[premier3is]

Originally Posted by Weiner0123

Yeah I do I'm not 100% tho because recently I haven't driven at night but I was in a poorly lit underground parking and all the lights were still white and bright once I turned it off it went orange and dim.

I agree, it blows my mind they sell cars and they know BMW has a big enthusiast market and people love modifying there cars.. how did this slip there minds..??

Having tinted windows is a BIG thing for me, I will not drive cars with no tint. I can't imagine how frustrated ppl are about this, I would throw a fuckin FIT with BMW had this happened to me. Unbelievable, should not happen to any car let alone when you pay 50-60k+

Just another reason why I won't update my software. I'm good right now, don't want any fucked up issues to start if I take it for an update.

[Burrcold]

Originally Posted by premier3is

Having tinted windows is a BIG thing for me, I will not drive cars with no tint. I can't imagine how frustrated ppl are about this, I would throw a fuckin FIT with BMW had this happened to me. Unbelievable, should not happen to any car let alone when you pay 50-60k+

Just another reason why I won't update my software. I'm good right now, don't want any fucked up issues to start if I take it for an update.

Yup it's super annoying. At least my drive home is in the dark so the screens are nice and bright lol...silver lining is that I'm mad only half the time I drive!

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by Weiner0123

Found a tiny temporary solution.. bought a flexible $7 book light off amazon clipped it to my heat vent shined it at the interior light sensor... works like a charm and don't even notice it. I also turned the dial down for no airflow from that vent cause I'm sure that wouldn't be good idea to heat the battery up..

Clever cheap and easy solution. Good thinking. If I'd thought of this immediately I might not have taken the time to develop my little Arduino IR blaster.

Sounds like you're close enough on the positioning of your LED, but you're not exactly on top of it. I read originally, maybe as you did, that the ambient light sensor was under that glossy black plastic curved trim piece to the left of the cluster, but it's not. Turns out it's on the instrument cluster, directly in between the Auto-Hi-Beam indicator (#2) and the Low-Beam indicator (#3). You should get even more screen brightness if you shine it directly into the sensor. I definitely did in my tests.

Check it...

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by premier3is

Do you have to turn it off at nighttime to get the dimmed lights on?

Yes. If I leave my IR blaster on after dark, the displays still thinks it's daytime. They stay super bright, the manual dimming wheel still does nothing, and the HVAC cluster stays white. I reach up and switch it off around dusk.

Assuming BMW does nothing to remedy this and I keep having to use my IR unit, I have a future upgrade planned to give it its own ambient light sensor so that it will automatically turn off at night.

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by Weiner0123

I agree, it blows my mind they sell cars and they know BMW has a big enthusiast market and people love modifying there cars.. how did this slip there minds..??

Agreed. Inexcusable. They simply didn't test this in enough conditions...ie. different types of window tint, different seasons, different cities with significantly different levels of sunlight. I get how much work/cost that would actually be, so I understand not doing it. But I don't understand the failure to build in a simple software switch in iDrive for "Daytime Manual Brightness Control". That takes care of anyone who has conditions that are incompatible with the overly tuned ambient light sensor setup. So simple, and no significant extra cost. Let's hope they find the motivation to do this in a future update.

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by premier3is

I don't have this issue but ridiculous they can't update the software to fix this. I wonder if not enough people have reported it.

I wonder this too. BMW corporate clearly know about it because I've seen the article about it in their service system. But I have to assume they only address issues once the frequency of reports/complaints reaches a certain level. Anyone know anything about how that works?

The article specifically blames it on "aftermarket tint", but a user posted in another thread that his dealer applied tint is causing it too (which is almost certainly done by a 3rd party at the tint shop down the street from them). Which means that at least some dealers aren't aware enough to even avoid the 'wrong' type of tint themselves.

[premier3is]

Originally Posted by 2020g20

Agreed. Inexcusable. They simply didn't test this in enough conditions...ie. different types of window tint, different seasons, different cities with significantly different levels of sunlight, etc. I get how much work that would actually be, so I understand. But that's why you build in a simple software switch in iDrive for "Daytime Manual Brightness Control". That takes care of anyone who has conditions that are incompatible with your fancy intolerant ambient light sensor setup. So simple. Let's hope they find the motivation to do this in a future update.

