I love the knob. Ya I said it.
As a seasoned Android Auto user (aftermarket HU in my old 2010 3 and OEM in our Pacifica) I am absolutely STOKED to have it in my CX-5.
I don't consider the knob a limitation. I consider it accurate. You know damn well what you're going to hit and once you learn the navigation techniques you can easily get to where you need to go.
I was actually worried with the touch screen in our Pacifica when we got it. There's a lot of screen-touching requirements there and with how accustomed I had become to the commander I was actually uncomfortable with the Chrysler UConnect for the first few weeks. I'm ok with it now, but side by side I still prefer the Mazda HMI over the touch screen even though I've only had Android auto (in the Mazda) for a few days and have had the van for a year now.
I only have a couple of qualms with the HMI and non-touch screen:
- I wish there were hard buttons for radio presets. Going into the favorites menu, while entirely possible, could be better served by a few direct-input buttons. This goes back to day 1 for me. It would make station selection and favorite saving much easier.
- I wish I could access the audio settings when using android auto at the music source.
- I wish that if you had android auto open and were listening to radio, that the radio station would momentarily pop up in the top of the screen when cycling through your favorites via the steering wheel button like the volume does when you adjust it.
I do a lot of panning and zooming from time-to-time using maps for traffic and re-routing determinations. This was the hardest to get used to with the commander in Android auto vs direct on the cell phone. But once I learned that I could zoom out, pan, then zoom in to cover more panning "ground" with each directional button as I hunted for the traffic bottlenecks this is becoming less and less of an issue for me. Simply back out of the panning screen and push the knob on the target to recenter the nav in maps.
What I think Mazda did VERY well with Android Auto and the HMI:
---I love how the HMI shortcuts revert to Android Auto functions when they're in use.
---Using google maps for Nav? Hit the Nav button, you'll go to Maps and not the OEM Nav.
---Using Mazda radio while Maps for Nav with Maps displayed? Need to see the radio? Hit the audio shortcut and you go to the radio. Nav shortcut returns you to google maps.
---Using an android auto app for audio? The audio shortcut key takes you there from any other menu.
---Pushing the home key returns you to the home menu for the system you're in (either car or android auto, depending where you are when you push it). Holding the home key switches between Mazda infotainment and android auto. The is the next-best thing to having a dedicated android auto button on the console.
---When in an android auto screen, the right direction on the knob is a shortcut to the google assistant. The left direction on the knob opens that apps menu (this took me a while to find). The down direction takes the selector to the android auto menu bar.
---When in an app its a simple turn and click of the knob to highlight the "button" you want and select it. Super simple once you learn how your apps work with the knob.
---Google assistant works quite well for me as voice input for android auto systems: "navigate to (say address)", "call (say person's name, home / mobile etc", "Play this podcast", "What's the weather tomorrow", "What was the score in the (insert favorite team's name here" game, etc, etc
IMO the screen placement is too far to reach for touch input unless parked anyways. But I have been accused of having short T-Rex arms before.
It may not be the most intuitive to someone who's never used it before, but once you learn and embrace it it's fantastic.
The only time I've used the touch screen was when I tried to program the factory Nav while parked. I quickly gave up on factory nav after that LOL