I bought a 2020 Honda Civic hatchback a while back and found it reasonably designed. There's a small touchscreen for Apple/Android integration, but the car itself has no internet connectivity, and the center console has plenty of physical buttons and knobs to control sound and climate.
Honda said they're not too keen about touchscreen-mania [1], but that seems to have gone away in more recent model-years (at least based on what I saw displayed at a recent auto expo).
Just a note, this is because in the 2016-2017 Honda Civic Hatchback, they went all in and buried all the physical buttons and knobs for sound and climate in the touchscreen, and got major negative customer feedback to the point where they brought them back.
Which functions were buried? All the images I can find of the 2016/2017 model have the same sound and climate controls as the 2020. The only major difference was that they replaced the capacitive buttons next to the touch screen with real buttons, but I think that happened before the 2020 model. The 2022 seems to have the same controls as well, but rearranged (and the touch screen moved farther away)
All the climate control was in the touchscreen. No knobs, only a button that took you to the climate control screen, but you had to change all the settings on the touchscreen. (Looking at the photos, you could change the temperature but nothing else. No fan speed, A/C, etc.)
The capacitive slider for volume seems fine, until you realize it was implemented entirely in software, so if the touchscreen hadn't finished booting, or was slow because it was too cold, that experienced extreme lag. Since the steering wheel buttons ALSO didn't work until the touchscreen booted, it meant if the wife was listening to music super loud with the windows down at night, when you turned the car on in the morning it took about 10s to be able to turn the volume down.
Our 2009 Honda Fit has a gloriously button-face radio with a giant knob that's primarily for volume, but can serve a few other (and harder to access) functions. It's absolutely the easiest radio to use, kind of like a FIsher Price toy.
The Fit was redesigned with a touchscreen for 2015. ONe of the biggest owner complaints was lack of a a volume knob for the audio system. In 2018, Honda responded with a mid model change that added a knob. I have a 2018 with Android Auto, with a side array of fixed buttons (Home, Back, Menu) that have proved useful when underway and making split-second decisions (need to see map right now for instance).
The Fit's HVAC system is delightfully simple: Fan, Temp, and a mechanical lever for fresh/recirc. We would have liked dual zone controls and the dozen-speed fan control in higher models instead of just 4 speeds, but also I'm old enough to remember car air conditioners with 3 speeds (1964 Impala, for example). To me even the 4 speeds still seems like something of an upgrade.
Sadly the HR-V with its increased weight, cost, and height siphoned off sales from what was an already anemic sales performance for the poorly marketed Fit.
It was dropped in the US in 2021. The Jazz (the moniker for the Fit in most places) continues to be available in sales territories when people still buy cars.
Honda said they're not too keen about touchscreen-mania [1], but that seems to have gone away in more recent model-years (at least based on what I saw displayed at a recent auto expo).
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32797/long-live-buttons-hondas...