Rivian's active matrix LED's only have a handful of pixels per side?

[carsly]

What am I doing wrong here? Do Rivian's Gen 2 Active Matrix LED headlights, long a press darling, really only have 8 pixels or so per side? I thought Audi, Mercedes and others have millions of pixels. This is 16 bit lighting in an era of 5K.

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[godfodder0901]

What am I doing wrong here? Do Rivian's Gen 2 Active Matrix LED headlights, long a press darling, really only have 8 pixels or so per side? I thought Audi, Mercedes and others have millions of pixels. This is 16 bit lighting in an era of 5K.

There may only be 8, but thus is not an accurate way to determine the count. They may be grouped into 8 segments, but that doesn't mean there aren't more. And they may be varied based on the proximity to the wall, or the fact that you weren't actually driving.

 

[electruck]

There's a reason Rivian matrix headlights don't have millions of pixels - they wouldn't meet US regulations.

https://www.motor1.com/features/754987/rivian-beat-everyone-better-headlights/

 

[mpshizzle]

What you're seeing there is the low beams. Those pixels are only used for cornering lights, that follow the angle of your steering wheel.

The high beams have have a few more pixels. (This article says there are 35. Not sure if that includes the low beam pixels or if this is in addition to those).

But even so, as @electruck said, they are so low resolution because that's the only way they could get them to comply with US regulation for matrix lights.

In fact - Tesla JUST enabled matrix light functionality in the US for the first time. But they are doing it with the same hardware as they use overseas, with many more pixels. Despite that fact they behave JUST like the Rivian lights. The cutouts are rather large and imprecise. The only way you can tell that they have more pixels than the Rivian lights, is that the cutouts move left to right to follow oncoming traffic a bit more smoothly.

TL;DR - it's not Rivian being cheap. It's the US regulation being .... obtuse

 

[captainjp]

Makes no difference to me. They’re a game changer.
The one suggestion I would make is that they adjust for pedestrians. I feel bad blinding the early-morning joggers.

 

[Motoarzon]

These headlights are amazing. On a foggy night you can literally see the beams bending left or right when you slightly turn the wheel. Can also see dynamic blanking of zones as vehicles approach from the other direction.

 

[malditofman]

What am I doing wrong here? Do Rivian's Gen 2 Active Matrix LED headlights, long a press darling, really only have 8 pixels or so per side? I thought Audi, Mercedes and others have millions of pixels. This is 16 bit lighting in an era of 5K.

Yawn. What matters is that the headlights and their features perform as promised. I don't think the press finds anyone's headlights darling, by the way. Drive well.

 

[carsly]

Makes no difference to me. They’re a game changer.
The one suggestion I would make is that they adjust for pedestrians. I feel bad blinding the early-morning joggers.

It's okay, the joggers retinas are probably already scorched from staring at their phones on max brightness while jogging.

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