New matrix headlights

[Doombar]

Can anyone tell me how the new matrix headlights are supposed to work?

 

Just picked my new sportline up and I have the light setting on auto. The manual seems to indicate that if you push the indicator stalk forward to turn full beams on it does something clever not to blind other drivers. If thats the case, it isn’t working on my car….

 

I think I am missing something - what’s supposed to be so amazing about these lights, and what is the best configuration to select for the best results?

 

thanks

[CJJE]

My Karoq has high beam assist headlights which dip when they detect a vehicle in front (either travelling in the same direction or coming towards you. When I press the stalk forward to turn on the main beam, a light-shaped icon with an A inside it appears on the instrument panel. The lights them shift from main beam to dip beam automatically so they give the best possible view while not dazzling other drivers. Note that the light switch has to be on the Auto setting, you have to be driving at more than 40 mph, and the feature has to be enabled in the car's menu settings. 

 

With your matrix headlights, when you are driving on main beam, you should also see the light beam being 'blanked' from the opposite lane as a car comes towards you, perhaps in just a narrow sector leaving the road lit wherever it won't dazzle another driver. I had the older mechanical system on the Golf's Bi-Xenon headlights, and it was great for giving the best possible vision. Check your handbook though to see how they are activated as I seem to remember that my Golf would cancel the dynamic headlights if I pressed the stalk forward again. 

 

There's more information about how they work here: ŠKODA Safety (skoda-auto.com)

 

Chris 

Edited 11 December, 2021 by CJJE

[Doombar]

Excellent. Thank you, that’s just what I was looking for. I will check it again tomorrow. 

[CJJE]

Just now, Doombar said:

Excellent. Thank you, that’s just what I was looking for. I will check it again tomorrow. 

I've just added a link to a Skoda page describing how they work

 

Chris

[Yogi-Bear]

36 minutes ago, Doombar said:

The manual seems to indicate that if you push the indicator stalk forward to turn full beams on it does something clever not to blind other drivers.

 

It does indeed. You should have a white main beam symbol with an 'A' in the middle of it on the dash as @CJJE says above. It then turns blue when the main beams come on (above a certain speed (pretty sure it's less than 40mph, but I could be wrong) and on roads that don't have street lights - in my short experience so far). If you push the stalk forward twice, you'll get the blue main beam symbol in the dash without the 'A' - that's basically permanent full beams and not what you want.

 

So far, the system has been excellent. You really can see it shut off / hide the beam incrementally as a car approaches - and blank out a whole section if you're following a car as well. I haven't yet had someone flash me, so it seems like they have been working flawlessly.

[Doombar]

So should I leave the stalk pushed forwards at all times? What will it do at under 40mph? I am looking for the ‘idiot’ setting where I don’t need to be constantly turning things on and off 🙂

[KenONeill]

In which context, when does high beam "assist" dip the headlights?

[Ootohere]

If people are flashing you with their full beam or spotlights then your lights are likely sh!te, set wrong, not working as some designer / engineer thought they might and managed to get passed by the EU / type Approved,

just like cornering lights shining at other drivers / riders as you are stopped with lock on and at junctions, traffic lights etc.

 

The Matrix system can work as it is supposed to and designed to and at times is blinding / annoying other drivers or road users who think you have not dipped the full beam because you have not and the light / beam has appeared to them like full beam which is what it can be.

 

PITA as anyone might well notice when someone with the crappy lights come towards them.

 

I have them on my car and have driven other cars with them and now do the dipping manually.

On empty roads and coming into towns / villages i am OK leaving the Auto to dip the lights. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 11 December, 2021 by roottoot

[Leon-y-k]

So I’m theory the Kodiaq should do the same?

 

the pre facelift ones don’t turn at all, only illuminate the corners ever so slightly as you turn. 
 

[ZacDaMan72]

8 hours ago, Leon-y-k said:

So I’m theory the Kodiaq should do the same?

 

the pre facelift ones don’t turn at all, only illuminate the corners ever so slightly as you turn. 
 

If you have a facelift Kodiaq with LED Matrix headlights then yes.

[Doombar]

Sorry to labour on about this point, but what is the best setting for this - should I leave the indicator stalk always forward?
 

Or should I think of it more like cruise control – you turn it on for an extended period of time while you’re driving, but you don’t have it on at slow speed?

