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Comment by interfixus | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this stone age technology due for some twenty first century smarts? Teflon glass, anyone?

There is this stuff called "RainX"[1]. You apply it to your windshield and the rain beads off (hydrophobic). You can see really well even in heavy rain without wipers. (My dad used to use it on the family cars last century, and I still use it today).

It works great, though you have to reapply every few months when it wears off. And you can't apply it in the rain, so you have to remember ahead of time....

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain-X

Rain-X has wiper fluid that reapplies the treatment somehow. I haven't needed to manually reapply in over three years.

Interesting. I'll have to give that a try. Especially since its not super easy to apply the stuff in the first place..

RainX works well where the rain typically has large drops. It sucks in places where the droplets are smaller because they bead up everywhere but aren't large enough for the wind to push them away quickly. You end up looking through a bunch of microlenses rather than normal rain on the windshield.

I've used RainX intermittently over the years. It's a bit of a faff to put on and also maintain but when it's working well it is truly fantastic, crystal clear vision in the rain. Downsides are it doesn't work well below 40mph and also it can go foggy sometimes. Brilliant stuff though and well worth using if you know it's going to be very wet.

Did it make you drive faster ? I can sense a backfiring psychological aspect.

I'm eager to try that, and still curious why the industry didn't push for a one-click solution here.

I use Aquapel and it works better at low speeds compared to RainX. And honestly it does make me drive faster in the rain (the tires I run also have a very high rating in the wet). In rain and with a little 'speed' (80-140 km/h), I don't even turn on the wipers

80 km/h is speedy to me; with rain the physics of the car may change a lot; do you feel you're being "edgy" when the soil is wet ?

Well I am driving on paved large highways. If it was a side road or a dirt road, I wouldn't be able to go that 'fast' safely.

I have to admit tho, I drive faster during heavy rain on the highways due to the lack of police. I fell like I am unleashing my hidden "Senna" :)

I doubt it made me drive faster, it allowed me to be a lot more relaxed and have better awareness of what was happening outside because I didn't need to concentrate as hard on trying to see through the windscreen. Even with good windscreen wipers in heavy rain or spray they only leave a small clear section so you are working hard just to see. With the RainX the entire windscreen was completely clear so much less strain.

Especially brilliant in those situations where you come up behind heavy trucks. Normally you can't see shit for the clouds of water those leviathans kick up. With Rain-X... no problem. (Shit, I sound like a advert, now. How annoying!)

I would suggest Aquapel instead (lasts way longer, water starts flying off at lower speeds). I love it. (http://www.aquapel.com/)

Actually, you are right. A lot of work has gone into developing hydrophobic coatings for cars (windows and bodywork) however they tend to wear off very quickly and so have never taken off.

Take a look on YouTube, some fun videos of cars going through mud and it not sticking one bit.

Here's one: https://youtu.be/TtntUSP-UeM

Those coatings, like NeverWet, put down a surface with very tiny spikes. Water has too much surface tension to get down to the base of the spikes and adhere, so it falls off. The problem is that the spike structure is fragile and wears poorly. It's a cute novelty, but until somebody comes up with a tougher version, not very useful.

It's so nice when you've got fresh rain-X on the windshield though. Doesn't last but one rainy day, but for that one day you feel like you're on the Enterprise with warp drive engaged, all the raindrops streaking away like stars.

Where is the stone age tech? Automotive glass is being constantly improved. Other than being clear and made of some amount of glass, todays windshield is an iphone compared to the telegraphs of 50 years ago. Today's glass no longer shatters, no longer distorts vision, rarely chips and is often even trusted to provide structural support in a crash.

Also heated windscreens/windshields - which are brilliant, so much easier than scraping ice off by hand.

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