Reply With QuoteI have a number of polarised sunglasses (Serengeti, Oakley and others) that I use in the car and big screen BMW sat nav and have no issues.
Hi chaps, I've recently picked up my new car (Merecedes C300h) and like a lot of new cars it has a large infotainment/SatNav screen.
There are also, like most other cars various digital displays between the speedo/rev counter.
I am also in the market for some new sunglasses and always fancied polarised as I've never had them before.
Question is, I've read a lot about how polarised glasses will make it difficult to read the displays in the car and also other reports that there are no problems???
Has anyone here any experience or knowledge of this so I can try and avoid buying a pair of sunglasses that I can't wear in my car?
Does it depend on which brand of sunglasses?
Does it depend on which make/type of car screen/display?
Any advice appreciated.
Neil.
I have a number of polarised sunglasses (Serengeti, Oakley and others) that I use in the car and big screen BMW sat nav and have no issues.
I too have Serengeti's and Ray Ban and I have no issues in my car either.
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The explanation given to me by an optician (or at least how I understood it)
Some sunglasses have the polarisation up/down and some left/right. These will either work/not work depending on the screen orientation. Some are at a 45 degree angle and these work best as it matters less although you do lose a small amount of brightness.
Simple check is to look through them at a smart phone screen and if they go almost blank in one orientation or the other they are of the first type.
I notice that the corners of the (built-in) satnav screen in my 3 series go Black depending on viewing angle - if I look at it fairly head on it's fine, if I look at it at an angle the furthest corner goes Black. Not enough to be a real problem but can be annoying at times as moving my head a tiny bit solves it.
When I use a TomTom in the other car, I don't seem to have the issue but then I usually fit it directly in front of me anyway.
My Serengetis and polarised Ray Bans stop me seeing the heads up display in my Mini. Didn't realise the Serengeti were even polarised until then.
Yup, polarised Ray Bans block the HUD on son-in-laws A7Originally Posted by stevieb
My cheap Hawkers plastic wayfarer style sunnies completely block the display on my phone - which I use as a sat nav from time to time.
Somewhat annoying. Haven't tried them in the Polo yet which has a large touch screen to control nearly everything....
This issue hasn't affected me with any car I've driven - but I have noticed that rotating any digital watch by 90 degrees makes the display go completely black. Curiously I was refuelling the car at the weekend whilst wearing polarised sunglasses and I thought the digital screen on the pump was broken until I took my sunglasses off for a better look!
I have Oakley and ray ban polarised glasses, both of which seem to be fine with car displays (I drive a Volvo xc60 where every instrument and the centre console is a screen as opposed to physical dials) - but if I were buying a new pair, personally I'd avoid polarised just to be sure. I don't really think polarised lenses offer any advantage unless you drive a lot along the coast in bright sunshine or in very bright, snowy regions 😎
Polarised sunglasses don't play well with BMW head up display.
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I do t drive in polerised glasses for that reason. Can see ok but the displays look weird
I have polarised glasses and sat nav - no issues at all
I have Polarized Oakley sunglasses, which stop me seeing the LCD radio/clock display in my Discovery, but make no difference at all to the sat-nav screen. It makes no difference at all to any of the displays in my Audi. My only other issue is some fuel pump displays cant be seen and the small screens on the back of compact cameras.
I would still always have polarizing sunglasses though, despite the issues above. I think it is an 'angle of view' thing, as they all come back into full view if I change my viewing angle.
You can always just tilt your head to look at the satnav.
HUD will be reflected off your windscreen so it will be horizontal, the same way as a wet road when the sun shines. Thats the whole point of polarised glasses. They remove the horizontal glare/reflection so you only see the rest.
I have polarised Ray Ban and Arnette glasses, both of which aren't great for viewing an E92 BMW satnav display - as described above, you can see the screen but it's sometimes partially obscured. I never found it impossible to use/see, just a bit annoying at times.
Haven't tried with my M135i yet (the newer screen type). I have some non-polarised Dunhill sunnies that I tend to use for driving.
I've used polarised glasses before, but the gave me really bad headaches.
Apparently this isn't uncommon.
My current prescription sunnies are polarised and mess up my BMW's display. It's a bit annoying as I can't read it without so I'm stuffed!
Same for me Ray Bans polarised prescription, not great on sat nav and also not great on Phone
Ray Ban P and Garmin works without any problem for me.
I have Maui Jim which are polarised and first time wearing them in my car I thought great, the CD player screen has packed up as I could not see the display.
I have Oakley non-polarised which I can read the display as normal.
Would an older satnav display compared to a newer satnav display make a difference in being viewed through polarised sunglasses?
I wonder if there's an 'industry standard' for car display screens and polarised sunglasses? Judging by the mixed responses here I'm guessing there isn't which is daft isn't it?
