# Auto wipers at night



## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

What I mean is that the auto wipers are pretty useless on dark roads .. it's been raining for days here, and this am it was really raining (like you just turn the wipers on). The auto wipers, however, were clueless unless I went under a street light or otherwise wasn't in the dark..

I'm sure the rain sensors would have calibrations that could recognize water with less light.. I wonder if it's just that software isn't considering this or there's an actual issue with my car.

Anyone else have a similar experience?


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

msjulie said:


> this am it was really raining (like you just turn the wipers on). The auto wipers, however, were clueless


others have noticed that if you start with rain on the windshield, it does not automatically wipe until it notices a change. So expect that is part of what you were seeing this morning.

not yet having the car... (so take anything I say as total BS) I would suggest to tap the wiper swipe button on the left arm to clear the window when you first start and not expect the auto wipers to register until you get moving. obviously that doesn't help the dark conditions not being recognized though.


----------



## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

Could be - but this wasn't mist by any means and I repeatedly went between trying to see if it could auto-wipe with some reasonable effect and just turning them to manual mode. If it's just software, it has a bit of a way to go here...


----------



## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Remember, the Model 3 is designed & developed in Fremont California.


----------



## NOLA_Mike (Feb 27, 2018)

msjulie said:


> What I mean is that the auto wipers are pretty useless on dark roads .. it's been raining for days here, and this am it was really raining (like you just turn the wipers on). The auto wipers, however, were clueless unless I went under a street light or otherwise wasn't in the dark..
> 
> I'm sure the rain sensors would have calibrations that could recognize water with less light.. I wonder if it's just that software isn't considering this or there's an actual issue with my car.
> 
> Anyone else have a similar experience?


I haven't really driven my Model S in the rain in the dark since activation of auto wipers but I don't think it's an issue specific to your car. I've seen other reports of Model Ss and Model Xs that have Tesla Vision hardware not working very well at night unless there are street lights or oncoming traffic headlights. Since Tesla is now using the cameras to auto wipe I can understand how this might be an "issue". Hopefully they will get better with a future software update.

Mike


----------



## ng0 (Apr 11, 2017)

garsh said:


> Remember, the Model 3 is designed & developed in Fremont California.


Come on man, it sprinkled this morning! I almost melted!!!


----------



## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

I think auto wipers are useless in the day as well, so there is that...


----------



## lotuscarguy (Mar 23, 2018)

My 2002 BMW 3-Series has auto-sensing wipers. It uses an infrared light source to bounce off of the windshield from inside the car. If there are rain droplets on the outside of the glass, the light is reflected back to the sensor differently. Apparently, that's not the way the Tesla sensors work. The BMW system works well day or night, but if you leave it on "auto sense" when you turn off the car, the next time you drive the car it doesn't work at all until you turn it off and then on again. Perhaps both systems use a start-up normalization measurement that gets confused if not "booted" properly. Just musing. My 3 order just come up for me to specify options yesterday.

Gary


----------



## Brokedoc (May 28, 2017)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> I think auto wipers are useless in the day as well, so there is that...


I think we need to mod the thread title to reference auto wipers.

Clearly the auto wiper function is still buggy. It was only recently activated on AP2 cars. I find that when it stop working, I can trigger a manual wipe but to get the auto wipers to reactivity, I have to turn off the wipers and turn it back on.

See this other post for a clip. https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/autopilot-2-0-2-5-official-thread.1490/page-19#post-84444



lotuscarguy said:


> My 2002 BMW 3-Series has auto-sensing wipers. It uses an infrared light source to bounce off of the windshield from inside the car. If there are rain droplets on the outside of the glass, the light is reflected back to the sensor differently. Apparently, that's not the way the Tesla sensors work. The BMW system works well day or night, but if you leave it on "auto sense" when you turn off the car, the next time you drive the car it doesn't work at all until you turn it off and then on again. Perhaps both systems use a start-up normalization measurement that gets confused if not "booted" properly. Just musing. My 3 order just come up for me to specify options yesterday.
> 
> Gary


I don't think Tesla has windshield rain sensors. I think they use the AP cams to detect buildup on the windshield.


----------



## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

Remember to file bug reports when things go wrong so that Tesla gets your data and can use it for creation of/testing of future updates.


----------



## Maevra (Oct 24, 2017)

I feel like 4.9 is horrible for auto wipers. It’s rained heavily and frequently in the Bay Area prettt much everyday last week and I was on manual for 90% of the time bcause auto mode didn’t wipe fast/frequently enough. Heavy mist in the windshield from freeway driving is a special issue. However anecdotes from folks with 10.x said it’s much improved. We’ll see. I had no problem with 4.6/8 but 4.9 was a step back for wipers IMO.


