All Weather Lights
04-20-2017, 11:58 AM
#31
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Some do. Some even use GPS to predict turns and "turn" the lights before the driver even turns the wheel! Look at this SSP, pg.30. Couldn't find it for your car but I'm sure it's out there.
04-20-2017, 04:27 PM
#32
AudiWorld Senior Member
The all weather lights covers the sides really well....almost feel bad when i drive past cars with it on...seems like the light goes into their passenger/driver side window.I Have not driven any sweeping turns at night, but the low speed cornering lighting is awesome.
04-21-2017, 11:08 AM
#33
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Ok... it seems like there's a lot of guessing here so I'll throw in my 2 cents of what I know.
1. Adaptive headlights. While this is rapidly changing in meaning and headlight technology is exploding in variation compared to the previous hundred years, adaptive lights (predominantly HID) had a motorized mechanism that could move the lamp/lens assembly to accomplish two general things: compensation for changes in vehicle attitude due to load (making sure that an overloaded trunk didn't make the headlights shine upward into oncoming drivers eyes), and the ability to swivel one or both beams in the direction of a turn. Every automaker has slight variants on how they did this (some cars, for example would swivel only the left headlight left when you turned left but the right one stayed facing forward, some swivel both etc.). When starting a vehicle with these headlamps (from my experience), they all go through a functionality test and you can see the headlamps briefly move through their range of travel to ensure they are functioning correctly. My Jag would move them up and down, my Mercedes moves them in a pattern that test both up and down as well as left and right ranges.
Now that headlamps are getting more and more capable, adaptivity is more than swiveling a single lamp/lens. Audi's matrix headlamps, where legally allowed, turn on and off or even dim a multitude of FIXED PLACEMENT LEDs based on cameras and other sensors that are telling the car where there are objects it doesn't want to shine light on (opposing cars and to some degree pedestrians). There is no motorized movement in this system. Dozens to hundreds of LEDS each point at a slightly different place, so turning them on, off, or dim, individually gives far more flexibility on where to shine light. In theory this would include having LEDs that pointed significantly to the left or right to help mimic the "adaptive swivel" that the motorized HID systems provide.
There are some systems that are LED AND have motorized lenses. Mercedes newest systems in the 2018 S-Class are an example of these.
I have a 2013 Audi S8 which means I have the full LED headlamps, but not the Matrix headlamps. They do not swivel, they do not adapt vertically, they are completely fixed. What they DO have is LEDs that are aimed left in the left headlamp and right in the right headlamp that illuminate for two general functions: At lower speeds they turn on when the steering wheel is turned past a certain point in their direction, or the turn signal is turned on. If you make a slow(ish) turn and stay moving at a slower speed, they fade out once the steering wheel is recentered and the turn signal is off (with a short delay built in). If the car starts moving at a faster rate of speed before that delay fades them off, they turn off without fade. The other function for these LEDs is this All-Weather Light. Activating that turns them both on.
2. Headlamps on in rain: I personally can't get on board with the general consensus in this thread that using this "All-Weather Light" function, which also turns the low beams on, is the "right" way of handling what every car I've had has done automatically for at least the last decade, which is automatically activating the low beams if the wipers are wiping at regular speed (meaning not intermittent, fixed or rain-sensing) or high speed for at least roughly 60 seconds. This includes a Mercedes, a Jaguar, and a Volkswagen Phaeton, among others. Having to manually activate this with the "All-Weather Lights" is really no better than having to remember to manually switch the headlamps on (which is just as easy and in the same place, but not automatic obviously). The POINT is that safety is improved when the low beams are automatically switched on if the car can determine that there is significant rainfall/snowfall and that the low beams will likely improve safety. This is the same logic that lives behind automatic headlamps, rain sensing wipers, etc. They ALL have manual switches, but we prefer the automation because it improves safety. I still get mad at drivers that won't use their automatic headlamps and end up forgetting to turn them on in dusk, for example.
I'm incredibly surprised that my S8 does NOT turn the low beams on automatically during rain.
