Dynamic Light Assist - a bit rubbish?

[IanJD]

2 hours ago, RicardoM said:

Sure, you need years of practice and another college to understand the thing and have an opinion. I wonder how drivers survived the nightmare of not having SLA 🤨

Nothing to do with college degrees. You said SLA was useless and just for lazy drivers; I was simply pointing out that you can't make a valid comment on it unless you've driven with it. Reading about it on the Internet doesn't count...

[IanJD]

I assume everyone knows that you can set how quickly SLA dips the lights, there's an item in the menus that sets this? Set it to "early" and they dip quicker.

Edited 18 November, 2019 by IanJD

[Rikochet]

7 hours ago, JR RS said:

 

So out of all that footage, the one time it's 2 secs to slow react deems the system rubbish!?!?

Crikey!!

It's an assist system.  It's not a human-replacement system.

It uses cameras and reacts accordingly.  

It's not human to predict wat is coming around a corner/turn and pre-react.

SLA is a reactive system, not a predictive system.

 

p.s. I've had many scenarios where humans have taken longer than 2 secs to turn off their high-beams, cause they're distracted or don't realise that light travels across dividers!!

 

To be honest, I only watched the first clip as that part of the footage I highlighted proved what I thought was happening with my car - for me that makes the system not just rubbish, bit a danger to other road users. 

 

Causing undue dazzle to a vehicle editing a corner and coming towards me is not a risk I want to take.

 

My issue is that Skoda do market this as a human replacement and expect it to behave in that manner. If a human can react to do their main beam in better time then the System, then the System is not fit for purpose.

 

As for other drivers not reacting in time, then that's an issue for general diving standards and we shouldn't be on a race to the bottom for safety - the benchmark for the System should be the best drivers out there, not the worst.

 

I'm not having a go at you, so please don't take it that way. I just feel cheated by marketing, annoyed that I've wasted mone and sorry for the other drivers who've had to put up with my car.

[JR RS]

23 minutes ago, Rikochet said:

To be honest, I only watched the first clip as that part of the footage I highlighted proved what I thought was happening with my car - for me that makes the system not just rubbish, bit a danger to other road users. 

 

Causing undue dazzle to a vehicle editing a corner and coming towards me is not a risk I want to take.

 

My issue is that Skoda do market this as a human replacement and expect it to behave in that manner. If a human can react to do their main beam in better time then the System, then the System is not fit for purpose.

 

As for other drivers not reacting in time, then that's an issue for general diving standards and we shouldn't be on a race to the bottom for safety - the benchmark for the System should be the best drivers out there, not the worst.

 

I'm not having a go at you, so please don't take it that way. I just feel cheated by marketing, annoyed that I've wasted mone and sorry for the other drivers who've had to put up with my car.

 

nah, all good.

 

i've just never seen SLA/DLA marketted as a "human replacement", and hence never expected it to behave as good as, or like, a human, i.e. predictive.

its an assist system, hence Smart Light Assist, or Dynamic Light Assist.

 

as for the highlighted bit - yes, it was about 1-2 secs too slow to react in that instance, but there were many many other scenarios where it reacted within a second of seeing a car. 

despite the many factors at play, it is pretty good at reacting to oncoming traffic, in varying roads, 99% of the time. 
windy twisty roads, where the slow reaction occured, is a tough one to react to given the speeds (travelling at 70 km/h) and the nature of the bends.

 

nonethless, i'm not a salesman. 

ur opinion of what is acceptable/realistic is different to mine

 

hopefully urs gets sorted somehow, and ur a happy camper.

[Rikochet]

15 minutes ago, JR RS said:

 

nah, all good.

 

i've just never seen SLA/DLA marketted as a "human replacement", and hence never expected it to behave as good as, or like, a human, i.e. predictive.

its an assist system, hence Smart Light Assist, or Dynamic Light Assist.

 

as for the highlighted bit - yes, it was about 1-2 secs too slow to react in that instance, but there were many many other scenarios where it reacted within a second of seeing a car. 

despite the many factors at play, it is pretty good at reacting to oncoming traffic, in varying roads, 99% of the time. 
windy twisty roads, where the slow reaction occured, is a tough one to react to given the speeds (travelling at 70 km/h) and the nature of the bends.

 

nonethless, i'm not a salesman. 

ur opinion of what is acceptable/realistic is different to mine

 

hopefully urs gets sorted somehow, and ur a happy camper.

 

Cheers 👍

 

I'll just have to accept the limitations from my perspective, disable the System and go back to doing what I've done for the last 22 years  I'll get the main dealer to take a look at the next service in a few months time in case there is something a miss.

