Living in rural France with virtually no artificial light and very twisty lanes I would love to have my headlights change to main beam at a lower speed.

Am I correct in thinking this necessitates intervention by a garage and that there's no user control.

Thanks

Car is facelift 2018 1.5 tsi petrol manual with tinted windows.

Not sure if the F/L is different, but my MY16 Octavia high beam assist uses ambient lighting (not speed) to switch to HB, dipping for oncoming vehicles and street lighting.

The sensor is on the front windscreen, in front of the rear view mirror.

There are two possibilities. 1) If only the high beam assistant is installed, then it works via the interior/rearview mirror, which technically doesn't have a camera. 2) The high beam assistant works via the assistant camera in the windshield. Regarding parameters: If you have control unit 20, then this is the method: Control unit 20 adjustment

Activation speed for

High beam assistant

The activation speed for the high beam assistant is set to 58 km/h at the factory. If you don't have control unit 20, it's normal in the A5 control unit.

Correct there are no user interventions that allow the speed at which activation occurs to be altered via the dash menu's.

However diagnostic software can alter the speed value if you can find somewhere that has VCDS that can help.

22 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

Not sure if the F/L is different, but my MY16 Octavia high beam assist uses ambient lighting (not speed) to switch to HB, dipping for oncoming vehicles and street lighting.

The sensor is on the front windscreen, in front of the rear view mirror.

@Warrior193 in my experience (MY16) it actually uses both, and using VCDS software I own, I know there is a speed value in module A5 at which it turns on and off as I've changed it (and back to factory as it was undesirable😀)

It will not put high beams on until approx 40mph. (58km/h).

Thanks for the information everyone

Just to show you what i see in my software tools, below shows the speed on and off values, these were my modified values which were a bit too low.

Edited 1 October, 20251 Oct by paulski

But even if the speed threshold is not attained, the HBA can still be manually overridden, can't it? - it is on my mk3.

Edited 1 October, 20251 Oct by Warrior193
correction

Sure, manuell you can Always Turn on the high beam light

This Parameter is for the City detection

Main_Beam_Assist_Urban_Area_Detection

Not sure if this helps, I have changed my auto headlight using my OBDeleven and it allowed me to 1, change the speed that the HL comes on and 2, it allowed me to change the LUX value that the sensor picks up to turn on/off the HL main beam.

Iirc I set the speed so the HL come on from 28mph and I dropped the LUX value down by 20lux so as not to dazzle oncoming motorists with my LED full beam HL.

This is on my Octavia estate 2017 (67 reg)