The Bosch Virtual Visor Aims To Festoon The Simplest Car Part With Tech

The near-100-year-old sun visor could be in for reinvention, as Bosch reveals a device that automatically blocks out sunlight
The Bosch Virtual Visor Aims To Festoon The Simplest Car Part With Tech

Cars are becoming fantastically complicated. Even once straightforward items like door handles and rear-view mirrors have been given tech-focused makeovers, and now, one of the few car parts left alone could soon be reinvented.

The humble sun visor works in the same way it has done for 95 years, but Bosch is suggesting this may change in the future. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the company revealed something it dubs the ‘Virtual Visor’, and it’s considerably more complicated.

The device replaces the usual slab of sunlight-blocking material for an LCD screen. A camera has a good look at your mug, determining where your eyes are and blocking out just enough of the screen so that low sunlight doesn’t blind you. The idea is that you’re left with a much better field of view since the rest of the display is left transparent.

The Bosch Virtual Visor Aims To Festoon The Simplest Car Part With Tech

Over in the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that the risk of an accident increases by 16 per cent during bright sunlight, while in the UK, the Department for Transport reports that 2643 accidents were caused in 2018 by drivers being temporarily blinded by the sun.

Bosch boldly claims that the bog-standard sun visor is “not equipped to adequately address this safety concern”. Its solution may raise questions about unnecessary complication in car design, but Virtual Visor is an interesting idea, and it’s already been awarded the ‘Best of Innovation’ gong in the CES 2020 Innovation Awards.

As for whether the concept makes it to showrooms, we’ll have to wait and see.

Comments

Anonymous

I’m a short arse and 9 times out of 10, I flip the visor down only for it to do absolutely nothing. This will not change that.

01/06/2020 - 14:03 |
24 | 0
Matthew Henderson

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I feel your pain. Mind you… the sunvisor of an NA is about as useful for blocking the sun as putting a cap on backwards, but I’ll just gloss over that because even in cars with proper sunvisors I’ll be blinded.

01/06/2020 - 20:48 |
1 | 0
ferrarman11

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I’m short too and I’ve spent some time in an F Type, and the sun would be very unbearable. So I put a piece of paper under the little mirror flap on the visor and voila an extended visor

01/06/2020 - 22:19 |
5 | 0
Anonymous

Yay, more unnecessarily complicated shit to break

01/06/2020 - 15:43 |
13 | 0
ferrarman11

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Honestly something simpler would be a really dark tinted glass to swing down instead of the visor.

01/06/2020 - 22:20 |
4 | 0
......

While it does sounds cool
Is it really necessary?
Its just more unnecessary stuff to break

01/06/2020 - 18:11 |
7 | 0
Anonymous

something else to smash your face into…

01/06/2020 - 21:26 |
1 | 2
5:19.55

Sunglasses aren’t cool enough anymore?

01/06/2020 - 23:22 |
3 | 0
Andrés Cely Herazo

Isn’t it better to carry your sunglasses in the glovebox? They are cheaper, less complicated to use and make you look cool.

01/08/2020 - 02:28 |
1 | 0
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0 | 1

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