[grebble]

The only time I've been flashed when using light assist in my L&K is on a long straight. The driver of an oncoming vehicle 600 yards or so away will think, "Look at this idiot coming the other way with his Xenons on full beam. Come on, dip!" Flash flash. Obviously they are unaware that the system will dip automatically in its own time, well before I get to them. On twisty roads I've never had a problem.

[silver1011]

If the system is dazzling other road users, whether it's for a couple of seconds or not, then calling it "a bit rubbish" is justified.

 

Just like I like to call oncoming drivers who aren't able to manually dip their headlights a bit rubbish too.

[D-Cunningham]

I don't want to cause more friction between 'lazy drivers' and 'technology', but here's my two penneth. My wife has a mid-range VW Tiguan with this feature and she swears by it. She reckons that if you're driving at night, especially on country roads and/or roads that you're not familiar with, then your main job is to concentrate on driving well. That's partly why she has the DSG box as well. In my experience, as a passenger in the car when this system is turned on, I have yet to see an oncoming driver get annoyed with her over having her lights on full beam. However, I have been dazzled by oncoming drivers who have failed to dip, maybe because they were changing gear and/or reaching for the dip switch. So, this is only my personal experience, but I'm on the side of any technology that gives you more time to concentrate on the critical thing in your car - driving it as well as you can. 

[silver1011]

When it comes to technology, you'll always have lovers and haters.

 

I'm not sure flicking a lever diverts attention away from the main task of driving.

 

The reason most people don't flash back in retaliation is because whilst the headlights don't dip fast enough to prevent dazzle, they do dip before the oncoming driver's grace period for retaliation is up.

 

It's a great feature, but as with continuously developing technology it isn't yet as good as an attentive humans input.

 

[GWCTas]

Question

On 18/11/2019 at 23:47, TallPaul_S said:

This is one of the best videos showing it working. 

 

 

 

Question - is the system designed to dip the lights when approaching cars travelling in the same direction?

[JR RS]

45 minutes ago, GWCTas said:

Question - is the system designed to dip the lights when approaching cars travelling in the same direction?

 

yes - it will either mask or dip the high beams if a car is detected in front of u, travelling in the same direction.

[GWCTas]

Thanks - good to know. I haven't driven at night yet but good to know what to expect.

[TallPaul_S]

Yeah you can quite clearly see in that video the U shaped blank in the beam with high beam either side when they're following a car. 

[mandp]

Is `Dynamic Light assist`, (as seen in the video),  the same thing as `Light Assist with High Beam Control`?

My car has the latter.

[Sagalout]

^^^^^ No. You have auto high/low beam dip. So either on normal low or high beam. The AFS/HID system does modify the beam pattern according to speed etc but doesnt work like the dynamic system. That stays on high beam but 'blanks out' areas of possible dazzle for other vehicles whether tbey are approaching or being approached. (as per the video)

One way to tell simply is to check whether you have the 'whiskers' that illuminate in the headlamp; that is the dynamic style.    

[IanJD]

At the weekend I did a long drive at night for the first time in this car, on a mixture of motorways, A roads and B roads. All I can say is that the SLA works extremely well, much more so with the new LED headlights than the HID ones on the previous model. Excellent visibility down the sides of the road whether following another car or with traffic coming the other way, didn't get flashed once in the entire journey -- my wife in the passenger seat said it was fascinating watching the dark zones following approaching cars and then full beam coming back up immediately they passed, or following the car in front even round bends in the road. You absolutely could not do anything similar with manually controlled main beams, the improvement in visibility is huge and immediately obvious.

[JackySi]

I've had SLA on my Superb and I found it rubbish sometimes and sometimes very useful. After going for Volvo V90 with Full Adaptive LED, I can say Superb's system was rubbish in comparison. The way camera reacts on Volvo, it is far safer and better. Superb could never react in turn like when the camera doesn't see behind the twisty road, but the Volvo can somehow react far faster. Also when I got to someone from behind on far away, Superb took soooooo long to turn off the headlights, I've had to intervene a lot of times. Also highways in Slovenia were terrible experience, here Volvo isn't much better. Camera simply can't see over the fence well. 

I believe if human can understand lights computer can as well. Computer can react faster than brain if properly coded.

If I were to buy another Superb without Matrix (cause I don't know how those work) I would avoid SLA.

[Too Tall]

27 minutes ago, JackySi said:

After going for Volvo V90 with Full Adaptive LED, I can say Superb's system was rubbish in comparison. 

 

After going for Superb with xenon SLA I can say my old Octavia with halogen bulbs was rubbish too.

 

You'd hope the Volvo is better. You are comparing a Volvo using a much newer Full Adaptive LED system to a Superb with xenon SLA that is alot older.

 

Apples and oranges.

