auto high beam, stereo

[sor]

Looking for opinions on the automatic high beams, i.e. do they turn on at annoying times, when there are cars in your lane in front of you, etc.

Also wondering about this new stereo with a hard drive in it and USB port. Is that premium sound only, premium sound with ipod/usb, or standard? If I can copy files from USB to the hard drive, I'm thinking ipod connection is pointless for me.

[e1000]

There's a video of the automatic high beams in action, looks like it works better than I thought it would. I rarely use my high beams and the module is a fairly good sized plastic piece right under the rear view mirror so that's one of the two options that I skipped. Might be useful for people in rural areas however.

The Premium sound is the speakers, amp and dsp. The HDD comes with nav/idrive. Yes you can copy files from a USB memory key to the internal hard drive. I still feel the iPod connection is superior because of the organization/playlist features of the iPod.

** EDIT ** - FYI here's the video.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpos...45&postcount=1

[sor]

Hmm, I'll have to look for some more pics. I believe I saw a car with the auto high beam sensor and at first glance it looked integrated with the rain sensor area, didn't occur to me that it might be protruding lower than normal. I did look around for some threads about them, didn't find anything but a bunch of threads listing options.

Thanks, I might skip the ipod connection, then. I never use my playlists, and the directories laid out on my USB key in /artist/album/song form browse pretty much identically to my ipod in my existing 335. Just found this out today, as my ipod is on the fritz.

[sor]

Kind of looks like my entire view of the extra sensor hardware would be blocked by the mirror, and I wouldn't even be able to tell it's there. Anyone with the system care to chime in?

[sor]

Thanks for the vid. Every time I see your username I think of an intel gigabit network card.

[e1000]

Originally Posted by sor

Thanks for the vid. Every time I see your username I think of an intel gigabit network card.

It's sad I know exactly what you're talking about. Lol, but that's not where it's from.

Again, I think if I lived in a rural area I'd opt for it, but honestly I can't remember the last time I used my high beams so I decided against it.

[sor]

There are plenty of times where I could use high beams, but just don't think to, short periods here and there, so it would be nice if this were reliable enough for me to just leave on all the time. If not, and I have to turn it on only in areas where I'd normally be able to use high beams, it's going to be useless. The video is interesting, I was surprised that it seemed to pick up on the tail lights/car in front well, although I wonder if there will be a lot of false alarms.

Thanks for the input.

[sameh]

Originally Posted by sor

Looking for opinions on the automatic high beams, i.e. do they turn on at annoying times, when there are cars in your lane in front of you, etc.

Also wondering about this new stereo with a hard drive in it and USB port. Is that premium sound only, premium sound with ipod/usb, or standard? If I can copy files from USB to the hard drive, I'm thinking ipod connection is pointless for me.

Downloading into the hard drive can be done neatly. You can make folders and change names. Plus you can search by name, song,...,... Once you get used to it it's very easy to use BUT I have an iPhone and I connect it to the iPod connection in the arm rest just to charge it and get a better phone connection using the satellite antenna. So you have both under your finger to listen to (hrd drive and iPod/iPhone) you don't have to get the snap in adaptor fir the iPod/iPhone connection the wire one works just as good but you need both hands to connect it and that's a pain when you forget connecting it before you start driving.

[FStop7]

My M6 has auto high beams. If I turn the brights on it does a pretty good job of auto switching to low beams if there is oncoming traffic. Where I live I rarely use the brights so it's not an option I will get much out of. But it works.