Adaptive Headlights & High Beam Assist

Driving at night can be challenging, but ADAS has some clever lighting features to help out. Adaptive Headlights are headlamps that swivel or adjust their beams in response to steering and road conditions, improving visibility around curves. For instance, when you turn the wheel to go around a bend, adaptive headlights pivot in the direction of the turn, illuminating the road ahead rather than just pointing straight. This way you can see potential obstacles or pedestrians around the corner earlier. It’s a subtle thing, but anyone who’s driven a car with adaptive bending lights at night can attest it literally sheds light on the situation and gives you more confidence on twisty roads.

Another feature is Automatic High Beam Assist (sometimes just called Auto High Beams). This system uses a forward-facing camera to detect oncoming traffic (headlights) or cars in front of you (taillights). It will automatically toggle your high beams on or off depending on whether other vehicles are around. So, you get the benefit of maximum illumination (high beams) when the road is clear and dark, but as soon as the system sees an approaching car or you come up behind someone, it dips back to low beams to avoid glaring other drivers[35]. Once the traffic passes, it switches high beams back on. High Beam Assist is great because a lot of drivers don’t use their high beams enough – either they forget or don’t want to constantly flick them on/off. This automates the task and ensures you’re using high beams optimally, which can significantly increase nighttime safety.

Together, adaptive lighting and high-beam assist fall under the umbrella of “smart headlights.” They may not grab as many headlines as collision avoidance tech, but they contribute to safety by extending your vision at night and reducing the chance of “over-driving” your headlights (where you’re going too fast to stop in the illuminated distance). Plus, auto-dimming high beams remove the annoyance of being blinded by someone who forgot to turn theirs off – your car is polite on your behalf! Modern premium cars often also have fancy Matrix LED or pixel LED headlights that can shape the beam around other cars (so you effectively drive with high beams on but a shadow where other cars are, very high-tech), but that’s a complicated feature still limited in some markets. The simpler implementations are already becoming common.