My view is if it's hard to test and they have us early adopters 'testing' for them, they should take the feedback by the users more serious. I believe many have already reported this to BMW, but the solutions aren't coming... Hell, they are clearly aware of the connected drive app issues too, yet haven't done shit about it.

[dicarsio]

Kind of related to this topic.

Has anyone that purchased acoustic windows + tinted windows noticed they have standard windows on the back (tinted) but not acoustic, even if you pay for the acoustic windows ?

[Weiner0123]

Originally Posted by premier3is

My view is if it's hard to test and they have us early adopters 'testing' for them, they should take the feedback by the users more serious. I believe many have already reported this to BMW, but the solutions aren't coming... Hell, they are clearly aware of the connected drive app issues too, yet haven't done shit about it.

They got there money from us.. that's all they care about we're afterthoughts now.

[VipinLJ]

Originally Posted by dicarsio

Kind of related to this topic.

Has anyone that purchased acoustic windows + tinted windows noticed they have standard windows on the back (tinted) but not acoustic, even if you pay for the acoustic windows ?

I think that is standard. In my SQ5, I have acoustic windows only on the front and not the rear. But then, in the build sheet, they state that it is only on the front and not rear.

[Burrcold]

Originally Posted by VipinLJ

I think that is standard. In my SQ5, I have acoustic windows only on the front and not the rear. But then, in the build sheet, they state that it is only on the front and not rear.

Exactly. Dual pane or acoustic glass is on the front side windows only (although not available in the North American market).

[Burrcold]

@2020g20 do you think it's related to the IR rejection in the tint? What if I were to swap out my current tint (that has a 56% IR rejection), to a more basic tint (dyed) that contains zero IR rejection?

I obviously don't want to spend the money to have no change at all, but I'm willing to be the test mule if it might work.

[2020g20]

All I know for sure, based on my own testing, is that the ambient light sensor is definitely reacting to IR more than visible light and UV. So I think the differing IR rejection profiles among tints is a really solid theory as to why some tints are seemingly giving people more problems than others. As I've said before though, there are definitely other things at play here so it's really hard to make any solid conclusions.

If it were me and I was considering redoing my tint to solve this, I'd definitely do some testing first. Perhaps find a tint shop that is willing to experiment with you a bit in order to earn your business. Position your car in the sun/shade so that you can reliably see the screens dim/brighten when you roll your window up and down. Then roll it down and see if they will lay a sheet of the dyed tint across your window area and see if acts differently than your own? Just a thought. I'd hate to go to all that cost without knowing if it's going to help.

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by Burrcold

@2020g20 do you think it's related to the IR rejection in the tint? What if I were to swap out my current tint (that has a 56% IR rejection), to a more basic tint (dyed) that contains zero IR rejection?

All I know for sure, based on my own testing, is that the ambient light sensor is definitely reacting to IR more than visible light and UV. So I think the differing IR rejection profiles among tints is a really solid theory as to why some tints are seemingly giving people more problems than others. As I've said before though, there are definitely other things at play here so it's really hard to make any solid conclusions.

If it were me and I was considering redoing my tint to solve this, I'd definitely do some testing first. Perhaps find a tint shop that is willing to experiment with you a bit in order to earn your business. Position your car in the sun/shade so that you can reliably see the screens dim/brighten when you roll your window up and down. Then roll it down and see if they will lay a sheet of the dyed tint across your window area and see if acts differently than your own? Just a thought. I'd hate to go to all that cost without knowing if it's going to help.

[Burrcold]

I'm definitely going to try some testing beforehand...how well it will work I'm not sure. It may end up being an expensive experiment, but at least it will rule out the type of tint being the culprit (save some people the hassle and cost of trying the same...or having a dealership telling anyone the reason is due to the kind of tint they have).

[Burrcold]

I'm officially booked in for a new tint on Thursday. Going with the Autobahn Black Color Stable film. Has no IR rejection properties and less overall total solar rejection vs the Suntek CXP nano hybrid film I have on currently. I'm also moving from 25% VLT to 30% VLT. Hopefully the combo will make a difference. If not, oh well it was an expensive experiment. Taking one for the team I suppose lol

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by Burrcold

Going with the Autobahn Black Color Stable film. Has no IR rejection properties and less overall total solar rejection vs the Suntek CXP nano hybrid film I have on currently. I'm also moving from 25% VLT to 30% VLT

Good luck with it. Hopefully it'll work out and help other people avoid this issue altogether!