Had to re-orient my Mio GPS unit on my bike frame due to my sunglasses being polarised. Easy to do fortunately as it supports either portrait or landscape mode. But before I did that the screen was more or less blacked out, and I'd have to tilt my head sideways to read the screen.
I never bother looking at the GPS screen. Though I haven't got one in the car I do use a very cheap old tablet phone off ebay to run tom-tom on (no sim required). It's sits on the dash when I need a satnav and I listen to the directions. Personally I consider looking at a satnav screen whilst driving to be a spot on the dangerous side. There.... that's me on my high-horse! ;-)
I think that the automotive industry has a number of other areas where it could agree a standard first - which side the indicators are on and which side the wipers are on, for example, or even which side of the car the fuel filler is on.
For anybody who regularly drives a number of different cars, it's always a challenge trying to remember what's where. Then we could move to common interfaces for the infotainment systems (could BMW and Lexus have possibly taken more different approaches to the user interfaces on their cars?) before addressing screens and polarised sunglasses (which does affect me occasionally, though it's a minor inconvenience rather than a major issue).
As least most cars have the Accelerator, Brake and Clutch pedals in the same places these days - which wasn't always the case.
This really irritates me; some of the cars I drive have these on the passenger side along with the controls and steering wheel, so I have to let my passenger drive, whilst I play with the glove box contents!!
That's not quite right. The whole idea of polarised sunglasses is to reduce glare from reflections. This works because at certain angles light will be horizontally polarised when it is reflected off a surface. To block the reflected glare your glasses need to be vertically polarised. Angles of 45 degrees or horizontal polarised glasses won't reduce any glare.
Now LCDs use a polarising filter which means that if the polarisation of your glasses is at right angles to the polarisation of the LCD you won't see anything. If the screen manufacturer is smart, they'll orient the polariser either vertically or at 45 degrees so you can still see the display through polarised glasses. That is assuming your sunglasses manufacturer is competent enough to know why they're polarising them in the first place, not all are.
If you want to know what polarisation your glasses are simply look through them at some reflected light and rotate the lens. When the reflections reduce to a minimum, that's the vertical polarisation angle and it should be at the orientation where they're ready to wear.
Last edited by Groundrush; 12th May 2016 at 10:09.
And they do it very well, which is why polarised glasses are so great for driving. They can let more light through than regular sunglasses, while still reducing glare.
Liquid crystal displays also work by using a polarising filter. So if this filter is oriented in the opposite sense to that of your glasses, you won't see much. You can't change the laws of physics, Jim.
Some manufacturers are smart enough to orient the filter at 45 degrees, so it's dimmer, but not totally black through polarised glasses.
Ditto southern sun on tarmac.
Really good to reduce glare with minimum reduction of the total visibility.
Imo worth more than largely superfluous info on displays.
I am currently doing without a speedometer even as the cable broke and a new one is stupidly expensive. I just stay on the slow side. Safer anyway.
Unless there is someone next to me insisting on using the GPS on the smart phone, I make no use of satnav. Prefer to know for myself where I am going and take decisions based on what I see. Again safer imo.
Well I don't have HUD so no concerns there, however I do have an 8.5" lcd "infotainment" screen as part of the "Command Online" system. Also a fairly large lcd screen between the dials.
Its them I'm concerned about.
Seems like a continuation of the conflicting range of experiences doesn't it?
Some say it's a problem, others that it's not!
Perhaps it is all down to differences in screen types and variations in the polarising methods used in sunglasses?
I could take my iPad to a sunglasses outlet and try a few, it seems pretty similar in its screen type and not too far off the same size as what's in my car?
That won't help. It's nothing to do with the size or screen type; it's (1) whether the glasses are horizontally, vertically or 45 degree polarised, (2) how the actual display works and (3) the interaction between them.
It's even possible (though hopefully unlikely) that your infotainment and your LCD screens are configured differently, so that with any given pair of glasses you'll only be able to see one or the other, but not both.
You'll need to drive your car into the sunglasses outlet :-) or let them take some pairs outside so that you can try them in your car with your actual displays.
reason I stopped using polariseds in cars. Love'em, but it is just too irritating.
Gave up on them for driving as it made all the displays weird. I could have lived with consistent weirdness it was the fact that the display aberrations move with your head movement I couldn't cope with.
No problem using the sat nav with Oakley Everyday prism polarised but strangely the screen of my camera seems almost blank using the glasses.
Different planes of polarisation between the sat nav and camera screens?
I had the same issue at a petrol station.... was stood waiting to fill up but the fuel display (LCD) was blank!... I went to the kiosk saying the display was dead and realized then it was my sunglasses lol
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