Is it time to ban LED Headlights

next generation with DLP, & replacing HU@night - 11Nov https://www.engadget.com/adaptive-h...ghts-nhtsa-regulations-testing-150034439.html

At its heart is a small chip containing one million micromirrors, each of whose edge length measures just a few hundredths of a millimeter,” Audi’s Lighting page explains. ”With the help of electrostatic fields, each individual micromirror can be tilted up to 5,000 times per second. Depending on the setting, the LED light is either directed via the lenses onto the road or is absorbed in order to mask out areas of the light beam.”

Those masked areas are where the light isn’t bouncing off falling water or glaring into the eyes of other drivers. What’s more, the system will project “dynamic leaving- and coming-home animations” onto nearby surfaces, as a treat. More practically, the system can angle the beams to illuminate farther into turns

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Ford’s high-resolution Adaptive Front Lighting System, which debuted in Europe this past August, offers similar capabilities. The company notes that roughly 40 percent of accidents occur on UK roads after sundown. Glancing down at bright infotainment displays while on dark roads can temporarily blind drivers, so Ford’s headlights will project speed limits, navigation cues and road hazard warnings onto the road itself. What’s more, the beams can “bend” around corners and penetrate fog, rain and other inclement weather conditions.
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lol
 
I'm a loyal philipsremainer supporter, can't see any deals on them just Hue.

test environment for adaptive - I'm going to get a bigger bike light , and, in car, approach more with main beams, if that's what triggers them

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I have two things to add to this conversation coming from former main dealer workshop background:

1: Most MOT testers don't even know how to properly setup the beam testers and align them and are just looking for the correct beam pattern rather than correct height. This leads to misaligned headlights more often than you'd think.
2. Lot's of dealerships don't give time for headlights to be correctly re-aligned with a beam tester after repairs that require the headlight to be removed or even replaced (often only 1 MOT ramp and it's in constant use) How often do you see cars with one headlight blazing high and the other pointing elsewhere.

Correct those two things and a lot fewer would be an issue.
 
I have to agree with a lot of the points in this thread.

For me the the biggest issue is on tall cars, particularly range rovers, the lights are so high and the car is particularly wide is what causes the issue.

It gets even worse with those drivers that seem to stay within 1m of your rear bumper so all you have in your mirrors is 2 portable suns. It’s not so bad I’d people drive at a safe distance.

I’ve seen some people mention having issues in MX-5’s, I used to own one and 100% agree there, pretty horrendous in traffic at night.

One of the potential issues that some people haven’t mentioned is the sharp cut off of LEDs. If you are traveling on an undulating road, it can look like cars are flashing you as the front of the car pitches up and down when in reality you are just catching the beam of the light.

However, the counterpoint as always is they are so much better for a driver on unlit roads.
 
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adam cool dude said:
We had super heavy fog last week and there was a suv with the moving adaptive headlights. They were dancing around like a rave in the 90's. I guess they do not like heavy fog.

Even in a truck it was super distracting.
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No need to guess, the owners manual of my car specifically explains they do not operate properly in heavy fog and that the driver should use manual control.
 
Previous owner of my car fitted some unknown brand LED bulbs in my Megane, they were alright and laster over 3yrs but one finally packed in this week. Replaced the pair with Philips Ultinon Pro9000 LED and am well happy with them, the before and after was immediately noticable and I think I'll be getting some for the Abarth which has halogens in a projector housing from the factory.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
What’s next gen about this exactly?
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hmmh do Jaguars already offer dlp/micromirror matrix ? or is that on the note to father christmas

seemed pretty neat re-deployment of DLP's , from projectors, to headlights , with possibility to detect/block headlight areas/glare where raindrops are on headlight, and to provide annotations directly onto the road,
competitor to the laser strategy;
never mind that headlight replacement cost is becoming disproportionately great versus other components, maybe a dlp (with single light source) is cheaper than a led matrix though
 
Dangerous Dave said:
They do need to do something around the regulation, I've met a Range Rover coming the other way with what I expect had the laser headlight option and the adaptive headlights took a split second to dip them I was totally blinded. It was ridiculous how bright they were never seen anything like it.
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The biggest problem is how bright they are

There needs to be regulation on brightness limits

These LEDs can get crazy bright; I've got a LED torch the size of my palm which is both brighter and extends way further ahead than the lights on my car. It absolutely chews through the battery though, only lasts 10 minutes at full power
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
One of the potential issues that some people haven’t mentioned is the sharp cut off of LEDs. If you are traveling on an undulating road, it can look like cars are flashing you as the front of the car pitches up and down when in reality you are just catching the beam of the light.
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Depends on the car really. Mine has LED headlights but they are "MFR" or multi-faceted reflector. They look exactly like the normal "old" reflector units from halogen bulbs but the LED driver projects onto it from above - the resulting beam pattern looks like a standard bulb too, with a much vaguer cut-off and "kick up". In this sense, they'd look and act like a standard bulb and probably not look too much like a flash if I went over a bump.

Selfishly, I do wish they were in a projector/lens unit which gives a much wider beam pattern with the sharp cut-off.
 
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