Bluecruise eye tracking - does it cause headaches

[Schmetsky]

Been driving the MME for a week now and really like the Blue Cruise but I am wondering if the strobe lights use to track your eyes might cause headaches. I cannot find a thread about it. But I do think some owners have covered the bar up.

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[Vulnox]

I imagine there is, somewhere, someone that is for whatever reason sensitive to the light in some way. But it's outside the visible spectrum for humans, generally, so I don't know why it would cause headaches. I have put a few thousand miles of bluescruise time in including several hour long drives and never had any issue.

So I don't know what you are basing this on to begin with, but I don't imagine it would be a real issue.

 

[generaltso]

Been driving the MME for a week now and really like the Blue Cruise but I am wondering if the strobe lights use to track your eyes might cause headaches. I cannot find a thread about it. But I do think some owners have covered the bar up.

They‘re not strobe lights. They’re LEDs that are almost entirely invisible to the naked eye. I haven’t seen any reports of headaches from them.

 

[RickMachE]

Right. Not strobe lights.

 

[Vulnox]

I think they believe it strobes because on video they appear to, but that's just the difference in the refresh rate of the LEDs and refresh of the camera. If you used a variable refresh camera, like on an iPhone 14 Pro, it would show as a static on LED.

 

[Mirak]

If you put your ear close to the bar and hear a buzzing sound, then it might cause headaches for you. Please check and report back.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

The lights are actually infrared and thus, as been pointed out, outside the visible light spectrum for humans. There should be no cause for concern.

 

[michaelmmegt]

I think they believe it strobes because on video they appear to, but that's just the difference in the refresh rate of the LEDs and refresh of the camera. If you used a variable refresh camera, like on an iPhone 14 Pro, it would show as a static on LED.

I think it does actually strobe, here's a slow motion video. But anyways as others have said it's not visible to the driver.

 

[Vulnox]

I think it does actually strobe, here's a slow motion video. But anyways as others have said it's not visible to the driver.

Yeah my assumption was it strobes at first, but even with slow motion it can still be just the LED refresh rate, in fact slow motion is more likely to show it because on phone cameras it is done by recording at a higher FPS then playing it at a lower.

LEDs appear to strobe because all LEDs strobe naturally, even headlights. Video is also only a certain number of frames per second. Slow motion is just more frames per second cut down to fewer. So 48 frames per second shown at 24 frames per second will appear to be half time.

That still means the camera can capture the moment the LED cycles.

I know that sounds like I am saying it strobes, but it doesn't in the way OP likely meant. In the same way you can't tell that your daytime running light LEDs are strobing. it is happening at a much higher rate than the human eye can see. The LEDs may be flickering at 1250hz, or 1250 times per second. To the human eye it's a constant on.

But a camera that is running at 24 FPS may capture the off point of that flicker every half second, and then in the video it looks like it is strobing at that rate. That's why slow motion video of DRLs often appear to be flickering. This was a big thing in Top Gear episodes where nearly every slow motion shot of a car with DRLs looked to be strobing.

I don't know if that's what OP means, or if they think it is strobing like your video.

Some people are sensitive to the natural flicker of older LED bulbs in offices and would complain of headaches. They wouldn't know they were seeing the flicker because their brain was throwing out the visual data, but it still caused eye strain. I haven't heard of that being an issue in years though, and don't know if it matters for IR light.

All that is to say, I agree with you, haha, just depends on what OP thought was going to cause a headache. If it was just the nature of them being LEDs, it shouldn't since it's not a visible to humans light spectrum, no matter if it's actually alternating like your slow mo video, or if he means the nature flicker of an LED.

 

[StrWhtMME]

The eye movement monitoring is active all the time, not just when you’re using cruise. Check it out by holding your phone camera aimed at the black panel on the steering column

 

[Pushrods&Capacitors]

Been driving the MME for a week now and really like the Blue Cruise but I am wondering if the strobe lights use to track your eyes might cause headaches. I cannot find a thread about it. But I do think some owners have covered the bar up.

Only if you believe airplane contrails are actually chemtrails, otherwise, you’re all good ??

 

[michaelmmegt]

I got curious and was digging into how eye tracking works, but I couldn't find anything about the control of the LED lights. But I still suspect that this is not normal LED light operation. It looks to me like it is intentionally turning the left LED on and off, then the right on and off and repeat. Maybe it gets a better reading by having two different angles of the light hitting the eye at different times.

 

[Jimbo]

LEDs appear to strobe because all LEDs strobe naturally, even headlights.

Not all LEDs. LEDs driven by a true DC source do not flicker. LEDs driven by PWM, half-wave rectifiers, etc do

 

[Mach-Lee]

I got curious and was digging into how eye tracking works, but I couldn't find anything about the control of the LED lights. But I still suspect that this is not normal LED light operation. It looks to me like it is intentionally turning the left LED on and off, then the right on and off and repeat. Maybe it gets a better reading by having two different angles of the light hitting the eye at different times.

They are duty cycle controlled so they don't overheat and burn out, not because they are doing anything fancy. They take turns being on to even out the light coverage.

 

[Jimrpa]

Been driving the MME for a week now and really like the Blue Cruise but I am wondering if the strobe lights use to track your eyes might cause headaches. I cannot find a thread about it. But I do think some owners have covered the bar up.

This is a joke, right?

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