----------



## Guest (Apr 2, 2018)

lotuscarguy said:


> My 2002 BMW 3-Series has auto-sensing wipers....


Yep, this is how most rain-sensing wipers work.
Later on BMW changed the system so you only need to push "AUTO enable" after shutdown...
But Nissan, for example, swipes immediately after switching on the ignition and wipers left in AUTO if water detected.
I personally don't like it. I like BMW's method more. It's better in cold scenarios.



msjulie said:


> I'm sure the rain sensors would have calibrations that could recognize water with less light.. I wonder if it's just that software isn't considering this or there's an actual issue with my car.


Holy cow. I wasn't ever thinking about that, but now... I'll be very surprised if Tesla could fix that without hardware change.
Tesla uses only visual data to detect droplets with camera(s). And in case of low light scenario, clearly, no data.
And likely, they will NEVER be able to detect mist at comparable accuracy with infrared sensor, without... (infrared) light source.
They could add that small LED and code the camera to detect droplets.
But, as far as I can estimate, software fix for pitch black rain sensing will not fix the problem.



SoFlaModel3 said:


> I think auto wipers are useless in the day as well, so there is that...


That might be very true. 2001 BMW has wipers that are pretty good (I'd give 7/10), 2010 BMW has superb sensing (I'd give 10/10 as I have never needed any manual wipe nor have noticed excessiveness), but Nissan, well, I'd give Nissan (2014) no more than 5/10. First of all, sensor area is smaller. Sensitivity is bad. Alertness is very slow (takes average too damn long) and can't understand fine dirt well enough (one wipe per 30-60 seconds). Also "more sensitive" setting is always excessive. Both BMW and Nissan offer 4 sensitivity levels. Average levels are most appropriate in usual scenarios.
AFAIK, Tesla doesn't have any adjustability in AUTO mode. True?


----------



## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

arnis said:


> Holy cow. I wasn't ever thinking about that, but now... I'll be very surprised if Tesla could fix that without hardware change.


Tesla's cameras see fine at night. You couldn't use autopilot if they didn't. 
But I don't know what "droplets on a windshield" look like to them.


----------



## Guest (Apr 2, 2018)

I'm not sure camera with that small lens diameter can physically see well enough (500€ DSLR vs 1000€ smartphone) in low light. 
For lane keeping grainy image might be enough, but not for droplet detection.
And my bet is that AP2.0 camera sensor is much less advanced than 1000€ smartphone camera(s).


----------



## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

A camera for photography is not the same as a camera for a sensor. For one, cameras for photography are RGB, which get 1/3rd to 1/4th the number of pixels as a grayscale camera with the same sensor. For another, they have to filter out all IR.


----------



## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

re various comments about camera resolution etc - seems to me there's plenty of refraction going on between outside and inside that some calibration could happen but I'm not a camera lens expert. Depending on the camera alone seems perhaps not the best plan?

If there truly is no software enhancement available, perhaps the documentation/ui/something should point out the obvious - turn your own wipers on folks..


----------



## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

arnis said:


> AFAIK, Tesla doesn't have any adjustability in AUTO mode. True?


That's correct.


----------



## Guest (Apr 3, 2018)

KarenRei said:


> A camera for photography is not the same as a camera for a sensor. For one, cameras for photography are RGB, which get 1/3rd to 1/4th the number of pixels as a grayscale camera with the same sensor. For another, they have to filter out all IR.


My semi-large bridge camera has lens diameter ~35mm, that's around 1000mm2. And it's still not awesome in the dark.
And it doesn't filter Ir light at all (just tried out with regular remote control).
I estimate AP camera lens to be somewhere around 10-12mm in diameter? So 100mm2. Therefore 10x less photons.
Well, that is actually not bad (better than I imagines before comparing). But still, much less light will hit the sensor.
Not sure about sensor being black white only...

_As you can see, the cameras are feeding black and white images. The cameras themselves can record in color and high-definition, but black and white images can be processed quicker._


----------



## ltphoto (Jan 30, 2018)

Well, there is a lot more to it than that. The total light passing through the lens to the sensor is based on the size of the aperture opening as well as the glass diameter. Longer focal lengths need a bigger opening to get the same light through as shorter focal lengths (in simplistic terms). The actual sensitivity (if all else is equal for the lens) is based on the sensor pixel dimensions. It is based on how many photons per pixel. That's why a high pixel count does not always give a high quality image compared to some lower pixel counts. You trade off sensitivity for resolution if the overall sensor size is the same. The cameras on the car may very well be just as able to detect rain droplets as your bridge camera. Most bridge cameras do not have much light gathering ability (shown by the higher minimum f-stop).