Couple last things and I'm done
1. I have to say that while my headlamps in my S8 are fixed, I LOVE them. They are the best headlamps in any car I've owned, both because I love the instantaneousness of the LEDS and, honestly, which the Mercedes I have has Mercedes Intelligent Lighting System, meaning adaptive, the light output is nothing to write home about. In addition, the Mercedes high beams are a redirection of the light, meaning the the light moves upward, instead of a bulb(s) that ADD more light as well as point it upward. Because the light isn't that great to begin with, I feel like it's worse in some ways when the high beams are on because the area that was mediocrely lit with the low beams is even more poorly lit when the light is directed upward. In the S8, ADDITIONAL LEDs turn on for the high beams, and they are incredible bright as well so I have great lighting everywhere.
2. Carnegie Melon has prototyped a system that is like Audi's Matrix headlamps taken to a new extreme. Instead of LEDs that target a specific region of the road to be turned on and off, the CM system makes the thousands of LED each target a much smaller region and if they were all turned on would ultimate form a forward facing rectangle, much like the computer screen you're reading this post on. The region is so small, that the the computer that runs them can use a forward facing camera system to, for example, track all the individual snowflakes falling from the sky (or coming "at" you while you drive down the road), and calculate which individual LEDs need to be turned off based on where the driver is sitting so that light is never actually shining directly on any of the snowflakes, massively reducing glare without reducing any forward lighting that's not necessary to turn off. Sounds completely, impossibly hard to time perfectly, but check this video. Of course it the system can do that is means it can also brightly light exactly only your physical lane, while dimly light everything else. If multicolored LEDs are used instead of just white, you can superimpose things onto the road in front of you... a green line to follow for navigation, a permanent little speed limit sign, whatever... incredible technology...
Everyone have a great day, and for anyone who actually made it through this post, thanks I love automative lighting and felt anxious to weigh in.
1. Adaptive headlights. While this is rapidly changing in meaning and headlight technology is exploding in variation compared to the previous hundred years, adaptive lights (predominantly HID) had a motorized mechanism that could move the lamp/lens assembly to accomplish two general things: compensation for changes in vehicle attitude due to load (making sure that an overloaded trunk didn't make the headlights shine upward into oncoming drivers eyes), and the ability to swivel one or both beams in the direction of a turn. Every automaker has slight variants on how they did this (some cars, for example would swivel only the left headlight left when you turned left but the right one stayed facing forward, some swivel both etc.). When starting a vehicle with these headlamps (from my experience), they all go through a functionality test and you can see the headlamps briefly move through their range of travel to ensure they are functioning correctly. My Jag would move them up and down, my Mercedes moves them in a pattern that test both up and down as well as left and right ranges.
Now that headlamps are getting more and more capable, adaptivity is more than swiveling a single lamp/lens. Audi's matrix headlamps, where legally allowed, turn on and off or even dim a multitude of FIXED PLACEMENT LEDs based on cameras and other sensors that are telling the car where there are objects it doesn't want to shine light on (opposing cars and to some degree pedestrians). There is no motorized movement in this system. Dozens to hundreds of LEDS each point at a slightly different place, so turning them on, off, or dim, individually gives far more flexibility on where to shine light. In theory this would include having LEDs that pointed significantly to the left or right to help mimic the "adaptive swivel" that the motorized HID systems provide.
There are some systems that are LED AND have motorized lenses. Mercedes newest systems in the 2018 S-Class are an example of these.
I have a 2013 Audi S8 which means I have the full LED headlamps, but not the Matrix headlamps. They do not swivel, they do not adapt vertically, they are completely fixed. What they DO have is LEDs that are aimed left in the left headlamp and right in the right headlamp that illuminate for two general functions: At lower speeds they turn on when the steering wheel is turned past a certain point in their direction, or the turn signal is turned on. If you make a slow(ish) turn and stay moving at a slower speed, they fade out once the steering wheel is recentered and the turn signal is off (with a short delay built in). If the car starts moving at a faster rate of speed before that delay fades them off, they turn off without fade. The other function for these LEDs is this All-Weather Light. Activating that turns them both on.
2. Headlamps on in rain: I personally can't get on board with the general consensus in this thread that using this "All-Weather Light" function, which also turns the low beams on, is the "right" way of handling what every car I've had has done automatically for at least the last decade, which is automatically activating the low beams if the wipers are wiping at regular speed (meaning not intermittent, fixed or rain-sensing) or high speed for at least roughly 60 seconds. This includes a Mercedes, a Jaguar, and a Volkswagen Phaeton, among others. Having to manually activate this with the "All-Weather Lights" is really no better than having to remember to manually switch the headlamps on (which is just as easy and in the same place, but not automatic obviously). The POINT is that safety is improved when the low beams are automatically switched on if the car can determine that there is significant rainfall/snowfall and that the low beams will likely improve safety. This is the same logic that lives behind automatic headlamps, rain sensing wipers, etc. They ALL have manual switches, but we prefer the automation because it improves safety. I still get mad at drivers that won't use their automatic headlamps and end up forgetting to turn them on in dusk, for example.
