY good systems) – if the car isn’t doing what I want it to do, I want to be able to adjust the system easily without digging around in a screen. And all of those cars make it VERY easy to do so.