----------



## Phil Kulak (Jun 12, 2017)

The auto wipers are pretty bad in general. You have to build up enough rain to seriously hamper your ability to see, then it wipes once, rinse, repeat. I'm assuming it will get better...


----------



## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

We had heavy rain today and now I'm on 2018.10.5. I figured I would try out autowipers again. I'll still stand by my claim that autowipers are trash on this car (and in every car). With a properly treated glass wipers are barely necessary and auto wipers will *always* swipe too frequently for my liking.

So back to the rare and infrequent single swipes for me!


----------



## ORfish (Aug 22, 2018)

Drove in the rain, in the dark, to work today. The wipers never came on automatically (the setting they are on) for 10 miles. At the first street light, they started working. They do not trigger between street lights, however. Is this how everyone's auto wipers work (only in sunlight or streetlights)? Or perhaps mine are broken? Or perhaps autowipe this another Beta issue like autopark and autodrive? I get the feeling this is another "city car" issue where the M3 ws never meant to be owned by us country people (such as the crappy AT&T connectivity vs Verizon that has better rural coverage).


----------



## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

ORfish said:


> Drove in the rain, in the dark, to work today. The wipers never came on automatically (the setting they are on) for 10 miles. At the first street light, they started working. They do not trigger between street lights, however. Is this how everyone's auto wipers work (only in sunlight or streetlights)? Or perhaps mine are broken? Or perhaps autowipe this another Beta issue like autopark and autodrive? I get the feeling this is another "city car" issue where the M3 ws never meant to be owned by us country people (such as the crappy AT&T connectivity vs Verizon that has better rural coverage).


They work everywhere for me and in all lighting conditions.


----------



## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

ORfish said:


> Drove in the rain, in the dark, to work today. The wipers never came on automatically (the setting they are on) for 10 miles. At the first street light, they started working. They do not trigger between street lights, however. Is this how everyone's auto wipers work (only in sunlight or streetlights)? Or perhaps mine are broken? Or perhaps autowipe this another Beta issue like autopark and autodrive? I get the feeling this is another "city car" issue where the M3 ws never meant to be owned by us country people (such as the crappy AT&T connectivity vs Verizon that has better rural coverage).


I know the very first version of auto wipers was widely reported not to work in the dark. That seemed to improve significantly with further updates. What version of firmware does your car have? These are the kind of things that improve gradually over time as the software gets smarter. 
Remember Tesla does not have typical IR rain sensors as other cars do, and tries to use the front cameras to identify rain in the picture though software magic that is very difficult to code.


----------



## ORfish (Aug 22, 2018)

JW,

Thanks! That makes tons of sense, as I do have have this issue with Honda/Ford/Toyota. My car loaded an update two weeks ago- so I assume it is current. That being said-- obviously in the Beta phase and I just need to use manual wiper mode in the dark. 

Hopefully, someday....


----------



## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

I still have to use manual wipers half the time, auto wipers still try to slow down or start/stop repeatedly mid-wipe and cause them wipers to stutter constantly. Today it was a night and day difference between auto and manual. I'm still on 32.2, if this isn't fixed in the next update I'm reporting it.


----------



## ymilord (Mar 31, 2017)

We have been getting some daily heavy rains in the DC area due to the storm heading our way. This past weekend at around 11 pm the rain died down a bit and we were heading home. Just before the traffic light to merge on to I95 it started to drizzle and for every couple drops that hit the windshield, it did one wipe at the max rate. It was kinda funny to watch. It was kinda like the 'useless machine'. A couple drops and it wipes it off fast and aggressively. When the light turned green and we got up to speed on 95 the rain picked up and it did like a double wipe and just furiously wiped for about 3~5 mins. It was like it was screaming, 'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GET OFF AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH'


----------



## babula (Aug 26, 2018)

MelindaV said:


> others have noticed that if you start with rain on the windshield, it does not automatically wipe until it notices a change. So expect that is part of what you were seeing this morning.
> 
> not yet having the car... (so take anything I say as total BS) I would suggest to tap the wiper swipe button on the left arm to clear the window when you first start and not expect the auto wipers to register until you get moving. obviously that doesn't help the dark conditions not being recognized though.


Its been raining in NY for the past week and I've had a chance to test the auto wipers a ton. If I have rain on my windshield, they seem to turn on for me as soon as I start the car. Overall they work very well, my only complaint is that they can be choppy at times.


----------



## babula (Aug 26, 2018)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> They work everywhere for me and in all lighting conditions.


Same here, surprised to see a lot of people reporting otherwise...


