My Nissan Leaf Forum

I just had another thought along the line of keeping the existing set of buttons. The pair of buttons currently used for Outside air vs. Recirculate could be changed to become Heat on/off on top and A/C on/off on the bottom. Then the current A/C on/off could become Outside air on/off. Am I missing something on the need for two buttons for that function? The two buttons currently seem to work like a single toggle switch.

Note that this could be a simple standalone change which would by itself address our most urgent concern, though I would still like, as the next step up, for AUTO off to mean that all the other buttons work independently as described in my first post. I guess I'm about ready to give up on my airflow ribbon, which would require significant reprogramming of what appears to be a Microsoft kludge operating system driving the console.

Ray

You know, *I* like to choose whether I recirculate internal air or get it from the outside. If there is a stinky diesel, ICE or blue smoke car sitting at a light in front of me, I'd rather not be breathing their fumes.

And yet, if the car is foggy on the inside, there is *NO WAY* to defog the car (turn on AC) and keep the flow of air internal. That sucks. Really sucks. Nissan, I prefer to choose where I get my air from; the climate control system is really difficult to work with because it tries to be "smart".

A way to disable this "smartness" in settings would be most welcome.

-Brad

Yeah, I don't know if I believe the claim that a "mode button is a standard UI for just about every car on the road today". My VW's have dials. My wife's BMW 528 (and I think all the loaner BMW's she's had: 3 series, X5, X3, Z3, Z4) have separate buttons to direct air at head and/or torso and/or feet. The buttons are identical, but one can identify them by their position: again, no need to look.

I agree completely. That is a singularly poor piece of human-machine interface.

The LEAF's ventilation duct is of the "big box with a gazillion doors" variant:

It was that way on my Toyota and Honda, and now on my Nissan. It's probably just a Japanese car "standard". It's never bothered me, to be honest.

Personally, I'd like a software update that adds a temperature setting lower than 60 that says "Low" which disables the heater. I think that'll solve a lot of issues and can be done NOW.

Please, Nissan?

Working within the current control layout I think something like the rendering below would functionally satisfy most people here:



The circle in the center is a knob that spins to allow one to select an air flow mode or turn everything off. The Auto button is a lit toggle the center of that knob. The Heat On/Off replaces the Mode button. I think temperature is left as is but is only relevant when Auto is active. When in manual mode certainly warmer temperatures can never be achieved when the heat is off, just as colder temps cannot be reached when A/C is off, so maybe the climate setting temp is displayed as 'NA' when those conditions are true.

...and yes, I realize that cannot claim to be artistically skilled in any way.

Only problem with that is it adds a dial to an otherwise purposely dial-less design. Don't get my wrong, I like dials. My Subaru has a "mode" dial that is great and I miss a volume and tuning dials. But Leaf designers purposely made the whole center stack dial-less.

while you are at it, add a dial for the radio volume.

+1 For sure!! Replace the -/+ buttons with dials for volume and tuning, otherwise at least add a MUTE button.

I agree, it's hard to beat a knob to UI functionality. They can use rotary encoders to keep it "digital" and still allow non-synchronized external control.

-Phil