[Routemaster1461]

I suspect that all Skodas are fitted with standard VAG lighting stalks, which may or may not be different depending on whether you have auto dipping. My 2021 Karoq does, and this is almost certainly the same stalk as a Kodoaq. On mine, the only position that the stalk can take is the central position. You can pull it towards you to flash the lights (spring loaded) and you can push it away, agin spring loaded. Pushing it away once will switch on the auto dipping, pushing again will put main beam 'permanently'. I assume you pull towards you to cancel the auto function. The car will revert to dip-beam only on a restart. Basically the stalk will only ever be in the central position unless it is being operated.

 

I live in a fairly rural area, and I frequently travel on an unlit A road which has an unlit village with a 30mph limit. I seem to recall that the auto function works fine through the 30 mph limit,

[Yogi-Bear]

1 hour ago, Routemaster1461 said:

I assume you pull towards you to cancel the auto function.

 

No, that just flashes the lights as normal... and is the most annoying thing about the system. If they are set to auto, then only way I can see to turn the main beams off completely is to push forward to set them to permanently on, then pull back to turn them off. If you just push forward, it cycles between auto and permanent.

 

1 hour ago, Routemaster1461 said:

I seem to recall that the auto function works fine through the 30 mph limit,

 

I'm not sure of the speeds for the matrix system (believe it or not, I've not driven enough at night on unlit roads to get to grips with exactly when it turns the beams on/off) - but on my old bear it would turn the main beams on when you got to 40mph, but wouldn't turn them off when you slowed down until you got down to about 20mph if my memory serves me... unless they dipped due to oncoming traffic, but then they wouldn't go back to main beams until you got back over 40mph.

[Dappernut]

I have no experience of the VAG system, but on the Ford equivalent pushing the stalk temporarily toggled between main beam and dipped (and vice versa).  E.g. if the main was on and you were dazzling a pedestrian you could push it to toggle to dipped.  After a few minutes it would revert to fully automatic and return to what the system felt was best.  The Ford system had a standard "on" and a separate auto setting on the lights selector dial.

[J.R.]

14 hours ago, roottoot said:

If people are flashing you with their full beam or spotlights then your lights are likely sh!te, set wrong, not working as some designer / engineer thought they might and managed to get passed by the EU / type Approved,

just like cornering lights shining at other drivers / riders as you are stopped with lock on and at junctions, traffic lights etc.

 

The Matrix system can work as it is supposed to and designed to and at times is blinding / annoying other drivers or road users who think you have not dipped the full beam because you have not and the light / beam has appeared to them like full beam which is what it can be.

 

PITA as anyone might well notice when someone with the crappy lights come towards them.

 

 

Frustration pushed me into a road rage incident on the autoroute from Calais, a Range Rover model that all the influencers seem to pose in front of (dont know the model as I have no interest) had driven around the Calais rocade on the left overtaking lane for a mile slowly holding up the traffic then shot off well beyond the 90kph limit, I caught him up on the autoroute where he was driving at 110kph, the roads are almost empty at that time of night, i passed him and noticed he dipped his main beam as I passed, a courtesy I actually was not expecting.

 

When I got say 300m ahead on went his main beams which were dazzling me despite the distance between us, it was a straight road & he did not need main beam, I put on my rear fog lights and his lights dipped immediately, too fast in fact but I had not worked out why, within a minute they were back on again so I again put on my rear fog light, same result, this continued a dozen times before i lost my rag and slowed right down, let him pass me and then I sat up his chuff for 10 minutes with my headlights on main beam 👍

 

He accelerated away and it was then I noticed that his beam pattern was changing when there were oncoming vehicles on the other carriageway and realised that like so many modern drivers he had abdicated his control of the vehicle allowing the (not) smart system to dip his headlights, when I got more than a certain distance from him the sensor must no longer have registered my rear lights as a vehicle, the last time when I braked to give him the business the lights also dipped immediately.

[silver1011]

I had a similar system on my 2016 Mercedes-Benz E-Class. It worked OK but was not infallible, the beams would move around to avoid oncoming vehicles and those I was following.

 

I'm sure the Kodiaq's matrix headlights are much improved but I did get the occasional flash from other road users, the system reacted but sometimes not quite fast enough to avoid brief dazzling of other road users. I ended up turning them off and instead reverted back to manually toggling between dipped and high beam.

[Yogi-Bear]

39 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

I'm sure the Kodiaq's matrix headlights are much improved

 

The distinct advantage of LED lights, in my experience, is that they have a very definite edge to them - they're either lighting up a bit of road or they're not. You can clearly see the light pattern change to keep oncoming traffic and cars you're following 'in the dark' whilst still illuminating the road around them. I think they are also quicker to react to oncoming traffic as well, because it appears that the beam pattern starts to alter way before my old bear would dip the lights on auto (and because it's not just full or dipped, there is a better balance between maintaining your visibility and not blinding the oncoming drivers).