----------



## jmr1925 (Sep 17, 2018)

I've had my Model 3 since June and the auto-wipers are just plain lousy day or night. I asked the Tesla service department if the sensitivity could be adjusted and they said no but a software adjustment may come. The auto wipers on my 5 year old Volvo are great but apparently they use a different technology.


----------



## Kizzy (Jul 25, 2016)

Yep. In rural nights on 36.2, no autowipes without external lights.


----------



## actualsize (Jun 13, 2018)

This is still my biggest beef with the car. The lack of IR tech inthese rain-sensing wipers is a disppointment. And my kingdom for a stalk. I find myself tweaking the speed or sensitivity even on cars with good IR R/S wipers, but that's fine because stalk. Here I need to drill into the touchscreen in poor road conditions. Bad idea.


----------



## Scranton Model 3 owner (Jul 7, 2018)

Yes, I have noticed the same. Autowiper does not work in dark. Only able to detect mist/small droplets when you drive under streetlight or highway light. If you're in fog. You're not going to get any autowipe at all. The autopilot is not bad in fog though. able to see the lanes much better than we are in very thick fog with the fog lights on.


----------



## Jay79 (Aug 18, 2018)

My wipers so far activated twice with no rain present and both times at night, I have to turn them off and back on to make them stop. Very weird setup they have, should have just ponied up and in installed real sensors at the factory. I'd have gladly paid the extra money.


----------



## Jaspal (Apr 12, 2016)

Wipers are stuttering when on Auto. We've been having tons of rain in the Central Valley and the auto wipers on my M3 stutter after a while of use. Anyone know a fix?


----------



## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Jaspal said:


> Wipers are stuttering when on Auto. We've been having tons of rain in the Central Valley and the auto wipers on my M3 stutter after a while of use. Anyone know a fix?


Mine were chattering on the slower Auto speeds until I buffed out the (clean) windshield with a dry microfiber cloth with a bit of carnauba car wax residue on it. That was a lot of rain ago and they've been fine ever since.


----------



## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> Mine were chattering on the slower Auto speeds until I buffed out the (clean) windshield with a dry microfiber cloth with a bit of carnauba car wax residue on it. That was a lot of rain ago and they've been fine ever since.


Mine are still chattering, but it's a lot less now. I think we may be one update away from greatness!

Elon did say an update was coming soon on Twitter, but naturally I can't seem to find it.


----------



## msjulie (Feb 6, 2018)

Pre-sunrise wipers remain inconsistent for me; I have to turn them on because they don't see the rain but once they went into hyper mode for ?? and I had to shut them off...

I like the notion but a 'normal' wiper switch/stalk someplace wouldn't go unappreciated..


----------



## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Elon did say an update was coming soon on Twitter, but naturally I can't seem to find it.


I also saw that, they're updating the "neural net" to improve things.

I think this is a case of gross over-engineering for a problem what was solved a decade ago with pretty conventional tech. I drove from Woodstock to Brooklyn yesterday while it was raining, and switched to manual because it was so unreliable in the spraying-drizzle that went on all day. It's especially bad when someone pulls in front spraying the windshield and it doesn't react, or stops entirely.

BTW, top tip - I've seen some people saying you have to touch the screen twice to start the wipers manually. An easier way is to tap the button on the stalk for a single wipe, which then displays the wiper controls on the screen (from whatever was there previously) and then you can just hit the frequency you need. A few seconds later, it will return to whatever was there before, like odometer etc.


----------



## Don McGregor (Aug 22, 2018)

Yes very frustrated with wipers. Should be the simplest of things as all other manufacturers have near perfected rain sensing. It worries me that it can't figure out the rain but I'm supposed to trust it driving on its own.... We are definately not there yet.


----------



## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Don McGregor said:


> Yes very frustrated with wipers. Should be the simplest of things as all other manufacturers have near perfected rain sensing.


All other manufacturers use a dedicated rain sensor for the purpose. Tesla is attempting to have the autopilot cameras perform double-duty to detect rain. Doing so helps keep hardware costs low (which is critical for releasing a $35k version of the car), but it's something that has never been attempted before.


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

In the 5 months I’ve had my car, never had a complaint about the auto wipers at any time of day


----------



## Don McGregor (Aug 22, 2018)

garsh said:


> All other manufacturers use a dedicated rain sensor for the purpose. Tesla is attempting to have the autopilot cameras perform double-duty to detect rain. Doing so helps keep hardware costs low (which is critical for releasing a $35k version of the car), but it's something that has never been attempted before.


I understand that logic... However I didn't buy $35k vehicle. I purchased a state of the art electrical machine. If that is the case, what else are they trying to double dutying to save money? Please don't get me wrong I Love Tesla I just expect them do be the best in all categories.


