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Comment by squidlogic | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes known as pixel lighting, matrix systems are based around a high-beam unit consisting of a cluster of LEDs (the Audi matrix system consists of up to 25 LEDs per high-beam unit), rather than a single high-beam bulb that you might find in a conventional headlight.

This allows you to block out certain portions of the beam so you don't blind other drivers as they approach.

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On this type of lighting, what is the purpose of having high and low beams? It seems like you should be able to leave it on high all the time.

Most nicer headlights are shaped[1] in a way that the drivers side beam is shorter than the passenger side beam. You don’t want to blind drivers and it gives the passenger side more visibility. They also adapt to turns. Matrix headlights do the same and much more. High beams illuminate the whole road and not just the ground in the same lane as the car.

[1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1827/4457/products/3_03867...

You will blind yourself with your own high beams in heavy rain/snow/fog.

Interestingly, a similar version of these systems was demonstrated back in 2012 which could track individual snow flakes or rain drops. They would avoid illuminating the drops so they wouldn’t reflect back at you, thus reducing glare and allowing you to see much further.

https://youtu.be/4jwhQM6aDS8

Such system could work in moderate conditions, though it's doubtful. As soon as you get water "dust" in front of the headlight the only thing this tracking can do is to shut off the light entirely, there is no way isolating separate droplets and the cloud of "dust" will disperse the light further into the medium.

Well, if you don't mind the driver having to watch via a HUD there is range-gated imaging which does exactly the thing you're assuming is impossible. :P

I assume you either don't understand what range-gated imaging is or how the headlights work.

My comment didn't have anything to do with the headlights except pointing out that the 'impossibility' of not illuminating the drops in the air isn't actually an impossibility with sufficiently crazy hardware. -- A fact I expected other readers to find interesting.

My apologies if it sounded to you as something I was saying could realistically be done with projector headlights.

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