[iviegatron]

Originally Posted by Limegrntaln

I posted it when I saw it on the news. After it was signed.

It's a mystery here at Bimmerpost. I've seen perfectly good posts deleted for no apparent reasons.

[msej449]

My UK Adaptive + High beam assist Xenons work as follows at night, when the ≡A switch is set and the ≡A button on the stalk is pressed.

After a short while with no other traffic ahead, the separate passenger and driver side full beam headlights engage.

If you drive into a well-lit area they both disengage, and the standard beam flattens a bit to illuminate the driver side pavement, to better highlight pedestrians and cyclists.

In the full dark and with both high beams engaged via ≡A:

On a straight road, if an oncoming car approaches, it creates an unilluminated 'box' around the oncoming car by spreading the high beams to the left/right for as long as possible. Eventually, it drops the driver's side full beam but leaves the passenger side full beam fully operating. This is particularly useful driving cross-country, where the edge of the road may not be very clear.

If a car appears ahead, it will create an unilluminated 'box' around the tail lights. This box will move up/down and left/right as the vehicle ahead moves vertically and horizontally. If you get nearer, it will eventually drop the high beams.

On a curve, it will drop the passenger high beam if it detects oncoming vehicles in the line of sight, so as not to dazzle them. But it will still 'box' the oncoming car as above, until it has to drop the driver's side high beam.

All of the above things happen concurrently.

The Xenon HBA+Adaptive has different physical assemblies for left-hand drive and right-hand drive cars. So when I drive to the Alps, I can't use the ≡A button in France and Switzerland and just have to use manual standard or full (left+right) high beam. This Xenon assembly is different in a non-optioned car, so you can't just enable Adaptive with coding - the physical baffles and lenses just aren't there.

My understanding is that in the USA, BMW either fits Adaptive assemblies but disables the control software, or doesn't fit the Adaptive assemblies at all. It isn't clear which applies to what models, and whether some models have a mix of the two approaches. That some people can retro-fit Adaptive simply by re-coding, while others are adamant they've been unsuccessful using the same coding implies the latter. The switch to LED also complicates the discussion, because in the UK certainly, some of the earlier LED headlights that were fitted definitively did not have an Adaptive capability although it seems that later versions do.

So what it looks like US customers will be getting is the full repertoire of functionality: Beam spread when entering well-lit areas; separate left/right full beams; separate full beam illumination of the passenger side at the same time as standard beam only on the driver side; dynamic 'boxing' of oncoming vehicles; dynamic 'boxing' of vehicles in front of you; and directional illumination.

There seems to be a separate landscape for directional lighting (on Xenons) i.e. where turning the wheel produces additional lighting in the direction of travel. Directional lighting seems to use foglamps and/or adaptive i.e. foglamps only where no adaptive is fitted, adaptive where there are no foglamps (as in the M-Lites), or both where both are fitted. However, I'm happy to be corrected on this and again, I've not got experience with LEDs, so they may implement this differently.

I also have a theory that the original BMW design engineers never envisaged adaptive and HBA as a separate option. They thought that all headlights would have all the necessary mechanical components to support the functionality of HBA plus adaptive. And it was only later that the marketing geniuses thought of optioning these two things, to increase revenues. So as a result, the standard beam is by default set lower than you would otherwise like it because the assumption is that it's only used when you're close to a car ahead (otherwise, the HBA/Adaptive woud be doing its thing). In addition, it caused a lot of annoyance in the UK because dealers didn't always make it clear that you had to order both, separately - quite a few owners complained that they ordered HBA thinking it gave them all the functionality of Adaptive as well, then found the car was delivered without Adaptive (i.e. the left+right high beams would both drop when it saw tail ights or oncoming headlights, but that's it). And in the UK, it got even more confused when people with the early versions of LED would fully-spec all the options and then find that they'd lost the Adaptive capability they'd got used to on their previous Xenon-based BMWs.