----------



## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

Don McGregor said:


> I understand that logic... However I didn't buy $35k vehicle. I purchased a state of the art electrical machine. If that is the case, what else are they trying to double dutying to save money? Please don't get me wrong I Love Tesla I just expect them do be the best in all categories.


That's an unrealistic expectation for a vehicle like this at this price point. Even an Audi Q7 starting at $50k can still get $20k worth of options to get radar cruise, HUD, etc. and that's on a body platform that's shared with the Q5, the Cayenne, the Bentayga, the Urus, the Q8, and with powertrains shared across multiple hundreds of thousands of VAG products. Or, in the case of the supercharged V6, one that WAS shared across hundreds of thousands of cars and has now been fully amortized.

Tesla is making a car in the Model 3 that shares almost nothing with any other car. I'm sure there are some electrical bits that are shared or similar to S and X but I don't believe it's much. This is a car that sells in the multiples of tens of thousands. Not a lot of cars to distribute the capital investment across yet.

What you're buying, to steal someone else's analogy, is the powertrain of a $100k car in the body of a $35k car. Seriously, the Model 3 gets better range than an Audi E Tron with 15kw more battery even though that Audi has a base price $20k higher. And this is a VAG product with all of the supplier discounts that they can wrangle from producing millions of cars per year. You're not going to get the best of all categories. You're going to get the best EV powertrain out there. The rest of it isn't going to be as high quality. Tesla can't afford to. They don't have the economies of scale, they don't have the relationships with the suppliers, and they don't have the manufacturing expertise of a traditional automotive manufacturer.

No, you're buying a not mass market car, from a not mass market company. I happen to love the product but knowing a great deal about the automotive industry, I went in eyes wide open of what to expect. And what you get is stuff like trying to use the autopilot camera to control the wipers. It's all part of the experience. Someday when Telsa is making a million cars a year or more, things will change. And we will all look back on this and say, we were the early adopters, and laugh at what we had to put up with. It's all part of the journey and I'm glad I'm a part of it.


----------



## Don McGregor (Aug 22, 2018)

Needsdecaf said:


> That's an unrealistic expectation for a vehicle like this at this price point. Even an Audi Q7 starting at $50k can still get $20k worth of options to get radar cruise, HUD, etc. and that's on a body platform that's shared with the Q5, the Cayenne, the Bentayga, the Urus, the Q8, and with powertrains shared across multiple hundreds of thousands of VAG products. Or, in the case of the supercharged V6, one that WAS shared across hundreds of thousands of cars and has now been fully amortized.
> 
> Tesla is making a car in the Model 3 that shares almost nothing with any other car. I'm sure there are some electrical bits that are shared or similar to S and X but I don't believe it's much. This is a car that sells in the multiples of tens of thousands. Not a lot of cars to distribute the capital investment across yet.
> 
> ...


I hate to be that guy , again I love Tesla, the point is that the rain sensing in the Tesla, to be blunt, sucks. If they are trying to use cameras and programming to do what a sensor should be doing I don't see how it will improve enough to work the way most other vehicles work.

This is a mass market vehicle in every sence. That is the beauty of it. This is the only reason I can afford it.

Quick question. Do the S and X have a rain sensors?


----------



## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

Don McGregor said:


> I don't see how it will improve enough to work the way most other vehicles work


Your lack of vision is most disappointing, young Jedi!

This is a classic example of Tesla's repeated innovative thinking to solve a problem a different way that starts simple but can be continuously improved and iterated, and before you know it the old way is far far behind in capability and much more complex and costly.
Just look what Tesla's accomplished with a couple of cheap cameras. Or more that matter a simple internet data connection. Or more fundamentally simply replacing an engine with a motor. These things take time to improve and grow.
Mark my words a few months (OK, years) from now you will be swearing at how dumb the rain sensors are in all your other cars!


----------



## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Don McGregor said:


> I understand that logic... However I didn't buy $35k vehicle. I purchased a state of the art electrical machine.


... that originally didn't list "auto rain-sensing wipers" as a feature. It was added as an OTA update at some point.

You purchased a vehicle that keeps getting better over time.


----------



## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

Don McGregor said:


> I hate to be that guy , again I love Tesla, the point is that the rain sensing in the Tesla, to be blunt, sucks. If they are trying to use cameras and programming to do what a sensor should be doing I don't see how it will improve enough to work the way most other vehicles work.
> 
> This is a mass market vehicle in every sence. That is the beauty of it. This is the only reason I can afford it.
> 
> Quick question. Do the S and X have a rain sensors?


I agree, it sucks.

