Como funciona um pára-sol eletrônico

As palas de sol costumavam ser simples - um pedaço de papelão coberto com vinil ou tecido, preso a uma dobradiça. A dobradiça permitia que o visor abaixasse, bloqueando a luz solar direta, para a janela lateral ou para cima e fora do caminho. A maioria tinha espelhos . Os chiques tinham espelhos que iluminavam. E muitos foram complementados pelo equivalente automotivo de uma pochete - um pedaço de feltro com fenda desajeitada, projetado para conter 8 ou 9 CDs, que amarrado na viseira com velcro.

And that was it, really, and consumers seemed reasonably satisfied. As long as a sun visor blocked some of the sun's blinding rays, it had served its purpose. A mediocre sun visor was preferable to none at all. There was always room for improvement, but there was also a line that could not be crossed -- blocking enough sun to see clearly, while leaving enough of the windshield unobstructed so that a driver could see the road and avoid obstacles.

But as far as automotive designers and aftermarket electronics manufacturers are concerned, anything can be improved. Even if it turns out the improvements aren't exactly necessary. And even if consumers later discover that the improvements might not have been plausible, after all.

O console central pode parecer um pouco cheio hoje em dia. Desde que os consumidores decidiram que todo controle eletrônico requer um painel de tela sensível ao toque , e os designers de automóveis atenderam a esses desejos, a pilha central de um carro está começando a parecer um pouco complicada. Vimos essas telas dominarem os cockpits, desde sedãs e SUVs de luxo até compactos econômicos. Se você tem um carro com um desses sistemas de computador no painel, pode estar se perguntando o que resta para decorar. E se você tem um carro mais antigo ou mais barato, pode estar procurando alternativas acessíveis.

So, it's inevitable that electronics designers would start eyeing a previously underutilized bit of surface area -- the sun visor. And, hey, a sun visor can be made just big enough to cram in a 7-inch LCD monitor and a DVD drive. Problem solved!

Some of these aftermarket electronic sun visors can be had for less than $100, and manufacturers claim they're pretty easy to install in most cars, by simply swapping out the stock sun visor (but only on the passenger side, please!) and hooking up the new one. They come in a range of neutrals -- plastic black, plastic gray and plastic beige -- to coordinate (somewhat) with most interiors, and some even include additional features like USB input slots and GPS systems.

DVD player sun visors appear to have been invented to solve a problem that's about two decades old -- how to enjoy film and television in a moving vehicle (on a very tight budget). But hey, the bulkiness and heft of the plastic might block out a bit more sun than the old visor, right?

At best, this is a super inexpensive way to get a DVD player in your car -- that is, if you've got an older car and a desperate passenger, and watching movies on an iPod, smartphone or tablet isn't an option for whatever reason. At worst, well ... it's a sun visor and it's electronic, but in terms of what we need a sun visor to do, it just isn't the kind of electronic sun visor anyone really had in mind.

Em teoria, algumas das tecnologias usadas para janelas inteligentes seriam aplicáveis. O vidro fotocromático, que escurece quando exposto à luz solar, parece ser uma boa maneira de tornar os pára-brisas mais eficazes. E é verdade que a tecnologia fotocromática e outros produtos semelhantes de vidro inteligente já estão sendo usados ​​em carros. Mas os fabricantes de automóveis parecem hesitantes em empregar algo mais complicado - afinal, o principal objetivo de um para- brisa é a segurança, e a força e as propriedades de resistência a quebras do vidro não podem ser comprometidas.

However, a solution known as suspended particle devices could be adapted for use in sun visors. Suspended particle devices function like a valve that lets light pass through. Millions of these particles float in a material between two panes of glass (or plastic, in some cases). A control module allows the user to decide how much light to allow to pass through. If full light is desired, the particles are arranged in rows so the sun's rays have a pathway through. To block light, the particles are scattered.

Some companies have tried to put similar ideas into effect. One such product that was once in development was a clear electronic panel that could descend from the car's regular sun visor. In addition to blocking the sun at the brightest times of day, it was also designed to be used at night to reduce headlight glare from surrounding traffic . YES Invent, a development firm based in Israel, claims their visor monitors the driver's eyes to figure out how much glare reduction is necessary and then automatically adjusts accordingly. The price was projected to be less than $300, and YES Invent hoped it would be widely adopted by automotive manufacturers ... but it hasn't happened yet.

Back in 2007, Popular Mechanics and some blogs reported that Volkswagen was working on another system, kind of a combination of the two aforementioned concepts. It used the same sunlight sensors and driver's-eye sensors as the YES Invent's anti-glare visor, but the components were actually embedded into the windshield itself to offer protection in the areas that a regular sun visor simply can't block. It produced a dark spot in the glass that reacted swiftly to changing light and could even move when the car turned. It's reasonable to assume that the system, if ever completed, would have ended up in the Volkswagen group's more upscale models (like Audi, for example) but so far, the electronic matrix sun visor (as it was called back then) has yet to be seen.

Author's Note: How an Electronic Sun Visor Works

As best as I could tell, it seems like auto researchers have decided sun glare just isn't that much of a problem anymore. Projects in development appear to have been abandoned, and sun visors don't seem much more advanced than they did the last time I drove a new car. The sun's still there, so it's hard to figure out why auto manufacturers think drivers no longer need glare protection. It's probably worth mentioning that anti-glare features on tablets and e-readers is rather impressive now, though -- we certainly don't recommend reading in traffic, but it would probably be easier on the eyes.

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