[Andycam]

Hi,

What's your experience of the HBA on the G15?

I had an F32 428i for 5 years will the full LED headlights option, and the FBA was flawless. Creating nice black boxes around cars in front of me, and instantly turning off high beam when cars were approaching from the opposite direction.

After 3 months in my G15 with the Laserlights option the HBA does not work nearly as well. I am constantly being flashed by oncoming cars that they are blinded by my headlights, and I can see that it takes ~ a second for the high beam to come off.

What is your experience? Is the HBA something that can be configured/adjusted, e g for sensivity?

I also find that the high beams on the G15, despite being laser lights, do not put out nearly as much light as the LED on the old F32 Low beams are great though.

Cheers
/Andreas

['Cane]

It’s crippled in the US. I’d code it in, but I hear that it’s not a software issue.

[redhot47fla]

It's doable. Contact r33_RGSport

[Publius]

Hi all. I have a 2022 F93 (M8 GC Comp) built for the US market. What I write below is true for my car, and I assume it applies equally to any late model 8 Series headlights.

High Beam Assist is not disabled in US Series 8 cars. It works great right out of the box, and does all the cool things that high beams in a non-US-market 8 Series do, except for the anti-dazzle feature.

HBA sensitivity can be adjusted. Quoting from the owner's manual: "Push the turn signal lever to the front for approximately 10 seconds. The system responds more sensitively." To go back to the default sensitivity, do the same thing.

Anti-dazzle is disabled for US-market car builds. It can be enabled via coding.

Anti-dazzle can't be enabled with Bimmercode, not even in Expert Mode. You can pay a professional coder to enable anti-dazzle for you, or you can do it yourself with E-Sys. I took the latter approach.

For my car, enabling anti-dazzle with E-Sys was very easy, and took only a few minutes—except for the difficult and time-consuming part, which is getting E-Sys installed and running. The latter part is a one-time investment, and once you've made it, you have the god-like power of E-Sys at your fingertips!

To enable anti-dazzle, I only had to remove 5AP (decoding for no-dazzle high beam assistance) using VO coding in E-Sys. Even though 8S4 (variable light decoding) is shown in the 2022 M8 Ordering Guide, it wasn't displayed by E-Sys in the VO on my car, so I didn't have to remove it. No FDL coding was necessary to enable anti-dazzle for my car.

HBA is fantastic. HBA with antidazzle is, well, dazzling. Highly recommended, and not that hard to enable.

If you're a car geek and a DIYer, I recommend Bimmercode for the things it can handle. That costs you $32 for full functionality of the mobile app, plus $50 for an OBDLink CX. That $82 investment will pay for itself very quickly.

For the things Bimmercode can't do (like anti-dazzle), E-Sys is incredibly powerful, in the same sense that a nuclear reactor is powerful. It is incredibly dangerous, cryptic, and a pain in the ass to get running (although @shawnsheridan and others have done great work making it easier), but if you follow the instructions carefully and are patient, you can do very cool things to you car. The software is free, and the ENET cable will cost you $22. That was a very low price for me to pay to get the full-function anti-dazzle High Beam Assistant!

[MystroX5]

Originally Posted by Publius

Hi all. I have a 2022 F93 (M8 GC Comp) built for the US market. What I write below is true for my car, and I assume it applies equally to any late model 8 Series headlights.

High Beam Assist is not disabled in US Series 8 cars. It works great right out of the box, and does all the cool things that high beams in a non-US-market 8 Series do, except for the anti-dazzle feature.

HBA sensitivity can be adjusted. Quoting from the owner's manual: "Push the turn signal lever to the front for approximately 10 seconds. The system responds more sensitively." To go back to the default sensitivity, do the same thing.

Anti-dazzle is disabled for US-market car builds. It can be enabled via coding.

Anti-dazzle can't be enabled with Bimmercode, not even in Expert Mode. You can pay a professional coder to enable anti-dazzle for you, or you can do it yourself with E-Sys. I took the latter approach.

For my car, enabling anti-dazzle with E-Sys was very easy, and took only a few minutes—except for the difficult and time-consuming part, which is getting E-Sys installed and running. The latter part is a one-time investment, and once you've made it, you have the god-like power of E-Sys at your fingertips!

To enable anti-dazzle, I only had to remove 5AP (decoding for no-dazzle high beam assistance) using VO coding in E-Sys. Even though 8S4 (variable light decoding) is shown in the 2022 M8 Ordering Guide, it wasn't displayed by E-Sys in the VO on my car, so I didn't have to remove it. No FDL coding was necessary to enable anti-dazzle for my car.

HBA is fantastic. HBA with antidazzle is, well, dazzling. Highly recommended, and not that hard to enable.

If you're a car geek and a DIYer, I recommend Bimmercode for the things it can handle. That costs you $32 for full functionality of the mobile app, plus $50 for an OBDLink CX. That $82 investment will pay for itself very quickly.

For the things Bimmercode can't do (like anti-dazzle), E-Sys is incredibly powerful, in the same sense that a nuclear reactor is powerful. It is incredibly dangerous, cryptic, and a pain in the ass to get running (although @shawnsheridan and others have done great work making it easier), but if you follow the instructions carefully and are patient, you can do very cool things to you car. The software is free, and the ENET cable will cost you $22. That was a very low price for me to pay to get the full-function anti-dazzle High Beam Assistant!

X2. Yup, I have to do this and have been putting off the last year.