To further the analogy used by Matt Farrah, the reason that a GT 350R Mustang is 40k more expensive than a V6 powered one isn't that the interior gets better. It's the engine, the transmission, brakes, wheels and chassis.

With the Model 3, you're getting the interior and features of a mass market car, like a Honda Accord, but not the super deluxe version. The one without auto wipers, radar cruise, apple carplay, HUD, etc. And then you're paying for a state of the art drivetrain, for the most part. You can get Autopilot, and you also get a lot of cool stuff like the OTA updates that constantly improve things. But you're paying for that in advance.

Bottom line, the wipers will get better, but just because the car is in the $50k to $60k range doesn't mean it will be "the best in all categories" as you stated.


----------



## Guest (Feb 14, 2019)

Don McGregor said:


> I hate to be that guy , again I love Tesla, the point is that the rain sensing in the Tesla, to be blunt, sucks. If they are trying to use cameras and programming to do what a sensor should be doing I don't see how it will improve enough to work the way most other vehicles work.
> 
> This is a mass market vehicle in every sence. That is the beauty of it. This is the only reason I can afford it.
> 
> Quick question. Do the S and X have a rain sensors?


It is possible to use camera and it will work perfectly. But... not with a camera that is not even closely focused on windscreen.
All 3 cameras Model 3 has are way out of focus of windshield external glass layer. So...datawize, there is very little to analyze
from video feed of these 3 cameras. And this gets MUCH MUCH MUCH worse when it gets dark.

The fact that this tiny "software problem" is not yet fixed by world's most tech-friendly car company, is a proof that without
hardware change it is impossible to make it work as well as with dedicated sensor.
Dedicated rain sensor generates light and measures reflections. Tesla can easily add an Ir LED next to cameras and have
it run for 5ms every 500ms. But it is still a hardware change.

The reason of "no rain sensor" is complexity -sensor can be made inhouse for cheap. Camera+LED is as simple as just camera. 
Rain sensor is far from premium option since.. well.... 2013 at least.

S/X have dedicated sensors, also not very good.

PS: Rain sensor can be cheap and it can be "near perfect".
My Leaf's rain sensor is absolute rubbish. My 2001 BMW has perfect sensor. AFAIK they used that sensor for 14 years.


----------



## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

arnis said:


> It is possible to use camera and it will work perfectly. But... not with a camera that is not even closely focused on windscreen.
> All 3 cameras Model 3 has are way out of focus of windshield external glass layer. So...datawize, there is very little to analyze
> from video feed of these 3 cameras. And this gets MUCH MUCH MUCH worse when it gets dark.
> 
> ...


I don't have to focus on my glasses to know there's rain on them.


----------



## Guest (Feb 14, 2019)

Cameras don't work exactly the same as eyes.
And, like I said, how about


----------



## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

A good point in that even in the best cars with dedicated sensors (most made by the same company I think) some of their logic is rubbish as well. IMO, the ones in my Lexus were pretty close to how I'd want them to work. 

Tesla needs to change the interface to give us a manual intermittent mode with about 5 stops. Would be extemely easy to do. Change the controls to still have off, on low, on high and auto, but add an intermittent. Then make another control pop up (slider perhaps) that lets you adjust through 5 or so settings. Not the two that we have now. 

Simple.


----------



## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

MelindaV said:


> In the 5 months I've had my car, never had a complaint about the auto wipers at any time of day


Is that because you always have them set to manual? 

Seriously, I'm a bit shocked to hear this from someone that lives in the Pacific Northwest. Makes me wonder if there is some kind of adjustment or calibration they can do to make my wipers work better (although SC said no when I asked if they could adjust aggressiveness). I submit bug reports multiple times per week due to them being intermittent during steady or heavy rain. I could never leave them on auto all the time. I find they usually work OK during our common light drizzle, but are unusable whenever the rain picks up, day or night.

I understand that the auto wipers will eventually get better, but I really, really, really want to see them add some kind of manual control that doesn't require taking my eyes of the road and reaching for the touchscreen. Hold the wiper button at first detent, double click it, use scroll wheels... I don't care, just add something!