 

I'm not assuming it is a perfect system, but on twisty and hilly roads I've not had any complaints from other drivers yet.

[Ootohere]

@J.R.

I go through a lots of Windscreen Wash on trips, even on clean clear roads, 

if they want to stick on my jacksy too close for their reactions or the cars 'safety / auto braking' or expect me to have their excessive amount of lighting in my mirrors then i have their Auto Wash doing the job for them as my fragrant fluids is hitting their screen.  

 

Childish i know but i no longer brake test others. 

[Doombar]

Still none the wiser as to how this is supposed to work really. Set to auto mode it seems completely unable to detect cars coming towards me - although does detect if someone is ahead of me in my lane (ie travelling same direction). 

the manual talks about a minimum speed too - but that’s ambiguous as well: 

• The driving speed is higher than 30 km/h or 60 km/h (depending on the vehicle equipment).

Does it turn it off under those speeds? Does it stop you turning it on? Is it 30 or 60?! The Skoda online manuals are dire, they’ve edited the content to be so brief as to be no help unless you’re totally clueless and just want the most basic of info. A tactic to drive customer / dealer interaction perhaps…

Edited 18 December, 2021 by Doombar

[Yogi-Bear]

6 minutes ago, Doombar said:

Set to auto mode it seems completely unable to detect cars coming towards me

 

Apologies if I'm asking stupid questions, but you're using them on roads without a central reservation, yes? Just thought I'd check as you mention 'lane'... Anyway, what does or doesn't happen? How do you know it is not detecting cars coming towards you - do they flash at you?

 

As for the manual, yes, it is **** and they really could do with someone who is a native English speaker to translate it, instead of using Google or whatever they have used. The speed thing, based purely on my experience, worked as follows (MAS = Minimum Activation Speed, which I think is 40mph/60kph on UK cars) with the old High Beam Assistant system.

 

Driving < MAS - turn lights to auto, main beam will never switch on

Accelerate > MAS - main beam will come on if road is unlit

Decelerate < MAS - main beam will stay on if it is already on, but if it turns off, it won't come back on again unless you accelerate > MAS again

 

This system was particularly annoying on roads with lots of slow bends, which is precisely when you need as much visibility as possible. If you met a car coming the other way just as you were slowing for the bend, the main beams would go off and then not come back on again until you were around the bend and accelerating again.

 

With the new matrix LED lights - and this is just me theorising as I haven't found any description or done enough driving at night down dark roads to say for sure - it should be better as the main beams never turn off completely. Once you go > MAS and they activate, then the beam pattern should continually adjust for traffic, but I don't believe the system turns the main beams off completely at any point, even if you drop below the MAS. However, I have noticed that when I have gone from a stretch of unlit to lit road, the beams do turn off no matter what speed you are doing. My assumption is that they would not turn back on again if you went back to unlit roads unless you also exceed the MAS.

 

You can almost see the logic in how these systems have been programmed to work... but they also highlight the problem in any automated driving aids right the way up to full self-driving cars - as humans, we make judgements based on many factors and control our cars and their systems appropriately. To teach an AI system to do this is a massive undertaking, and whilst AI systems will improve and get better, they can never (IMHO) respond as instinctively as a human. But the real problems occur when we cannot control our cars or their systems properly because trying to override the High Beam Assist or whatever is a lot more convoluted than it should be (or is in a car without those systems).

 

Sorry, went off on one there 🙄.

[Doombar]

Excellent input. I will try again later. No central reservation - twisty’ish B roads in the UK. My wife said last night it didn’t adjust for anyone coming towards her. I will go out again and test it and see what I can come

up with.

 

[linni]

Just for curiosity - are the Matrix headlights any good? I suppose they have updated the windshield camera?

The High beam assist I have is total rubbish.

[Yogi-Bear]

1 hour ago, linni said:

Just for curiosity - are the Matrix headlights any good?

 

In my limited experience so far, very good. Next time I'm out in the dark, if I remember I'll take a diversion down the road near me that I think demonstrates them really well, and post some dash cam footage.

[linni]

Why I asked that first Seat LED lights were very poor whereas Audi Matrix were superb. So within one concortium the quality could be from bottom to top.

[xspartx]

They light up the road very well.

 

I don't think I'll bother with the "auto dip" thing, as I just manually dip out of habit and have done for 35 years.