[youeseh]

This is different. Generally, if you buy a base model car, it is missing buttons that would be available in a higher trim. In this case, the button is clearly there - it was cheaper to leave the button there and to lock the owner out using software.

[black_puppydog]

It seems quaint now since we all got so used to it, but this is called an anti-feature. Someone spent engineering time (and every customer is paying for that) to make this thing less useful.

I used to be up in arms about this after watching Benjamin Mako Hill's talk in 2010: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/antifeatures-talk

In Hindsight, this was one of the first times during my university days that I thought "maybe tech isn't going the right way."

[throwawayboise]

The software to do the climate zone sync is probably there too, just disabled by a feature flag.

Edit: or maybe not, other comments indicate there is additional hardware required as well.