----------



## Guest (Feb 14, 2019)

Actually Tesla can do even better. There is some hidden logic on BMWs for example.
If user raises sensitivity (there have always been 4 notches to choose from AUTO)
module will raise sensitivity for calculated current value and NOT a preset value.
So, for example, if driver lowers sensitivity few seconds later, it means raising sensitivity
was too much and now... new setting is not the same as it was before.
For example, raising from AUTO1 to AUTO2 was too much, driver reduces to AUTO1 again,
but actually computer estimates sensitivity of some adjusted value, like AUTO1.25
I wrote a long one here:
https://teslaownersonline.com/threa...ng-from-your-model-3.6056/page-26#post-204470


----------



## Don McGregor (Aug 22, 2018)

JWardell said:


> Your lack of vision is most disappointing, young Jedi!
> 
> This is a classic example of Tesla's repeated innovative thinking to solve a problem a different way that starts simple but can be continuously improved and iterated, and before you know it the old way is far far behind in capability and much more complex and costly.
> Just look what Tesla's accomplished with a couple of cheap cameras. Or more that matter a simple internet data connection. Or more fundamentally simply replacing an engine with a motor. These things take time to improve and grow.
> Mark my words a few months (OK, years) from now you will be swearing at how dumb the rain sensors are in all your other cars!


This, my friend (Yoda) is the best response. Ok I'm back on the wagon. I do believe in Tesla and I'm in for the long haul thank you.


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Long Ranger said:


> Is that because you always have them set to manual?
> 
> Seriously, I'm a bit shocked to hear this from someone that lives in the Pacific Northwest. Makes me wonder if there is some kind of adjustment or calibration they can do to make my wipers work better (although SC said no when I asked if they could adjust aggressiveness). I submit bug reports multiple times per week due to them being intermittent during steady or heavy rain. I could never leave them on auto all the time. I find they usually work OK during our common light drizzle, but are unusable whenever the rain picks up, day or night.


maybe because I am used to something between light rain/drizzle/mist/sprinklers, I don't think the wipers HAVE to go 100% of the time there is a single drop of water somewhere on the window.


Long Ranger said:


> I understand that the auto wipers will eventually get better, but I really, really, really want to see them add some kind of manual control that doesn't require taking my eyes of the road and reaching for the touchscreen. Hold the wiper button at first detent, double click it, use scroll wheels... I don't care, just add something!


tap the left steering column lever (turn signal) for a single swipe. It also brings up the wiper card on the screen if you want to make further adjustments.


----------



## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

MelindaV said:


> maybe because I am used to something between light rain/drizzle/mist/sprinklers, I don't think the wipers HAVE to go 100% of the time there is a single drop of water somewhere on the window.


I should have mentioned that I'm in Seattle and have a similar view towards wipers. My complaint is when the rain picks up and I can't see a thing out the windshield and yet the wipers are still on intermittent. It's so bad I can't imagine anyone leaving the wipers on auto at that point. That's what has me thinking that either your auto wipers are much better than mine, or maybe you just don't mind switching to manual.



MelindaV said:


> tap the left steering column lever (turn signal) for a single swipe. It also brings up the wiper card on the screen if you want to make further adjustments.


 Yeah, I do that all the time, but it still requires me to look away and reach for the touchscreen at a time when visibility is poor. Seems like such a basic safety issue to me that I'm surprised they haven't come up with another solution yet.


----------



## MelindaV (Apr 2, 2016)

Long Ranger said:


> That's what has me thinking that either your auto wipers are much better than mine, or maybe you just don't mind switching to manual.


I can think of one single time (and only about a week ago) since my September delivery that I turned the wipers onto a manual setting from auto.

and having lived in both Portland and Seattle (and going up to SEA to be punished by the Ms multiple times a year, I can definitively say the rain is almost always significantly lighter in Portland than Seattle.


----------



## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

The Mitsubishi I had before the Model 3 had rain sensing wipers. It used a basic light sensor to detect changes in light coming through the windshield to determine if the wipers needed to run. It wasn't perfect either, and generated forum threads complaining about it much like this one.

Both systems (Mitsubishi and Tesla) use approximately the same equipment, because cameras are basically a light sensor. Where Tesla might have miscalculated though is that cameras usually have automatic light balancing to avoid being washed out or too dark. That would mean when the environment is very bright or very dark, the cameras might not see the change in light necessary to see raindrops.

I guess what I'm getting at is cameras _are_ appropriate equipment for seeing rain, they just have to figure out how to compensate for them being too feature heavy for the job.


----------



## SimonMatthews (Apr 20, 2018)

arnis said:


> Actually Tesla can do even better. There is some hidden logic on BMWs for example.
> If user raises sensitivity (there have always been 4 notches to choose from AUTO)
> module will raise sensitivity for calculated current value and NOT a preset value.
> So, for example, if driver lowers sensitivity few seconds later, it means raising sensitivity
> ...


The driver would not need to explicitly raise sensitivity. The system could infer that more sensitivity is required if the driver has to press the single wipe button one or more times.


