Rain-sensing wipers (Update)

[Beta V]

It's been "raining" here in Seattle all week. However, unlike Texas or Southern California rain, we often get a fine mist that coats (and obscures) the windshield in a way that seems to fool the rain-sense wipers. The problem as I see it, is that the rain is not coming fast enough to trigger the mechanism. For example, yesterday, in downtown traffic, I had to manually start the wipers from time-to-time even though the auto-sense feature was on and the wipers set to low-speed intermittent.

IMHO, I think the wiper programming needs a few more tweaks for these conditions.

 

[oktane]

Correct, fine mist or spray will NOT trigger the auto-wipe. The droplets are probably too small for the camera to interpret.

 

[arcus]

Hopefully the manual intervention is passed to NN to learn

 

[pedram_ma]

Totally right, I have a same issue here in Vancouver

 

[Sacrebleux]

Agree. We in seattle should be ultimate testers. We know a thing or two about rain. Current auto wipers are just useless. Turned it off.

 

[ChrML]

Hopefully the manual intervention is passed to NN to learn

It's not. The NN comes as a pre-learned image.

 

[Beta V]

Okay, we've had another three weeks of rain varying from heavy monsoon stuff to a fine mist. Frankly, I'm not impressed with the auto-sense wipers. Sometimes, even in a fairly heavy rain I find myself blinded by a rain-covered windshield and have to intervene. I've tried all the settings and it's not "learning"--at least not that I can tell.

Folks, I really enjoyed my rain-sense wipers in my Lexus and MDXs (and at one time in my Ford Explorer). You're not there yet. I hope they're listening. Want me to test a new version? I would be happy to do so.

 

[Toddl]

I assume that the first position is rain sensing, what is the second for? I assumed one was an intermittent setting but neither do anything (I haven’t been in rain)

 

[pdx3181]

I assume that the first position is rain sensing, what is the second for? I assumed one was an intermittent setting but neither do anything (I haven’t been in rain)

The second setting is supposed to be more aggressive than the first. But they both suck.

I have to use the button on the end of the stalk to get the wipers to work.

My "auto" wipers are only auto because I trigger them regularly.

 

[dgatwood]

Correct, fine mist or spray will NOT trigger the auto-wipe. The droplets are probably too small for the camera to interpret.

I'm curious about how (if?) their engineering team tested the feature, then. I'm only about ten or fifteen air miles from Fremont (45 minutes with traffic), and there's never (*) any real rain here, either. It's all just what I call a "torrential mist".

* Well, maybe once per decade, give or take.

 

[Joe F]

Curious if those in the PNW use a hydrophobic windshield coating, and if so, do you find it helps in fine mist?

At highway speeds, my experience is that it does (see this post and it’s link to video I posted to YouTube) but not so much under 35 MPH. In the testing I’ve done so far, AP works well even without wipers. So far at least. Obviously standard AP hands on wheel ready to take over still applies.