Why the fuck do cars still have analog speedometers? Surely digital ones would be more accurate and much easier to read without looking away from the road for too long.
I think in this case analogue is actually easier to read. You don't need to actually read any of the numbers to know how fast you're driving, you just look at the angle of the needle.
The human brain is great at things like this, and less good at reading numbers, which is much more learnt.
I personally hate the digital cluster, I would rather have analog one with display in middle. I don't find that analog cluster needs more time to read.
The number of people on here who seem to think that an analog instrument cluster is connected directly to the things they're displaying, rather than connected to the ECU computer.
Or that a PWM servo motor is more reliable than a screen. News flash: if you lose power to either, you aren't able to read it.
An well designed analog guage is easier to read out the corner of your eye, or at a quick glance. But that really only matters if you're racing, and even then it's dubious.
A poorly designed digital guage can be distracting at night, if they use a screen tech that has poor black levels, or have lots of bright elements on the screen at night. It basically shines a light at your face and interferes with your night vision. But most manufacturers are better than that, these days, it's not much different than the light that illuminates your analog gauges.
So really it's personal preference, and some people like to justify their preference with bullshit so that they can feel superior. YMMV.
About accuracy: Analog sensors are more accurate than digital ones and that is because they are analog. While an analog system has unlimited resolution and thus can continuously follow a signal curve, digital systems can only process quantized data and that is a clear disadvantage when it comes to precision. To visualize it, think of analog data as a smooth curve and of digital data as a stair shape that follows the curve. In the picture the red line is an analog signal while the blue line shows how that same signal would look after quantization in a digital system. As you can see the analog red line is an accurate depiction of the actual sensor data while the digital blue line is only an approximation to the original analog signal.
I remember in the late 90s or so a car came out with an all digital instrument cluster. It made the news when they would completely fail, leaving people to not know anything about their speed or anything else about their car.
A speedometer is more reliable and easy to read. Even so, several cars have them. Some even project your speed in the windshield as part of a heads up display.
Everything digital in a car is often handled by the "entertainment" system. Like a glorified radio. Manufacturers like to keep that as separate system from the car, so it's replaceable and upgradable and fail safe from the actual operation of the car.
Also, many car designs (of the cars on the road today) are 20 years old, when digital screens in cars had yet to prove reliability. Nobody wanted to risk having to replace screens just to show the speed.
Some brands have had digital speedometers for ten years or so.
Anyway, digital speedometers also calculate the speed by magnets, so the GPS and speedometer might still show different speeds depending on the size of wheels just as badly as an analogue one.
Again, it has to, because the operation of a car should not be dependent on a satellite system, f.i. in tunnels.
So in short: Digital speedometers are not more accurate and they're introducing points of potential failure.
The more your car is computerized, the less control you have over it as the end user. The best cars on the road are the ones with no touch screens and no gps tracking bull crap. Analog speedometers and tachometers are just as good as a digital one and can be repaired easily if they fail. Try repairing your newfangled vehicle when over half of its functionality shits the bed because theres an error with the console software.
I like analog gauges. I very much like knobs. I dislike anything digital in a car other than a touch screen. Cars need to be able to be operated at a glance and by feel.
I suspect speedometers are never completely accurate. So instead of an exact number, they'll use a needle and you can guess how fast you're approximately going
Wouldn't it be constantly fluctuating between speeds one or two numbers apart? Unless your foot is magic or you're in cruise control, lol. I feel like it could be distracting.
What I wonder is why more cars don't have HUDs that are projected onto the windshield. That tech has been around and in cars for over 25 years. You don't have to take your eyes off the road at all.
TBH I hate screens in my car and am trying to buy one without one (which seems impossible now)
Analog is less likely to fail, imo easier to read and is cheaper to service. There’s also the fact that the majority of drivers have had analog speedometers their entire life and getting rid of them will turn some drivers off of buying the car
Most stuff is digital these days. Speed is measured by counting number of impulses (wheel rotations) per unit of time, then displayed analogly on dash board using servos and similar. There are many reasons behind this. Some of them are legacy and people are simply use to them. Other is that analog you don't really have to look at them to read them. Just a mere positioning is enough to tell you approximate values. There are aesthetics involved as well. Readability in strong light. Etc.
I had a VW Tiguan that had both, but the digital one didn't poll very often so it was incredibly unreliable. My Audi Q7 has both too, but the analog one is on a digital display, which is kind of weird to think about. Like a computer using an analog clock.
Cognitive load. Good operator experience, user interface, you want the operator of the vehicle to require the least amount of thinking to know about the vehicle. It's critical data they'll need an emergency is, and in emergencies, people's cognitive abilities go down quite a bit.
Just think about how you turn the radio down to find an address on the street, multiply that times a thousand. That's how people think in an emergency
Car manufacturers won't spend extra on a fancy feature unless they can't sell without it. That's why most cars have such nasty low-res screens for the entertainment system, when a nice high res one (like the one you have in your phone) would only cost a few quid more.
I see all these things about the digital gauges breaking on them and I find it pretty funny that out of every car I ever had/had access to, only one ever had the speedometer fail, and it was an analogue one. The needle itself on the display broke and would just swing back and forth wildly. I used my phone to get a speedometer app that used the gyro in the phone until I could get it fixed.