[Andycam]

Originally Posted by Publius

HBA sensitivity can be adjusted. Quoting from the owner's manual: "Push the turn signal lever to the front for approximately 10 seconds. The system responds more sensitively." To go back to the default sensitivity, do the same thing.

Wow. That is not in the M850 manual. Thanks a million, time for a night drive test!

[ikonn]

Originally Posted by Andycam

Wow. That is not in the M850 manual.

Sure it is Andy:

[unfoundnemo]

Originally Posted by Andycam

After 3 months in my G15 with the Laserlights option the HBA does not work nearly as well. I am constantly being flashed by oncoming cars that they are blinded by my headlights, and I can see that it takes ~ a second for the high beam to come off.

For some reason, with my last 3 cars I have blinding people for the first 2-3 months of ownership, then it seems to magically go away. This is without HBA as well (i.e. just normal head lights), but possibly related.

I wonder if the adaptive and self-leveling features take a bit to really break-in before it's responding as fast as it thinks it should. Possible there's some dimming that happens over time as well, but I was getting flashed a handful of times on every trip in both of my current cars, including small trips just commuting around town.

I've posted about this before (maybe when I got my X7), and just heard of people talking about bad angles and such, but there may be something else there. That or everyone in my area just gets used to me driving around thinking my high beams are on, and they give up warning me.

[Andycam]

Originally Posted by ikonn

Sure it is Andy:

Actually not. Neither in the Driver's Guide app nor the PDF manual or my printed manual. And the function doesn't work in my car, have tested it since I read about it here. Maybe it was something added a later MY, mine is a 2019.

[Andycam]

Originally Posted by unfoundnemo

For some reason, with my last 3 cars I have blinding people for the first 2-3 months of ownership, then it seems to magically go away. This is without HBA as well (i.e. just normal head lights), but possibly related.

I wonder if the adaptive and self-leveling features take a bit to really break-in before it's responding as fast as it thinks it should. Possible there's some dimming that happens over time as well, but I was getting flashed a handful of times on every trip in both of my current cars, including small trips just commuting around town.

I've posted about this before (maybe when I got my X7), and just heard of people talking about bad angles and such, but there may be something else there. That or everyone in my area just gets used to me driving around thinking my high beams are on, and they give up warning me.

Considering BMW's software skills, the 1s and 0s probably need some time to find the right path

How many BMW iDrive developers does it take to change a broken light bulb?

None. They define darkness as standard.

[ikonn]

Originally Posted by Andycam

Actually not. Neither in the Driver's Guide app nor the PDF manual or my printed manual. And the function doesn't work in my car, have tested it since I read about it here. Maybe it was something added a later MY, mine is a 2019.

Well there you go, my 2020 manual, at least on the MyBMW app, is different than your 2019 version. I will have to test the functionality on my car one day.

Anyway, I’m not surprised with the variability between manuals, software versions/coding, hardware and reality. Just setting Homelink was a small challenge for me because the manual instructions turned out to be were wrong.

[bloozemanAZ]

Originally Posted by Andycam

Considering BMW's software skills, the 1s and 0s probably need some time to find the right path

How many BMW iDrive developers does it take to change a broken light bulb?

None. They define darkness as standard.

and aligns with my overall assessment of BMW's capabilities in the digital world we live in. Frankly, I've given up on expecting anything to change especially considering several "bugs" in iDrive7 releases still remain and the Connected app which has been redone into the My BMW app (when in doubt how to fix existing issues just rebrand) has its fair share as well.

[bloozemanAZ]

I tried this today in my 2020 M850i and the resulting message was something along the lines of "HBA reduced sensitivity enabled". That is 100% opposite of what the manual states, i.e., it is supposed to be more sensitive. Needless to say I followed the same procedure to turn it off. Perhaps the message (it showed up in the bottom center message area of the digital cockpit) is erroneous and a bug vs stating "increased" sensitivity but I wasn't taking any chances.

[bloozemanAZ]

Just for sanity sake I just tied it again in case I didn't pay close enough attention to the messages. Definitely reduced sensitivity and this time I actually saw the message that popped up on the iDrive screen literally stating the same. FYI when you reset there is no confirmation in the digital cockpit message area (did it twice earlier to confirm) but with this go around the iDrive message instantly disappeared on the reset.

This isn't about 1s and 0s in the digital world competency arena but just pure basics, i.e., for F sake BMW produce a manual that is accurate as to how the car functions, i.e., default is increased sensitivity and changing it is reduced.

[Publius]

From what you're saying, I'd guess that when BMW says "reduced sensitivity", they mean the High Beam Assistant is less sensitive about turning off the high beams for traffic in front of you. So, less sensitive = more high beams = unhappier traffic in front of you.

"High" and "low" sensitivity are in the eye of the beholder. Here, BMW is defining the level of sensitivity from the point of view of traffic in front of you. If you choose low sensitivity, you're being less sensitive to other drivers.

Does that make sense?

[unfoundnemo]

Originally Posted by Publius

From what you're saying, I'd guess that when BMW says "reduced sensitivity", they mean the High Beam Assistant is less sensitive about turning off the high beams for traffic in front of you. So, less sensitive = more high beams = unhappier traffic in front of you.

"High" and "low" sensitivity are in the eye of the beholder. Here, BMW is defining the level of sensitivity from the point of view of traffic in front of you. If you choose low sensitivity, you're being less sensitive to other drivers.

Does that make sense?

Yes, the issue was the conflicting information between the manual and the actual action. The manual mentions the system will be more sensitive while the check control message states it is indeed less sensitive in this mode.