I've seen a few off-road-capable vehicles lately with something that looks like the bumper-mounted light bar shown in the pictures here. I don't know if it's this same product, but I can say with confidence that it is blindingly bright to oncoming drivers, unlike the claims made in this article. I sit very high in my vehicle and have been painfully dazzled by these every time I encounter them.
But this strikes me as a very lazy piece anyway. There's no skepticism about the claims, or the reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. It's basically a PR piece for this product.
The opening line clued me in to how bad it was going to be, though: "Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter." Sure I do! But on the other hand, I also don't want to blind the cars I'm about to pass within six feet of that are coming towards me at an effective 140mph when I'm driving on a dark back country road after dark, which I do hundreds of miles of every week. That's why we have dimmable headlights in the first place.
You are thinking about the Ebay Chinese LED light bars that people put on their "off-road" vehicles. The problem isn't with the brightness it is with how they are aimed. If you turn on stock HID headlights and point them at a wall you will notice the bright bit is a region of the wall from the ground to about a meter up. Then there is not very bright light diffusely showing higher that is used to illuminate road signs.
High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. An issue in the USA is that unlike Europe we have no requirement to autolevel lights even when cresting a hill. So you notice that when someone comes up over a hill you get flashed with light. That might be an issue with these.
If you read the whole article I'm very surprised you think these are the same run of the mill LED lightbars every off-roader and their mother has had for a while now.
> reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards.
I'm not sure why the US maintains a separate vehicle lighting standard versus most of the rest of the world. Their standard allows for more glare from low beams, less usable light on the road, and a less focused hotspot for high beams.
For example, when driving overseas in Dubai in a rented Toyota Yaris, I didn't even need to use the prismatic rear-view mirror's night setting when driving at night because of the far better UNECE glare control standard. In the US, I drive a Honda Odyssey and sit a bit higher up compared to the Yaris and I frequently have problems with glare from traffic ahead and behind me and always have to use the night-setting on the rear-view mirror.
Those light bars are usually producing a ridiculous amount of light, though. All else being equal, the way to reduce glare to oncoming drivers is to increase the area of the emitter. It's not really HIDs that have made glare a problem in modern cars, it's everybody switching to projectors. Even halogens are terrible for glare when used in a projector.
You're talking about an extremely bright flood beam with zero attempt whatsoever to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, which is the exact opposite of what's being described here.
The US regulations are bloody terrible. If you want to see cool high-tech lighting, go to Europe.
Do youtube searches for "Audi Matrix headlights", Mercedes Multibeam, etc.
Great, so lasers are very directional and allow you to illuminate the exact area that you are interested in. What I don't agree with is that you can always exclude the eyes of the other drivers from that area.
Roads are uneven, you have curves and bumps and ramps. Unless there is an inteligent system actively tracking incoming vehicles and avoiding them, there is always a chance that you will hit someone with the full force of 10x brighter lasers. I know of no such inteligent headlight system, that needs to have close to 100% demonstrated success rate. Blinding the driver of a single bike or tractor is enough to produce a major accident.
The way the headlight arms race is going, I believe there is an opportunity for defensive technology to be invented: a liquid crystal layer in your windshield that, coupled with a camera that tracks your eyes location, is able to reduce the transparency of a very small spot in your field of view that covers the incoming vehicle. Seems like it could be implemented with 80s tech.
Reading the article and looking at SLD Laser's website leads you to believe that they are shooting lasers out the front of the emitter. They also both implicate the BMW 5 series. BMW demoed a laser headlight system to Jalopnik and it doesn't work that way at all.
The lasers are fired into a phosphorous element to excite it into emitting light which is then reflected down field. The advantages of this over LED and other tech is that it uses less power and produces less heat.
Lasers are amazingly versatile! They can do everything from vaporizing a bulldozer from 2000 feet away to delicate surgery on eyes, as long as the doctor remembers to change the setting from "Bulldozer" to "Delicate". (Dave Barry)
Anecdotally, I was at a recent dental tech expo in Sydney and was allowed a chance to play with one of the dental lasers on display.
The guy running the stand showed us how to peel the shell away from the membrane of an uncooked egg, before then winding the dial right up and letting me saw a lamb jaw bone in half with it.
I know people who have had their headlights "tuned" to have them raised higher. Purpose was to "blind"/"warn" traffic on the German Autobahn when they wanted to clear the lane for themselves and the car to look more aggressive.
Works as easy as removing the battery, pushing the back of the car down, therefore lifting the headlights up. Reconnect the battery and that lifted state will be memorized as 0-level by the headlights. Now remove the weight from the back, the car will come back into it's normal position but the lights think they are too low, so they will level themselves higher and therefore blind oncoming traffic...