[Burrcold]

Originally Posted by 2020g20

Good luck with it. Hopefully it'll work out and help other people avoid this issue altogether!

My $500 fingers are crossed lol

[Burrcold]

Update: The tint shop had a cancellation and were able to get me in today. The result? It worked!!! I'm so happy right now. The dimming is reacting exactly how I would assume it would now (when it goes cloudy it dims maybe 5 to 10% at most from the highest brightness. Once the sun hits, it's back up to (to my eyes) 100% brightness or close enough that I would never have noticed if this was the way it worked from the beginning.

The actual tint percentage/darkness looks almost identical (I was slightly off in my comments above...there's only about a 4% difference in VLT). The tint guy thought it was the IR rejection properties of the old tint and just the fact that most carbon or ceramic tints are thicker. Either way, it's most certainly the type of tint that is causing this issue. For the people that are having trouble and don't have any tint, I have no idea. Also for the people that have the same tint, I don't know either.

Disclaimer: this was my own experience. I'm not telling everyone they should go out and do what I did. It cost me $380 to remove and reapply the tint, so definitely not cheap. However, now that I'm seeing that it worked, it was well worth it to me.

[2020g20]

Originally Posted by Burrcold

Update: The tint shop had a cancellation and were able to get me in today. The result? It worked!!! I'm so happy right now. The dimming is reacting exactly how I would assume it would now (when it goes cloudy it dims maybe 5 to 10% at most from the highest brightness. Once the sun hits, it's back up to (to my eyes) 100% brightness or close enough that I would never have noticed if this was the way it worked from the beginning.

The actual tint percentage/darkness looks almost identical (I was slightly off in my comments above...there's only about a 4% difference in VLT). The tint guy thought it was the IR rejection properties of the old tint and just the fact that most carbon or ceramic tints are thicker. Either way, it's most certainly the type of tint that is causing this issue. For the people that are having trouble and don't have any tint, I have no idea. Also for the people that have the same tint, I don't know either.

Disclaimer: this was my own experience. I'm not telling everyone they should go out and do what I did. It cost me $380 to remove and reapply the tint, so definitely not cheap. However, now that I'm seeing that it worked, it was well worth it to me.

Wow, that's good to hear. Congrats on getting some hard evidence of what we were suspecting. Glad it worked out!

[Burrcold]

Originally Posted by 2020g20

Wow, that's good to hear. Congrats on getting some hard evidence of what we were suspecting. Glad it worked out!

Thanks! And double thanks for your IR blaster. It got my juices flowing as to a possible solution (I.e. change the tint to one that doesn't reject IR).

It's not a total win since I'm obviously going to have less total heat rejection now in the summer months, but I would rather that than the washed out gauges (or waiting on BMW to come up with a solution).

[premier3is]

Originally Posted by Burrcold

Update: The tint shop had a cancellation and were able to get me in today. The result? It worked!!! I'm so happy right now. The dimming is reacting exactly how I would assume it would now (when it goes cloudy it dims maybe 5 to 10% at most from the highest brightness. Once the sun hits, it's back up to (to my eyes) 100% brightness or close enough that I would never have noticed if this was the way it worked from the beginning.

The actual tint percentage/darkness looks almost identical (I was slightly off in my comments above...there's only about a 4% difference in VLT). The tint guy thought it was the IR rejection properties of the old tint and just the fact that most carbon or ceramic tints are thicker. Either way, it's most certainly the type of tint that is causing this issue. For the people that are having trouble and don't have any tint, I have no idea. Also for the people that have the same tint, I don't know either.

Disclaimer: this was my own experience. I'm not telling everyone they should go out and do what I did. It cost me $380 to remove and reapply the tint, so definitely not cheap. However, now that I'm seeing that it worked, it was well worth it to me.

Glad you got it to work bud. I'd say it's well worth it if it fixed it. Atleast the others can see and get an idea what tint works and doesn't.