


Intelligence shows organised crime gangs are using relay technology to receive the signal from a key inside a house and transfer it to a portable device, allowing them to unlock and drive the car. Or to give it its proper term, relay car theft. The National Police Chief’s Council showed there was a 3.1% increase between May and June this year – with most of the increase due to keyless car theft. While the pandemic and multiple lockdowns might have reduced car theft over the last year or so, the UK police forces are warning that it’s on the increase again. The projected guide for motorway use falls in the middle – a bit of theatre with a useful side.Keyless car theft: What is a relay attack, how can you prevent it, and will your car insurance cover it? The real value comes from the ability to illuminate even more of the road while reducing glare – a double win. While the projected animations look cool they are ultimately frivolous. HD Matrix LED is good, Digital Matrix LED is better.


The main benefit is how much they illuminate the road without annoying other drivers. This box beamed onto the road shows up tarmac defects and marks out your position between the lines and your distance from the car in front. There’s no custom function so you have to make do with presets. Digital Matrix LED: how it worksĪnimations can be beamed onto a wall or the road when you start and stop. If you thought branded puddle lamps were the ultimate attention-seeker’s accessory, think again. As this function is unlikely to be homologated you’ll have to make do with a set of preloaded animations that the car can beam onto a vertical surface or the road when you start up or switch off. Two rows of overlaid chevrons show the exact width of your car including door mirrors, so you can size up gaps in traffic or accurately place it between narrow roadworks.Īnd because the ‘micromirror’ at the heart of this system is basically the same tech as you get in a cinema projector, you could – in theory – use your car’s headlights for an impromptu film screening, given a suitable wall. But ‘slightly better than the old system’ rarely sells well, so on top of illuminating the road more fully and excluding other cars from your full beams with greater precision than the previous innovation, these digital headlights can pull off some neat party tricks too.įirstly, when you’re on the motorway the car will project a carpet of light onto the lane in front of you, kept entirely between the white lines, and capable of curving with the topography of the road.