Finally, for those of you who haven't seen this technology - it works. I had HBA+Adaptive on my previous 3 Series as this made me choose it again for my current M235i. The 'boxing' tech really is impressive. But the HBA is not really any faster to respond than a human, which some owners find annoying and not up to expectations. Moreover, HBA can never match a driver who uses a cross-country road regularly and knows that, say, a twinkle along a hedge up ahead means a car will materialise 'round a corner suddenly, and would drop the high beam in anticipation. Notwithstanding such criticisms, I still think it's a great technology and I for one have never been flashed by oncoming cars while using it. One thing that you do need to get used to is that the headlighting can become sort of busy with all that boxing of oncoming and ahead vehicles on a busy road with a lot of curves. So I do still sometimes turn it off again on stretches where there's lots of traffic, I know the road well, the edges are very clear and all that high beam dropping/lifting and boxing gets distracting.

[Limegrntaln]

Originally Posted by msej449

My UK Adaptive + High beam assist Xenons work as follows at night, when the ≡A switch is set and the ≡A button on the stalk is pressed.

After a short while with no other traffic ahead, the separate passenger and driver side full beam headlights engage.

If you drive into a well-lit area they both disengage, and the standard beam flattens a bit to illuminate the driver side pavement, to better highlight pedestrians and cyclists.

In the full dark and with both high beams engaged via ≡A:

On a straight road, if an oncoming car approaches, it creates an unilluminated 'box' around the oncoming car by spreading the high beams to the left/right for as long as possible. Eventually, it drops the driver's side full beam but leaves the passenger side full beam fully operating. This is particularly useful driving cross-country, where the edge of the road may not be very clear.

On a curve, it will drop the passenger high beam if it detects oncoming vehicles in the line of sight, so as not to dazzle them. But it will still 'box' the oncoming car as above, until it has to drop the driver's side high beam.

If a car appears ahead, it will create an unilluminated 'box' around the tail lights. This box will move up/down and left/right as the vehicle ahead moves vertically and horizontally. If you get nearer, it will eventually drop the left and right high beam.

All the above happens concurrently.

The Xenon HBA+Adaptive has different physical assemblies for left-hand drive and right-hand drive cars. So when I drive to the Alps, I can't use the ≡A button in France and Switzerland and just have to use manual standard or full (left+right) high beam. This assembly is different to a non-optioned car so I can't just enable Adaptive with coding - the physical baffles and lenses just aren't there.

My understanding is that in the USA, BMW either fits Adaptive assemblies but disables the control software, or doesn't fit the Adaptive assemblies at all. It isn't clear which applies to what models, and whether some models have a mix of the two approaches. That some people can retro-fit Adaptive simply by re-coding, while others are adamant they've been unsuccessful using the same coding implies the latter. The switch to LED also complicates the discussion, because in the UK certainly, some of the earlier LED headlights that were fitted definitively did not have an Adaptive capability although it seems that later versions did.

There seems to be a separate landscape for directional lighting i.e. where turning the wheel swings the standard headlights in the direction of travel. Directional lighting seems to use both foglamps and/or adaptive i.e. foglamps only where no adaptive is fitted, adaptive where there are no foglamps (as in the M-Lites), or both where both are fitted.

Nice write up. Thanks for the explanation for people that don't have it.

[AndrewC1989]

Originally Posted by unluky

Xenon does have some adaptive features, but not the anti-dazzle I believe. I coded my Xenon to have the adaptive features that allow them to shift the drivers outboard and inboard depending on conditions and also adjust the level depending on the speed/conditions. Before it only "followed" the wheel to cornering and went up and down with the cars level only.

What you're describing sounds like VLD. You can additionally add GFHB but I'm not 100% sure what features it adds other than sign illumination which is active above ~50mph.

[tranquility]

Wow, so weird. Why was it disallowed for the longest time?

[antzcrashing]

I am so confused. I am not even going to try to understand. I will wait until my next car to maybe have this option

[unluky]

Originally Posted by AndrewC1989

What you're describing sounds like VLD. You can additionally add GFHB but I'm not 100% sure what features it adds other than sign illumination which is active above ~50mph.

Yep, VLD is what I coded on that was turned off due to US laws.

[huskerdoc2020]

Originally Posted by TAZ007

I'm sure it would come with a cost.

