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hola29

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What % of the public in your estimation keeps music on USB sticks at this point, and if you were the CEO of Rivian would you spend resources during launch on that functionality vs. hundreds/thousands of other priorities?

I stopped by the Rivian Hub in Venice again today. It was really quiet and I was able to sit in the truck for about 30 minutes, poking around the UI and specifically the maps. I think they have gotten at least one new OTA update into the trucks because the mapping interface was nearly flawless. Completely fluid scrolling around, pinching, zooming, rotating.

The front camera view is still the grainy seemingly low-res view but the framerate was much better as well - definitely 30+fps. The side and rear cameras were all pixel-perfect seemingly HD views. I don't know what's up with the front camera.

I brought up my beef about no USB music (not even with an iPhone or Android plugged in over a cable) and was told that they've been getting this question (and frustration) a lot. I don't know if anyone on the firmware team is hearing the feedback but it's really something that needs to be considered.
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Rivian_Hugh_III

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I stopped by the Rivian Hub in Venice again today. It was really quiet and I was able to sit in the truck for about 30 minutes, poking around the UI and specifically the maps. I think they have gotten at least one new OTA update into the trucks because the mapping interface was nearly flawless. Completely fluid scrolling around, pinching, zooming, rotating.

The front camera view is still the grainy seemingly low-res view but the framerate was much better as well - definitely 30+fps. The side and rear cameras were all pixel-perfect seemingly HD views. I don't know what's up with the front camera.

I brought up my beef about no USB music (not even with an iPhone or Android plugged in over a cable) and was told that they've been getting this question (and frustration) a lot. I don't know if anyone on the firmware team is hearing the feedback but it's really something that needs to be considered.
Spotify may have required that no external music be allowed. Also the data from these vehicles, including who is listening to what when, will become more and more valuable. It leads to a revenue stream, so there’s a disincentive for Rivian to allow the side-loading of music.

My bet is Rivian will leave this as-is and see if people learn to live with it. Until they get close to parity on orders coming in and trucks going out there’s little concern that someone won’t buy a truck because of a usb stick issue. In late 2022/2023 if people are still super-annoyed and it’s gaining traction then, Boom, they release an OTA update and everyone is newly pleased, raving about how Rivian listens to their customers and responds.

As for the front camera, my best guess is that it’s a supply-chain issue. They’re using a crap camera until the new ones arrive. Another reason they maybe holding back on deliveries and perhaps even stockpiling them.

The crap camera may also explain the lack of the "bird’s eye view" mode for top-down visualizations while parking. One bad camera would mix quite poorly into the integrated view.

Lots of guesses here. None of these are real concerns to me, except actually the music thing. I don’t like people telling me what I can and can’t do with my own (expensive) gear.

oh! I was also wondering if the interface might show a version number for the software. One of us should look for that. It would help us track software progress.
 

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What % of the public in your estimation keeps music on USB sticks at this point, and if you were the CEO of Rivian would you spend resources during launch on that functionality vs. hundreds/thousands of other priorities?
I don't think it is about USB sticks but more about a direct connection to your phone so you can achieve better audio than a Bluetooth connection.
????
 

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Four observations:
1. As others said, the audio background track added during production was waaaay to loud.
2. I noticed no significant UI lag that some people have mentioned seeing in the past.
3. The Frunk open/close control was functional, but the tonneau cover controls are disabled according to many reports, with Rivian saying it is disabled for child safety. So a child could get hurt by the tonneau cover closing, but not hurt by the frunk closing? Hmmmm.....
4. Just because you CAN automate something does not mean you SHOULD. Poistioning the air vents via the UI with servo motors is stupid. It's a driving distraction, and the odds of those servo motors and/or position encoders failing in 5 years due to dust and temperature extremes is high, IMO. I'll take manual vents, thank you.
 

Toadkillerdog

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About? I’ll remind you of a Steve Jobs quote: “People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

CarPlay is the least Apple like interface (my first computer was a First gen Mac 128k in 1985) they have ever designed.
I still disagree with you. I want the option of using CarPlay when I want to. I think it’s wrong to suggest I’m better off without the option of using CarPlay when I want to because you dont like it
 

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Ralph

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Snip.....