If you're in the US, the situation of being blinded by low-beam headlights (I agree, it's a real problem) should hopefully be on its way to being addressed:
It’s ridiculous. I find driving at night really treacherous now. I essentially slow down to a crawl if another car is coming, I just can’t see. Why do we need this?
The subheadline literally includes "but won’t blind oncoming traffic"...
> All of this luminosity leads to an obvious question: How are these devices, which have the approximate wattage of the klieg spotlights commonly found outside world premieres, supposed to be safely installed in the front of a car without inadvertently blinding oncoming traffic?
> “Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the light,” said Nakamura. “You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.”
>Laser headlights have about the same consumer costs as current LED headlamps, in the low four-figure range.
Uh. What? Even recent model headlight assembly replacements that I can find are in the three-figure range, roughly $500 for a pair, and LED bulbs themselves are something like $125 for a pair. This is several times more expensive.
>>"Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter."
I guess I'm not "Most people" because I have desired more light since I got my license.
I've installed 100w Hella Euro projector lights for straight-line distance (appropriately calibrated as to not blind incoming traffic); and replaced my foglights (not particularly useful in Toronto, Canada) with corner beams - short distance, wide spread, installed at 45 degree angle, so I can illuminate slow speed turns into dark abyss that many drivways, hwy off-ramps, or small city streets are. At night on country roads, I never ever think "well, that's enough, I don't need more light".
Ok so bright headlights are annoying. Why are there no more HUD like systems to improve night-time visibility? Project an IR overlay over the windscreen, tune the lights back to normal, enough for visibility and the road right in front of you.
After the introduction of halogen headlights, I wrote to the queensland road safety authorities asking them to include glare as a risk factor alongside brightness for car headlight specs. I didn't get a very satisfactory response.
I think glare is probably now a higher risk than lack of light, for normal road driving with lights, especially given the emergence of the SUV with higher beams and higher physical lamp placement.
Off road? specialist/military? Sure. I can see that this kind of light would be hugely beneficial. for milspec usage, it might even have a dual function (ie deliberate dazzle)
But for routine use, I need to see legislative control on bad effects of lights on cars, to match obligations to meet minimums in light levels
(the article does talk about how lasers could be directed away from drivers, so there is hope this is a minimize dazzle thing)
The laser doesn't illuminate the road directly; it excites a phosphor puck that lights up white and is then focused and aimed like a regular incandescent filament or gas discharge arc. Just like white LEDs, only much more efficient.
Clean them. Modern plastic headlights oxidize and grow dimmer over time, but can be cleaned (from the inside) to restore brightness. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4QwzHOO-3lk
I'm not so sure about this. Even if you can avoid directly blinding drivers, what about all the wasted light from reflection? Are roadways now 10X brighter than they were before?
As a pedestrian in NYC, I hate this.
And don’t even talk about the impact to wildlife.
Régressive technology. If anything, provide cheap lidar one détection, etc to help driver.
[+] [-] skywhopper|7 years ago|reply
But this strikes me as a very lazy piece anyway. There's no skepticism about the claims, or the reasons why the US might have its current headlight standards. It's basically a PR piece for this product.
The opening line clued me in to how bad it was going to be, though: "Most people don’t turn on their car’s headlights and think, I wish they were brighter." Sure I do! But on the other hand, I also don't want to blind the cars I'm about to pass within six feet of that are coming towards me at an effective 140mph when I'm driving on a dark back country road after dark, which I do hundreds of miles of every week. That's why we have dimmable headlights in the first place.
[+] [-] specialp|7 years ago|reply
High beam lights and aftermarket lights are not aimed like this and thus shine into your passenger compartment. Properly aimed lights never point in. An issue in the USA is that unlike Europe we have no requirement to autolevel lights even when cresting a hill. So you notice that when someone comes up over a hill you get flashed with light. That might be an issue with these.
[+] [-] BoorishBears|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] u801e|7 years ago|reply
I'm not sure why the US maintains a separate vehicle lighting standard versus most of the rest of the world. Their standard allows for more glare from low beams, less usable light on the road, and a less focused hotspot for high beams.
For example, when driving overseas in Dubai in a rented Toyota Yaris, I didn't even need to use the prismatic rear-view mirror's night setting when driving at night because of the far better UNECE glare control standard. In the US, I drive a Honda Odyssey and sit a bit higher up compared to the Yaris and I frequently have problems with glare from traffic ahead and behind me and always have to use the night-setting on the rear-view mirror.