----------



## Bokonon (Apr 13, 2017)

The main issue I've had with auto-wipers is that, while the system generally works well enough for my liking with rain, it does not detect road spray well enough for me, at any time of day. With the snowbanks around here melting over the past couple of days, I've encountered plenty of spray, but one thing I've noticed is that very little of it actually makes it up to the camera housing in the top-middle of the windshield... even as the left-middle section of the windshield (where my eyes are looking) quickly gets saturated.

Yeah, the sensitivity of the virtual "rain sensor" is likely calibrated in some fashion to account for that difference in the camera's positioning. But the larger the discrepancy in the amount of water between those two locations, the more sensitive the calibration becomes to small changes in either direction, making it trickier to find a happy medium that works "well enough" for most people most of the time. 

Making the sensitivity driver-adjustable -- as was the case on my e-Golf, whose rain sensor was similarly located -- definitely helps the driver feel more in control of what the wipers are doing. In my experience, though, you still end up constantly toggling the sensitivity setting up and down as the conditions change, just as you'd do with manual wiper controls. At the end of the day, whether the car uses a camera or a dedicated sensor to detect rain, you're still relying on a single input to determine whether to activate the wipers, and that input can (and will) be wrong under some conditions.

Along those lines... I wonder if it would be feasible for Tesla to use input from the wide-angle front camera or rear-facing side cameras to get a rough measurement of the amount of road spray present at lower altitudes, and factor that measurement into the rain-sensing algorithm? If there were a way to do that, the wiper system would at least have multiple data points for estimating the degree to which the driver's view was obscured, rather than relying solely on what one camera located above the driver sees.


----------



## Needsdecaf (Dec 27, 2018)

I agree. Moderate rain it handles well. Road spray and mist, not so much. 

Also agree with the sensitivity. I find that in my other vehicles, I am always adjusting the sensitivity switch of the auto wipers. 

That's why I like a dedicated intermittent mode with preset timings. It just works. I had that on my GTI and I was amazed at how much happier I was. Was so nice to go "backward" after quite a few years. Kinda missed the auto lights, though.


----------



## Metz123 (May 8, 2018)

Another Pacific Northwest resident.....

Anybody priced an automotive rain sensor? They are about $5 in bulk. There's simply no financial reason why Tesla opted out of using a dedicated sensor in favor of using a camera besides the words "neural net". "Hey, Elon - I can program a neural net that will run the auto wipers and it will learn and get better over time." "ohhhh - ahhhh, Go for it". 

That's how we got auto wipers that wipe in the garage on a dry day, stop wiping at night and intermittently switch from full hell has no fury mode to leisurely wipe every 2 minutes mode under the same weather conditions. 

They stink and I've gone back to using Rain-X, manual wipers and using the pulse feature as needed. At this point I've given up on hoping they improve. 

They should have hired whomever did the Audi (circa 2007) auto wipers. Those auto wipers were perfect. I don't think I touched my wiper settings in the 10 years I owned that A4.


----------



## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

I have to agree after driving in salty winter. Auto wipers used to be terrible all the time, but they now work great with rain drops in daylight. Not quite as much in the dark. But when it comes to any fine mist or salty coating, forget it. And I'm amazed Autopilot keeps functioning just fine trying to see through a newly opaque windshield


----------



## undergrove (Jan 17, 2018)

We in Southern California don't usually get much chance to test windshield wipers. However, this year we have almost hit what used to be our average rainfall (15 inches--rainy people please don't snicker--last year to this date was less than 1.5 inches).

The first time driving in rain, I didn't think they were fast enough on auto and switched to manual. On subsequent drives both my wife and I thought they were about right and never used manual.

Last night, while driving home around dusk I hit rain that was very variable and intermittent, going from nothing to fine mist to heavy to medium rather rapidly. I didn't think that auto was fast enough for any, especially for the heavy rain, so I switched to manual, leaving it on 3. After the rain stopped I put it back on auto. After that when I passed through more rain, the wipers responded more quickly with a faster speed at all levels of rain. 

This suggests that auto might be capable of adjusting based on how you use manual. Has anyone experienced anything like this? We are on 50.6 firmware.


----------



## James M (May 31, 2018)

Yet another Seattle resident... For me, the 5.15 update has had a significantly positive impact on Auto wiper setting at night. Previously a bright passing headlight, or even the occasional street lamp would cause the wipers to engage - I have not seen this happen at all since getting 5.15 almost a week ago, and it was extremely common for me previously in 50.6. While I'm not ready to say it has had a similar improvement on light rain scenarios, I am excited to see improvements here.


----------



## TheHairyOne (Nov 28, 2018)

No no noticeable improvement with 5.15 fw. Rained in SoCal yesterday and my wipers on a dark road had to be manually invoked via button press until the street lights resumed.


----------

