Auto Dimming Mirrors
One of the most annoying things that can happen while driving is to have somebody’s headlights glaring in your eyes while you’re trying to drive at night. It’s bad enough when its regular headlights you’re looking at, but when it’s high beams? That can go from being a nuisance to being actually dangerous, and fast. It’s bad when that light comes from in front you, but not a lot of drivers know that it can be just as dangerous to have somebody’s headlights glaring through your mirrors. Usually, it’s just as bright, but your mirrors don’t have as much space for you to look around the lights. That means that you’ve opened up a ton of blind spots, and you might not be able to see well behind you, either. In the right situation, that can be very hazardous.
If this really worries you, you might want to consider investing in a set of automatically dimming mirrors. The function of these is easy enough to guess – they dim when light touches them. You can have them placed both in the rearview and the side mirrors, and they generally do work pretty well. They’ll make it much easier to drive with lights behind you, because they really do take the edge off of the lights. You should even be able to see pretty well behind you.
Auto dimming mirrors have a sensor that “sees” the light that headlights emit, and direct the mirrors to darken in proportion to how bright the light is – that way your mirrors never get to dark or bright for you to use them properly. The moment the light goes away, the mirrors automatically lighten up again, so there is no delay between the two processes. The science behind this is called electrochromism, which governs the study of materials that can change color under electric influence. In the case of dimming mirrors, the electricity moves through a gel that’s behind the mirror.
There are a lot of different types of dimming mirrors that you can buy, and they’re all fairly easy to install (especially compared to most car parts). As for price, it depends on the mirrors. You can find a basic auto dimming rearview mirror for about $e0, which isn’t that great a price to pay. On the other, hand, more expensive mirrors with more features can cost much, much more. Mirrors can come with lights, a compass, thermometer, etc. They can mount in different ways as well, most likely on the windshield. Add that with a couple of good side mirror replacements, and you could be looking at a $200 expense, maybe even more.
Whether they’re worth that price really depends on a lot of different factors. If you do a lot of driving at night, that makes it drastically more worth considering. If you don’t, then why spend up to $300 for a set of mirrors that you won’t be using on a regular basis? In that case, it just probably isn’t worth the money. Also, how often to headlights behind you make you feel unsafe. Granted, things of that nature can affect us without us knowing it, but if headlights behind you just don’t seem like much of a problem, then why bother?
But even if all of these things apply to you, It might not be worth it to buy a set new. It makes more sense to buy something like this when you have to replace something like a side mirror, as that need will absorb some of the cost. But really, this is a better feature for a new car than it is as a stand-alone item.