 

 

[JackySi]

6 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

 

After going for Superb with xenon SLA I can say my old Octavia with halogen bulbs was rubbish too.

 

You'd hope the Volvo is better. You are comparing a Volvo using a much newer Full Adaptive LED system to a Superb with xenon SLA that is alot older.

 

Apples and oranges.

 

 

 

SLA on Superb was presented in 2015-2016 while Halogen lights were presented on cars in 1983, Xenon was first seen in BMW 7 in 1991 and V90's full LED were presented in 2017. So how the heck does your comparison work??? 

Headlights have almost NOTHING to do with the problem I was talking about (other than the speed of shading)..... The problem isn't in the headlight it self, but in the radar/camera detecting other cars/people/trucks...... Which is totally different UNIT that has literally nothing to do with headlight it self. Skoda has either very poor software using the camera hardware or the camera is simply bad. If you create a system that's supposed to do some real useful shading make it work properly, not half way. I had SLA on Superb for 2 years and most of my drive was at night and the system was just not reliable as it should be. 

The price difference between Volvo and Skoda is obviously huge... So it's impossible comparison in that way. But you can not compare Halogen headlight to anything. Because Xenon exists long enough and LED isn't actually "brighter" it's just more controllable. But in the end the issue we are talking about here, is not the headlight but its the camera that doesn't know what's car and what's not. Both Volvo and Superb use same camera for Lane Assist system than for SLA/Full Adaptive LED. 

It is literally apples and apples, there is no oranges

 

P.S.: Beam related, Xenon on Superb actually had longer range than my Volvo's LED. However the density and the beam pattern on Volvo is just far superior and that's where LED shines. However there are many more lights in headlight so it makes perfect sense too. But that costs whopping money too. 

Edited 12 December, 2019 by JackySi

[Too Tall]

19 minutes ago, JackySi said:

 

headlights have almost NOTHING to do with the problem I was talking about..... The problem isn't in the headlight it self, but in the radar/camera detecting other cars/people/trucks...... Which is totally different UNIT that has literally nothing to do with headlight it self.

 

You cannot separate the two. 

 

As lightsource you are comparing xenonbulbs (your old Superb) to LED (Volvo). One of the advantages of your LED system is fast response (milliseconds) using separate LEDS to shape the beam. On / off, instant reaction. Skoda Xenon SLA works with mechanical shutters and rollers, these have to come down/up/sideways, or the bulb has to swivel, or both, so it takes alot longer to shape the beam and the range is limited. The movement of the shutters is what you percieve as slow.

 

You could put the "faster" camera of the Volvo in the Superb, but the shutters of the 'old' system will not work faster, the response will still be slower then LED, and you would still find the system slow to respond.

 

Skoda = old VW technology. Volvo is renowned for their lights, at the cutting edge so to speak. If you want new technology, you shouldn't shop at Skoda.

 

That being said, I cannot help but think that when people complain about being flashed when the lights are slow to adapt (and this is for all car brands) it often means 1. the lights are badly calibrated or 2. they live in a country where it's not done to drive around with your highbeams on, so you will get the flash even if the system works correctly. If *every* Skoda/VW/insert other carbrand here/ would suffer from slow reaction times, it would be on the evening news.

 

 

Edited 12 December, 2019 by Too Tall

[JackySi]

3 minutes ago, Too Tall said:

 

You cannot separate the two. 

 

As lightsource you are comparing xenonbulbs (your old Superb) to LED (Volvo). One of the advantages of your LED system is fast response (milliseconds) using separate LEDS to shape the beam. On / off, instant reaction. Skoda Xenon SLA works with mechanical shutters and rollers, these have to come down/up/sideways, or the bulb has to swivel, or both, so it takes alot longer to shape the beam and the range is limited. The movement of the shutters is what you percieve as slow.

 

You could put the "faster" camera of the Volvo in the Superb, but the shutters of the 'old' system will not work faster, the response will still be slower then LED, and you would still find the system slow to respond.

 

Skoda = old VW technology. Volvo is renowned for their lights, at the cutting edge so to speak. If you want new technology, you shouldn't shop at Skoda.

 

That being said, I cannot help but think that when people complain about being flashed when the lights are slow to adapt (and this is for all car brands) it often means 1. the lights are badly calibrated or 2. they live in a country where it's not done to drive around with your highbeams on, so you will get the flash even if the system works correctly. If *every* Skoda/VW/insert other carbrand here/ would suffer from slow reaction times, it would be on the evening news.

