The monitor might be 2 feet away from you, and for that you need your glasses (well, maybe not now, but likely eventually). Imagine you’re sitting at your desk looking at a computer monitor. Mirrors work differently because they are reflecting distant light. First, the issue of why the digital mirror image was blurry when a regular mirror, the same distance away, is not:
Pratt gave some really interesting explanations for what I was experiencing, so I’ll let him explain. Of course, he did refer to me as “John” in all our correspondence, but I think he still knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this sort of visual puzzle.ĭr. Jay Pratt, who specializes in perception and visual cognition and is a professor at the University of Toronto, can. It’s the same distance as a normal mirror, so what’s going on, here? And, even with my glasses on, I can see the screen-mirror image clearly, but it still feels unsettlingly wrong compared to a normal mirror. But, significantly, when I drive and look in my conventional rearview mirror, inches from my face, the images reflected in that mirror do not look blurry. They look as clear as any of the other distant cars through the windshield look.īut when I look at the digital rearview mirror’s screen, it’s blurry as hell. This is known as presbyopia, and happens to pretty much everybody, so all you beautiful, sexy young readers out there holding your phones inches from your gorgeous, clear, vivid eyes can just fuck right off, because it’ll happen to you, too, and then you’ll be having to get used to yourself in glasses just like I did.Īnyway, because this condition only really affects your close-up vision, I don’t wear glasses to drive, as my distance vision is fine, and I just deal with the fact that my dash instruments are a bit blurry. Ever since I made the decision to Become Old, which happened a few years ago in my late 40s, my once-perfect-vision eyeballs decided they’d help my more mature look by suddenly refusing to be able to see anything close to my head. Part of what seemed to be going on had to do with my own particular vision situation. I also wasn’t sure if maybe there was just something wrong with me, but I asked a couple other Toyota reps (whom I won’t name, of course) and got confirmation that I’m not alone in finding these digital mirrors unusable. It’s terrible in an unusual way, too, in that there’s nothing actually wrong with the design or execution, it seems to be terrible in concept. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I had some suspicions. Other carmakers have these, and there’s aftermarket options as well.)
(I should mention that while my examples here are from Toyota, this is not a Toyota-only thing. I just tried one out myself in the 2023 Toyota Sequoia, and while the technology itself was impressive and well-executed, actually using the screen-mirror for its intended purpose was awful, almost literally unusable. Here, I’ll let Toyota try and explain why these should be great: Why? What makes them so awful? To figure it out, I had to reach out to a scientist who studies visual cognition.Īre you familiar with these sorts of digital rearview mirrors? They’ve been around for a few years, and they seem to offer a lot of benefits: because the “mirror” (again, it’s not really a mirror at all, it’s a screen in the shape and location of a traditional inside mirror) is fed via a camera mounted at the rear of the car, nothing inside the car – passengers heads, luggage, pillars, errant balloons, whatever – can block your rear vision.Īlso, the camera can provide a wider field of view, and prevents getting dazzled when someone has their brights on behind you.
When it comes to cars, I think one of the best examples of this concept is the inside rearview mirror that is actually an LCD screen connected to a camera. Things like, say, a popsicle made of chowder or a genetically-engineered flying chihuahua. There are some things that sound great on paper, but in practice are awful, just awful.
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