Yea, $1.5 trillion of our money.

[IllSic_Design]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Wow, so weird. Why was it disallowed for the longest time?

Just because our laws for certain things have not been updated in ages to keep up with tech, same thing that's happening now with securities laws and crypto/defi.

[Limegrntaln]

This is a good video showing what it does.

[tranquility]

Originally Posted by IllSic_Design

Just because our laws for certain things have not been updated in ages to keep up with tech, same thing that's happening now with securities laws and crypto/defi.

Guess I'm confused as presumably was a specific law to disallow this, otherwise hey should've been in use w/o prbs?

[IllSic_Design]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Guess I'm confused as presumably was a specific law to disallow this, otherwise hey should've been in use w/o prbs?

"The reason is basic bureaucracy. In 1967, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety developed a regulation (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108), which specified that road-legal vehicles must have a dedicated high beam and a dedicated low beam.

Because adaptive beams don’t have dedicated, separate high and low beams, they violate this regulation. Adaptive beams can adjust brightness and illumination area, but they do all of it using the same LED lights."

[tranquility]

Originally Posted by IllSic_Design

"The reason is basic bureaucracy. In 1967, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety developed a regulation (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108), which specified that road-legal vehicles must have a dedicated high beam and a dedicated low beam.

Because adaptive beams don’t have dedicated, separate high and low beams, they violate this regulation. Adaptive beams can adjust brightness and illumination area, but they do all of it using the same LED lights."

Tx ic...but I thought this thread was about moving headlights haha. "Adaptive" is all-encompassing, not just referring to moving lamps but also the light intensity?

Anyway, such poor law interpretation, one would've though despite this law the lights in question would still be permissible.

[IllSic_Design]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Tx ic...but I thought this thread was about moving headlights haha. "Adaptive" is all-encompassing, not just referring to moving lamps but also the light intensity?

Anyway, such poor law interpretation, one would've though despite this law the lights in question would still be permissible.

no, not just moving. Adaptive also means being able to adjust(dim or brighten) the lights on its own, and also emit light in only certain areas of the beam

[DanielHazelrigg]

Seems like those of us with newer models where anti-dazzle was decoded could maybe code it back to active via BimmerCode?

Wonder how it would work on a pre-LCI G01 with the adaptive lights.

[NOVA99]

My Benz has it already somehow they got around it. It is amazing to watch in good ole USA countryside. Leave in auto and it's amazing. No one ever flashes me for brights…ever. Car is smart.

[Limegrntaln]

Originally Posted by DanielHazelrigg

Seems like those of us with newer models where anti-dazzle was decoded could maybe code it back to active via BimmerCode?

Wonder how it would work on a pre-LCI G01 with the adaptive lights.

Many people have recoded it, already. Check my post above. But also, sometimes when the car does an over the air update, the anti dazzle is again reverted to OEM spec.

[JustChris]

Good news for you guys 👍🏻👍🏻

[DanielHazelrigg]

Originally Posted by Limegrntaln

Many people have recoded it, already. Check my post above. But also, sometimes when the car does an over the air update, the anti dazzle is again reverted to OEM spec.

I think I would be okay then because I don't have OTA updates in my 2021 X3M40I. Thanks - I might give it a try if you enjoy the functionality!

[shoman24v]

Does this differ from the adaptive headlights I have in my 330i?

[ellipsis212]

Originally Posted by huskerdoc2020

Yea, $1.5 trillion of our money.

Go cry in the corner by yourself. This is an awesome update to our outdated automotive lighting regs which benefits enthusiasts and improves safety.

I spent a ton last year upgrading my car with these and I'm glad others will get to option it now without the hassle.

[Bimmer Pleaser]

Originally Posted by ellipsis212

Go cry in the corner by yourself. This is an awesome update to our outdated automotive lighting regs which benefits enthusiasts and improves safety.

I spent a ton last year upgrading my car with these and I'm glad others will get to option it now without the hassle.

yeah I mean sounds like the hardware was already included in the executive package or whatever but the option was inhibited the software due to noncompliance with US regulations (?) ... We were already paying for it so we might as well have it.