 

 

I know exactly how Skoda's SLA works as I've taken apart a headlight and messed with it for fun. The issue is when the car doesn't react AT All... And that's what's been happening to me all the time. Reaction time isn't that bad as you may believe. And on Volvo there are also mechanical shutters/rollers... They're just faster. Even the AFS on Volvo is 3x faster (the way turning lights work in low beam mode). The technology of headlight is not an issue with what I was experiencing on SLA. Issue was when I got behind a car and car took 4-5 seconds to see there is car upfront to even start moving shutters, which move very fast as they don't need to travel far in small Xenon housing....... As I said I do not agree with your point of view at all. I don't care how good/bad headlight is, while the camera should START sending reaction signals much faster as it can be very unsafe to relay on SLA. While the thing is that if you don't wait for SLA to react, you're left with literally manual high beam... So you need to dezzle other drivers in order to see SLA working. 

 

I didn't drive just one SLA Superb though, but I do not disagree its possibly the issue was only on the few specific cars I've driven. 
So back to my point, headlights have nothing to do with the super slow camera reaction times that I've been experiencing. I'm talking about seconds reaction times, not few ms that mechanical parts of the SLA headlight take. 

[Too Tall]

Just now, JackySi said:

the super slow camera reaction times that I've been experiencing. I'm talking about seconds reaction times, not few ms that mechanical parts of the SLA headlight take. 

 

Sound like there was something wrong with your car then. Did you take it to the dealer?

[NJRJ]

Just switch manually or get the car fixed, no need to spend £10,000's on a new marque and then come on here slagging everyone.

Not dipping is such a stereotypical BMW driver!

 

[Gmac983]

1 hour ago, Too Tall said:

Skoda = old VW technology. Volvo is renowned for their lights, at the cutting edge so to speak. If you want new technology, you shouldn't shop at Skoda.

 

 

I don't have any experience of the adaptive headlights on any skoda. However both my parents and my in-laws have fairly recent volvos with adaptive lights and both have had to be "recallibrated" (dealers terminology so I don't know were any parts changed or just software updates or what) on a couple of occasions each as both vehicles in question went through fazes of dangerously too slow reaction or way too sensitive (as in reacting to other vehicles best part of 2 miles away or a house lights hundreds of metres back from the road side) this was regardless of user settings within infotainment system. To balance that, after calibration they worked well. So even the claimed cutting edge of Volvo headlight tech was not infallible on 2 different models. 

But judging by the number of higher end adaptive led light equipped cars that don't dip until the last second not many of these systems work worth a damn anyway. It's either that or far too many people are ignorant with their headlight etiquette. 

Edited 12 December, 2019 by Gmac983

[JackySi]

1 hour ago, Too Tall said:

 

Sound like there was something wrong with your car then. Did you take it to the dealer?

And tell them what? Some times SLA doesn't detect rear headlights and sometimes it doesn't react to cars but sometimes it works perfectly fine? How would they debug/fix that?
I did have 2 recalibrations though, first time because of SLA software upgrade and second time because of a windshield change while they messed something up with camera and system didn't work at all. But it was always same.

I never said it doesn't work at all, I just said it works poorly compared to other brands I drove. Specially Audi. Audi's adaptive matrix headlights (A6 2018+) work so well that u never need to do anything...

 

1 hour ago, NJRJ said:

Just switch manually or get the car fixed, no need to spend £10,000's on a new marque and then come on here slagging everyone.

Not dipping is such a stereotypical BMW driver!

 

 

There was nothing to get fixed? You pay the money to get assistance with headlights, not to have to manually work with the headlights, seriously haha.... 
Also you can not do what SLA does manually... It shades cars and leaves full beam on, giving you extra safety. When it works and you're not dazzling other people which is actually LESS safe than having the system in the first place.

 

33 minutes ago, Gmac983 said:

 

I don't have any experience of the adaptive headlights on any skoda. However both my parents and my in-laws have fairly recent volvos with adaptive lights and both have had to be "recallibrated" (dealers terminology so I don't know were any parts changed or just software updates or what) on a couple of occasions each as both vehicles in question went through fazes of dangerously too slow reaction or way too sensitive (as in reacting to other vehicles best part of 2 miles away or a house lights hundreds of metres back from the road side) this was regardless of user settings within infotainment system. To balance that, after calibration they worked well. So even the claimed cutting edge of Volvo headlight tech was not infallible on 2 different models. 

But judging by the number of higher end adaptive led light equipped cars that don't dip until the last second not many of these systems work worth a damn anyway. It's either that or far too many people are ignorant with their headlight etiquette. 

In some cars, these headlights actually work amazingly. They improve visibility which improves safety. It can be very helpful in countries where there is a lot of wildlife on road (like where I drive most of the time). So they're actually worth a lot if executed properly. It can also mean you don't hit a pedestrian that doesn't walk properly on road (in my country no one uses any reflection, so they're easy to miss, specially drunk people)