[+] [-] rootusrootus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rconti|7 years ago|reply
The US regulations are bloody terrible. If you want to see cool high-tech lighting, go to Europe.
Do youtube searches for "Audi Matrix headlights", Mercedes Multibeam, etc.
[+] [-] yholio|7 years ago|reply
Roads are uneven, you have curves and bumps and ramps. Unless there is an inteligent system actively tracking incoming vehicles and avoiding them, there is always a chance that you will hit someone with the full force of 10x brighter lasers. I know of no such inteligent headlight system, that needs to have close to 100% demonstrated success rate. Blinding the driver of a single bike or tractor is enough to produce a major accident.
The way the headlight arms race is going, I believe there is an opportunity for defensive technology to be invented: a liquid crystal layer in your windshield that, coupled with a camera that tracks your eyes location, is able to reduce the transparency of a very small spot in your field of view that covers the incoming vehicle. Seems like it could be implemented with 80s tech.
[+] [-] cptskippy|7 years ago|reply
The lasers are fired into a phosphorous element to excite it into emitting light which is then reflected down field. The advantages of this over LED and other tech is that it uses less power and produces less heat.
https://jalopnik.com/how-bmws-new-laser-headlights-will-work...
[+] [-] ricardobeat|7 years ago|reply
VW has the tech available since 2017: https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/dynamic-light-assist-...
YT videos showing it on the road: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vw+dynamic+ligh...
[+] [-] linsomniac|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] King-Aaron|7 years ago|reply
The guy running the stand showed us how to peel the shell away from the membrane of an uncooked egg, before then winding the dial right up and letting me saw a lamb jaw bone in half with it.
They really are pretty impressive devices.
[+] [-] cimmanom|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin_a|7 years ago|reply
Works as easy as removing the battery, pushing the back of the car down, therefore lifting the headlights up. Reconnect the battery and that lifted state will be memorized as 0-level by the headlights. Now remove the weight from the back, the car will come back into it's normal position but the lights think they are too low, so they will level themselves higher and therefore blind oncoming traffic...
[+] [-] RankingMember|7 years ago|reply
https://www.autonews.com/article/20181029/OEM03/181029812/nh...
[+] [-] nickcotter|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ceejayoz|7 years ago|reply
> All of this luminosity leads to an obvious question: How are these devices, which have the approximate wattage of the klieg spotlights commonly found outside world premieres, supposed to be safely installed in the front of a car without inadvertently blinding oncoming traffic?
> “Because of the point source nature of the beam, you can pinpoint the light,” said Nakamura. “You can even shape it dynamically on the fly, so the beam will go down, or to the right, away from the eyes of motorists.”
[+] [-] Groxx|7 years ago|reply
Uh. What? Even recent model headlight assembly replacements that I can find are in the three-figure range, roughly $500 for a pair, and LED bulbs themselves are something like $125 for a pair. This is several times more expensive.
[+] [-] NikolaNovak|7 years ago|reply
I guess I'm not "Most people" because I have desired more light since I got my license.
I've installed 100w Hella Euro projector lights for straight-line distance (appropriately calibrated as to not blind incoming traffic); and replaced my foglights (not particularly useful in Toronto, Canada) with corner beams - short distance, wide spread, installed at 45 degree angle, so I can illuminate slow speed turns into dark abyss that many drivways, hwy off-ramps, or small city streets are. At night on country roads, I never ever think "well, that's enough, I don't need more light".
[+] [-] ricardobeat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arbie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayd16|7 years ago|reply
Plus you still need some headlights for non-augmented cars to see you.
[+] [-] ggm|7 years ago|reply
I think glare is probably now a higher risk than lack of light, for normal road driving with lights, especially given the emergence of the SUV with higher beams and higher physical lamp placement.
Off road? specialist/military? Sure. I can see that this kind of light would be hugely beneficial. for milspec usage, it might even have a dual function (ie deliberate dazzle)
But for routine use, I need to see legislative control on bad effects of lights on cars, to match obligations to meet minimums in light levels
(the article does talk about how lasers could be directed away from drivers, so there is hope this is a minimize dazzle thing)
[+] [-] Aloha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csours|7 years ago|reply
https://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/headlight-eva...
[+] [-] PaulHoule|7 years ago|reply
How do they avoid laser speckle?
[+] [-] jloughry|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ttul|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astazangasta|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acjohnson55|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] m-p-3|7 years ago|reply
That would be a really nice flashlight to own
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] otikik|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLFiOV8l_lo
[+] [-] ignorant|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwhitefoot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpm_sd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _salmon|7 years ago|reply
I see what you did there.