I'm incredibly surprised that my S8 does NOT turn the low beams on automatically during rain.
Couple last things and I'm done
1. I have to say that while my headlamps in my S8 are fixed, I LOVE them. They are the best headlamps in any car I've owned, both because I love the instantaneousness of the LEDS and, honestly, which the Mercedes I have has Mercedes Intelligent Lighting System, meaning adaptive, the light output is nothing to write home about. In addition, the Mercedes high beams are a redirection of the light, meaning the the light moves upward, instead of a bulb(s) that ADD more light as well as point it upward. Because the light isn't that great to begin with, I feel like it's worse in some ways when the high beams are on because the area that was mediocrely lit with the low beams is even more poorly lit when the light is directed upward. In the S8, ADDITIONAL LEDs turn on for the high beams, and they are incredible bright as well so I have great lighting everywhere.
2. Carnegie Melon has prototyped a system that is like Audi's Matrix headlamps taken to a new extreme. Instead of LEDs that target a specific region of the road to be turned on and off, the CM system makes the thousands of LED each target a much smaller region and if they were all turned on would ultimate form a forward facing rectangle, much like the computer screen you're reading this post on. The region is so small, that the the computer that runs them can use a forward facing camera system to, for example, track all the individual snowflakes falling from the sky (or coming "at" you while you drive down the road), and calculate which individual LEDs need to be turned off based on where the driver is sitting so that light is never actually shining directly on any of the snowflakes, massively reducing glare without reducing any forward lighting that's not necessary to turn off. Sounds completely, impossibly hard to time perfectly, but check this video. Of course it the system can do that is means it can also brightly light exactly only your physical lane, while dimly light everything else. If multicolored LEDs are used instead of just white, you can superimpose things onto the road in front of you... a green line to follow for navigation, a permanent little speed limit sign, whatever... incredible technology...
Everyone have a great day, and for anyone who actually made it through this post, thanks
I love automative lighting and felt anxious to weigh in.
04-21-2017, 11:11 AM
#34
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04-21-2017, 12:55 PM
#35
AudiWorld Super User
Ok... it seems like there's a lot of guessing here so I'll throw in my 2 cents of what I know.
1. Adaptive headlights. While this is rapidly changing in meaning and headlight technology is exploding in variation compared to the previous hundred years, adaptive lights (predominantly HID) had a motorized mechanism that could move the lamp/lens assembly to accomplish two general things: compensation for changes in vehicle attitude due to load (making sure that an overloaded trunk didn't make the headlights shine upward into oncoming drivers eyes), and the ability to swivel one or both beams in the direction of a turn. Every automaker has slight variants on how they did this (some cars, for example would swivel only the left headlight left when you turned left but the right one stayed facing forward, some swivel both etc.). When starting a vehicle with these headlamps (from my experience), they all go through a functionality test and you can see the headlamps briefly move through their range of travel to ensure they are functioning correctly. My Jag would move them up and down, my Mercedes moves them in a pattern that test both up and down as well as left and right ranges.
Now that headlamps are getting more and more capable, adaptivity is more than swiveling a single lamp/lens. Audi's matrix headlamps, where legally allowed, turn on and off or even dim a multitude of FIXED PLACEMENT LEDs based on cameras and other sensors that are telling the car where there are objects it doesn't want to shine light on (opposing cars and to some degree pedestrians). There is no motorized movement in this system. Dozens to hundreds of LEDS each point at a slightly different place, so turning them on, off, or dim, individually gives far more flexibility on where to shine light. In theory this would include having LEDs that pointed significantly to the left or right to help mimic the "adaptive swivel" that the motorized HID systems provide.
There are some systems that are LED AND have motorized lenses. Mercedes newest systems in the 2018 S-Class are an example of these.