4. Just because you CAN automate something does not mean you SHOULD. Poistioning the air vents via the UI with servo motors is stupid. It's a driving distraction, and the odds of those servo motors and/or position encoders failing in 5 years due to dust and temperature extremes is high, IMO. I'll take manual vents, thank you.
I agree with an important exception. There is no reason that the vents couldn't be "automated", but manually adjustable as well. There are any number of digital controls that exhibit that behavior.

The audio/visual world for example is full of controllers that do this. In that world, there is complete integration of knobs and switches with programmable digital control and multi-point touch screens. All able to control the same physical object(s) via digital at the same time. And they've done so economically for more than a decade.

Another, related concept used in that space is that of user "assignable" controls (knobs, switches, sliders, etc.). This allows for the controls to not only be assignable per user/program but to have different functions in different contexts. 4 knobs could provide a lot of functionality based on what is on the screen (via steering wheel knobs).

As with most things, done poorly this can be a horrible, confusing, and potentially dangerous in a car, mess. But done well, it could provide users immediate control for things that would otherwise be too distracting in the moment. This kind of UI can help provide the "best of both worlds": less clutter than the analog world and all the benefits of digital, including over the air updates.
 

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Is that a Tunein icon right below Spotify ?
Does that mean radio is internet streamed ?
 

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I don't think it is about USB sticks but more about a direct connection to your phone so you can achieve better audio than a Bluetooth connection.
????
Bingo! Otherwise Bluetooth audio is a total waste of that nice Meridian audio.
 

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On the note of versions, I _did_ find a panel where it had all of the info about the vehicle: color, trim line, etc. It had the wheel size hard-coded into this. For example, on the one I was sitting in it said it had the 20”s with the all terrain tires. I asked how this is updated if I switch, for example, to 22”s with track tires during the summer. They didn’t think it could be. My next question was naturally if this hard-coded information would be used in the range calculations and they didn’t think so. They all seemed to be under the impression that the range calculation updates in real time based on past and current driving performance.

I also know (because I was told) that the vehicles at the hub are a little bit behind on the OTAs. I don’t know the reason but they cannot do true OTAs on these vehicles because they are pre-production models. I was told that they have to do the updates via a direct laptop connection so they aren’t getting updated as frequently as others.

I also asked how the LTE works with Spotify, etc. I got a bit of a roundabout answer that I didn’t full understand. The LTE connection is part of the Rivian subscription but _not_ subscribing doesn’t disable all features. There were some things (I _think_ Spotify and maps) that still work without it but other things that it was required for. Again, I didn’t fully understand the answer but it does seem like the LTE is a definite add-on thing that may impact some vehicle features. As part of that I asked if any of the drive modes were subscription only and I was told No, everything you see in the GUI is standard and the person at the hub was not aware of any subscription-only drive modes under development.
 

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What % of the public in your estimation keeps music on USB sticks at this point, and if you were the CEO of Rivian would you spend resources during launch on that functionality vs. hundreds/thousands of other priorities?
You realize that this isn't 2004 and USB ports can interact with more than just a USB stick, correct?

This is about playing lossless audio files stored on your phone, which connects via USB instead of Bluetooth. Or, in a perfect world, transferring those lossless files directly to the storage of the vehicle.
 

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Tunein, and regular FM/HD radio.
Interesting thing I noticed as trolling through the GUI: you can disable HD radio tuning. I don't know why this is there since it's either a "it's there and you use or fall back to standard FM" kind of thing, but I noticed it and thought it was curious.
 

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Interesting thing I noticed as trolling through the GUI: you can disable HD radio tuning. I don't know why this is there since it's either a "it's there and you use or fall back to standard FM" kind of thing, but I noticed it and thought it was curious.
Interesting. I didn’t spend too much time poking around all the menus. Maybe I should go back tomorrow ?

I used HD radio for the first time on the way down here. Wonder if my car has the option to disable it. No idea of that’s a common thing.
 

godfodder0901

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Interesting thing I noticed as trolling through the GUI: you can disable HD radio tuning. I don't know why this is there since it's either a "it's there and you use or fall back to standard FM" kind of thing, but I noticed it and thought it was curious.
You are right in the fact that it is digital so you get it or you don't. One reason I would love to have that capability (my Toyota does not AFAIK) is when you are on the edge of the reception arc, the system will shift back and forth between HD and FM signals. This transition in the Toyota is FAR from seamless and gets annoying VERY fast...
 

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