Convinced this has been a moment of Ducati 'engineer A' not thinking of talking to Ducati 'engineer B'... On my old Multi 1260S for the heated grips... 1 press = on, 2 presses = med, 3 presses = high, 4 presses = off again. Same for every bike I've owned. Same, I bet, for most other Ducatis with heated grips. Same, I am sure, for the obvious BMW rival... The new V4S has broken with this super-simple approach. Despite going to the trouble of including a dedicated button for the heated grips (presumably to avoid needing to go through the menu / joystick system), if you are using the satnav through Ducati connect and want your grips on, here's what you now have to do: 1. Joystick hold-left to step back from the map to the Ducati Connect page. 2. Joystick hold-left again to step back to the standard dash. 3. One press on the heated grip button to open the heated grip option in the menu (duh). 4. Joystick push-right to get to the heat settings. 5. Joystick push-up once for low. 6. Joystick push-up again for medium. 7. Joystick push-up again for high. 8. Joystick hold-left to get back to the top menu. 9. Joystick up (or down) one or more times - I don't remember - to get to the Ducati Connect option. 10. Press joystick for Ducati connect. 11. Joystick push-right, push-right, push-right (three times) to get to the Sygic option. 12. Joystick press to get back to the map. [...oh... and by the way... all of that again to change the temperature level... all of that again to turn them off] Whilst the joystick system is good - let's be honest it's not rocket science and Ducati's is now as good as "others" but still, not rocket science - the reality is that a handlebar button does not require eyes being taken off the road, whereas any use of the menu does. Hence my comment. To me this is not only daft, it's dangerous! We're not usually using the heated bars on hot sunny days on empty roads... usually it's cold, we're cold, probably it's raining (or worse), bad conditions where you already need to have all your wits about you and now if you want to warm your hands up you've either got to pull over (lol!) or take a risk. Since the whole system is software driven anyway, this is just plain dumb and shows a lack of thought. The button could easily work like every other heated grips control button (low-mid-high-off cycle of presses) without going anywhere near the menu. OR the rider could have the choice - use the button or use the menu system. But in total around 16 button presses, across both grips, involving a lot of concentration on the screen, for NO REASON AT ALL... sorry but the Germans would just never do this. Oh and while I'm on a rant anyway - the daytime riding lights button on/off also serves as a toggle for the fogs using the press-and-hold method (i.e. one button two functions); the heated seat is just as fiddly as the grips, just slightly less dumb since there's no dedicated button but... why not use the same press-and-hold on the grips button to activate and control the heated seat, again without going through the menu system. Am I the only one that thinks this is just brainless and not a little dangerous?
It's not perfect but I don't find it hard to use. Only had the bike a day and covered about 200 miles so still familiarising myself with the layout and controls. I won't be using the Sygic navigation app as I think it's crap and don't want to relay on a phone for my navigation. Got myself a Garmin Zumo XT instead. When putting the heated grips on there are two ways of doing it that I've found. Easiest is press heated grips button then a menu appears and simply use joystick to select off, low, med or high. Other way is turning them on via the setup menu.
I must be getting old, as I’d normally be chomping at the bit to get the latest model, but have zero interest in chopping my 1260 in for a V4.
Isn’t it also true that you have to go through that process again if you stop for a coffee or fuel as it doesn’t remember the previous setting once you turn the bike off?
I came to work on mine last night and knew it would be cold first thing in the morning so before turning it off I put heated seat and grips onto full. They both came on when I started it up in the morning without having to press anything. Only had it 32 hrs so too early to tell if happens every time or not.
Seems like most people are finding it much simpler. Your problem appears to be not so much with the heated grips activation but with all the other nav and connect crap. The wording of your poll seems more like a cry for sympathy. Nobody can make a system to please everybody, you have to adapt to the system, or abandon it
You're certainly right that if you're not using Ducati Connect it's much easier (because you don't have to first come out of Ducati Connect and later go back into it). Just not sure that ignoring Ducati Connect was the idea behind this... (I do agree Sygic is shite though...)
I was only stating facts, 13-16 button pushes versus 1-3 just is neither sane nor necessary. It's not a "cry for help" it's in the hope Ducati will fix this stupidity in a software release, which they easily could, and it's unnecessarily complex and dangerous in my view as I said. If you had to press sixteen times to get the heating in your car to come on and then get back to the satnav (all the while with your eyes off the road) I doubt you'd say "oh just get used to it".
13-16 Button presses for the heated grip control is utter madness compared to the 1260 1-3 dependent how hot you want them I for one won’t be jumping onto a V4 for this year, and that’s not really what I wanted to tell myself...
Having had time for a few more rides on the bike I can confirm what I initially suspected that both the heated grips and heated seat remember their last setting prior to switching off the engine.