I have a 2013 Audi S8 which means I have the full LED headlamps, but not the Matrix headlamps. They do not swivel, they do not adapt vertically, they are completely fixed. What they DO have is LEDs that are aimed left in the left headlamp and right in the right headlamp that illuminate for two general functions: At lower speeds they turn on when the steering wheel is turned past a certain point in their direction, or the turn signal is turned on. If you make a slow(ish) turn and stay moving at a slower speed, they fade out once the steering wheel is recentered and the turn signal is off (with a short delay built in). If the car starts moving at a faster rate of speed before that delay fades them off, they turn off without fade. The other function for these LEDs is this All-Weather Light. Activating that turns them both on.
2. Headlamps on in rain: I personally can't get on board with the general consensus in this thread that using this "All-Weather Light" function, which also turns the low beams on, is the "right" way of handling what every car I've had has done automatically for at least the last decade, which is automatically activating the low beams if the wipers are wiping at regular speed (meaning not intermittent, fixed or rain-sensing) or high speed for at least roughly 60 seconds. This includes a Mercedes, a Jaguar, and a Volkswagen Phaeton, among others. Having to manually activate this with the "All-Weather Lights" is really no better than having to remember to manually switch the headlamps on (which is just as easy and in the same place, but not automatic obviously). The POINT is that safety is improved when the low beams are automatically switched on if the car can determine that there is significant rainfall/snowfall and that the low beams will likely improve safety. This is the same logic that lives behind automatic headlamps, rain sensing wipers, etc. They ALL have manual switches, but we prefer the automation because it improves safety. I still get mad at drivers that won't use their automatic headlamps and end up forgetting to turn them on in dusk, for example.
I'm incredibly surprised that my S8 does NOT turn the low beams on automatically during rain.
Couple last things and I'm done
1. I have to say that while my headlamps in my S8 are fixed, I LOVE them. They are the best headlamps in any car I've owned, both because I love the instantaneousness of the LEDS and, honestly, which the Mercedes I have has Mercedes Intelligent Lighting System, meaning adaptive, the light output is nothing to write home about. In addition, the Mercedes high beams are a redirection of the light, meaning the the light moves upward, instead of a bulb(s) that ADD more light as well as point it upward. Because the light isn't that great to begin with, I feel like it's worse in some ways when the high beams are on because the area that was mediocrely lit with the low beams is even more poorly lit when the light is directed upward. In the S8, ADDITIONAL LEDs turn on for the high beams, and they are incredible bright as well so I have great lighting everywhere.
2. Carnegie Melon has prototyped a system that is like Audi's Matrix headlamps taken to a new extreme. Instead of LEDs that target a specific region of the road to be turned on and off, the CM system makes the thousands of LED each target a much smaller region and if they were all turned on would ultimate form a forward facing rectangle, much like the computer screen you're reading this post on. The region is so small, that the the computer that runs them can use a forward facing camera system to, for example, track all the individual snowflakes falling from the sky (or coming "at" you while you drive down the road), and calculate which individual LEDs need to be turned off based on where the driver is sitting so that light is never actually shining directly on any of the snowflakes, massively reducing glare without reducing any forward lighting that's not necessary to turn off. Sounds completely, impossibly hard to time perfectly, but check this video. Of course it the system can do that is means it can also brightly light exactly only your physical lane, while dimly light everything else. If multicolored LEDs are used instead of just white, you can superimpose things onto the road in front of you... a green line to follow for navigation, a permanent little speed limit sign, whatever... incredible technology...
Everyone have a great day, and for anyone who actually made it through this post, thanks I love automative lighting and felt anxious to weigh in.
1. Adaptive headlights. While this is rapidly changing in meaning and headlight technology is exploding in variation compared to the previous hundred years, adaptive lights (predominantly HID) had a motorized mechanism that could move the lamp/lens assembly to accomplish two general things: compensation for changes in vehicle attitude due to load (making sure that an overloaded trunk didn't make the headlights shine upward into oncoming drivers eyes), and the ability to swivel one or both beams in the direction of a turn. Every automaker has slight variants on how they did this (some cars, for example would swivel only the left headlight left when you turned left but the right one stayed facing forward, some swivel both etc.). When starting a vehicle with these headlamps (from my experience), they all go through a functionality test and you can see the headlamps briefly move through their range of travel to ensure they are functioning correctly. My Jag would move them up and down, my Mercedes moves them in a pattern that test both up and down as well as left and right ranges.
Now that headlamps are getting more and more capable, adaptivity is more than swiveling a single lamp/lens. Audi's matrix headlamps, where legally allowed, turn on and off or even dim a multitude of FIXED PLACEMENT LEDs based on cameras and other sensors that are telling the car where there are objects it doesn't want to shine light on (opposing cars and to some degree pedestrians). There is no motorized movement in this system. Dozens to hundreds of LEDS each point at a slightly different place, so turning them on, off, or dim, individually gives far more flexibility on where to shine light. In theory this would include having LEDs that pointed significantly to the left or right to help mimic the "adaptive swivel" that the motorized HID systems provide.
There are some systems that are LED AND have motorized lenses. Mercedes newest systems in the 2018 S-Class are an example of these.
I have a 2013 Audi S8 which means I have the full LED headlamps, but not the Matrix headlamps. They do not swivel, they do not adapt vertically, they are completely fixed. What they DO have is LEDs that are aimed left in the left headlamp and right in the right headlamp that illuminate for two general functions: At lower speeds they turn on when the steering wheel is turned past a certain point in their direction, or the turn signal is turned on. If you make a slow(ish) turn and stay moving at a slower speed, they fade out once the steering wheel is recentered and the turn signal is off (with a short delay built in). If the car starts moving at a faster rate of speed before that delay fades them off, they turn off without fade. The other function for these LEDs is this All-Weather Light. Activating that turns them both on.
2. Headlamps on in rain: I personally can't get on board with the general consensus in this thread that using this "All-Weather Light" function, which also turns the low beams on, is the "right" way of handling what every car I've had has done automatically for at least the last decade, which is automatically activating the low beams if the wipers are wiping at regular speed (meaning not intermittent, fixed or rain-sensing) or high speed for at least roughly 60 seconds. This includes a Mercedes, a Jaguar, and a Volkswagen Phaeton, among others. Having to manually activate this with the "All-Weather Lights" is really no better than having to remember to manually switch the headlamps on (which is just as easy and in the same place, but not automatic obviously). The POINT is that safety is improved when the low beams are automatically switched on if the car can determine that there is significant rainfall/snowfall and that the low beams will likely improve safety. This is the same logic that lives behind automatic headlamps, rain sensing wipers, etc. They ALL have manual switches, but we prefer the automation because it improves safety. I still get mad at drivers that won't use their automatic headlamps and end up forgetting to turn them on in dusk, for example.
I'm incredibly surprised that my S8 does NOT turn the low beams on automatically during rain.
Couple last things and I'm done
1. I have to say that while my headlamps in my S8 are fixed, I LOVE them. They are the best headlamps in any car I've owned, both because I love the instantaneousness of the LEDS and, honestly, which the Mercedes I have has Mercedes Intelligent Lighting System, meaning adaptive, the light output is nothing to write home about. In addition, the Mercedes high beams are a redirection of the light, meaning the the light moves upward, instead of a bulb(s) that ADD more light as well as point it upward. Because the light isn't that great to begin with, I feel like it's worse in some ways when the high beams are on because the area that was mediocrely lit with the low beams is even more poorly lit when the light is directed upward. In the S8, ADDITIONAL LEDs turn on for the high beams, and they are incredible bright as well so I have great lighting everywhere.
2. Carnegie Melon has prototyped a system that is like Audi's Matrix headlamps taken to a new extreme. Instead of LEDs that target a specific region of the road to be turned on and off, the CM system makes the thousands of LED each target a much smaller region and if they were all turned on would ultimate form a forward facing rectangle, much like the computer screen you're reading this post on. The region is so small, that the the computer that runs them can use a forward facing camera system to, for example, track all the individual snowflakes falling from the sky (or coming "at" you while you drive down the road), and calculate which individual LEDs need to be turned off based on where the driver is sitting so that light is never actually shining directly on any of the snowflakes, massively reducing glare without reducing any forward lighting that's not necessary to turn off. Sounds completely, impossibly hard to time perfectly, but check this video. Of course it the system can do that is means it can also brightly light exactly only your physical lane, while dimly light everything else. If multicolored LEDs are used instead of just white, you can superimpose things onto the road in front of you... a green line to follow for navigation, a permanent little speed limit sign, whatever... incredible technology...
Everyone have a great day, and for anyone who actually made it through this post, thanks
I love automative lighting and felt anxious to weigh in.
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