Help with interior lighting at night

[f82pilot]

I just bought a used 2018 M4 competition package. Still learning the many settings.

In my wife's driver profile in iDrive there is a red accent light under the HVAC controls. (See attached photo, I highlighted the area in blue)


This light is clearly visible at night. In my driver profile, it is not visible. I can't find the iDrive setting that controls this, or see how they are different. Not sure what we did to get hers illuminated. But mine is not. Any help would be appreciated.

[DThr33]

can't see the photo but I'm going to guess it's the little light above the cupholder/under the AC controls

if you have your lighting set to "sport" it should show up white, but it's fairly dim which may be why you can't see it. if you set it to "classic" it should turn orange with the rest of the interior lights

[WhiteFox]

There is no light there that’s why.

[Yuille36]

In the IDrive settings, your going to select lighting, then Interior. Like others have mention, there are only two settings; Classic (White) and Sport (ORANGES RED) to choose from. You can however turn up the brightness settings, so that it stands out better.

I purchased these plastic light diffuser strips that mount into the channel where the lights are. They help diffuse the light over are broader area. Unfortunately they aren't light up in these photos, but you can make them just above the interior door handle, they look gray. When the interior lights are on, they look amazing compare to stock. I tried searching for them, but cannot seem to find them. I did find a video on youtube all about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Ambient-LED-L.../dp/B07SG65LWJ

In my F85 X5M, I have more color choices and combinations.

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by DThr33

can't see the photo but I'm going to guess it's the little light above the cupholder/under the AC controls

if you have your lighting set to "sport" it should show up white, but it's fairly dim which may be why you can't see it. if you set it to "classic" it should turn orange with the rest of the interior lights

Correct. LCI cars have the radio trim ambient lighting vs the pre LCI cup holder ambient lighting.

You probably have white selected and she probably has orange selected. Both are very dim during the day but especially the white.

There's a German company named Benzinfabrik that offers replacement ambient lighting LED modules that are brighter than OEM. They offer the standard orange/white and also offer blue/white which I have and other colors.

Replacement LED modules for the doors and footwells are available as well.

They're great products I have all the modules in my cat replaced with blue/white and others on the F30 forum have used their products.

[Yuille36]

Here are a few interior pics, that I took this morning from inside my garage. You can clearly see how much more the interior light is diffused with using those plastic LED light diffuser strips. A dramatic improvement, if I do say so myself. The picture that I took of the AC/Radio controls didn't come out well, so I just deleted it.

[DThr33]

Originally Posted by eff32fl

Correct. LCI cars have the radio trim ambient lighting vs the pre LCI cup holder ambient lighting.

You probably have white selected and she probably has orange selected. Both are very dim during the day but especially the white.

There's a German company named Benzinfabrik that offers replacement ambient lighting LED modules that are brighter than OEM. They offer the standard orange/white and also offer blue/white which I have and other colors.

Replacement LED modules for the doors and footwells are available as well.

They're great products I have all the modules in my cat replaced with blue/white and others on the F30 forum have used their products.

I wouldn't replace that LED with a benzinfabrik one - did it on my f30 and it was far too bright for that placement - I had to turn down all the interior LEDs to balance it out. Here's a video I took a few years ago when I did the install, shows the difference in brightness of the OEM and benzinfabrik LEDs and how (in my opinion) they're too bright for the cupholder area

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by DThr33

I wouldn't replace that LED with a benzinfabrik one - did it on my f30 and it was far too bright for that placement - I had to turn down all the interior LEDs to balance it out. Here's a video I took a few years ago when I did the install, shows the difference in brightness of the OEM and benzinfabrik LEDs and how (in my opinion) they're too bright for the cupholder area

Their older batches were very bright but their current versions aren't as bright which is probably a good thing.

Like you mentioned, just turn down your ambient lighting brightness and you're golden. You can decouple the ambient lighting from the rest of the lighting with Bimmercode for fine tuning.

[DThr33]

Originally Posted by eff32fl

Their older batches were very bright but their current versions aren't as bright which is probably a good thing.

Like you mentioned, just turn down your ambient lighting brightness and you're golden. You can decouple the ambient lighting from the rest of the lighting with Bimmercode for fine tuning.

How old are we talking? I'd ordered these in March 2022

[eff32fl]

Originally Posted by DThr33

How old are we talking? I'd ordered these in March 2022

If I recall correctly it was in May 2022 when I placed an order and got dimmer modules.

[f82pilot]

Thanks for this info. Sorry for delay in reply, just got back from a trip so I had a chance to check this out. She does have the red lighting selected for the ambient lighting selection, and I do have white which seems much more dim than the red, almost to the point of being pointless to have in the first place.

One other thing I have noticed, the HVAC controls are white for me during the day, which I prefer, but once the headlights come on, they go red, like it is not respecting my setting of white instead of red. I suppose that too is a "feature" and not a "bug" ?

[DThr33]

Originally Posted by f82pilot

One other thing I have noticed, the HVAC controls are white for me during the day, which I prefer, but once the headlights come on, they go red, like it is not respecting my setting of white instead of red. I suppose that too is a "feature" and not a "bug" ?

yep, they turn red/orange at night to be less distracting to the eyes. I think the little screen in the dash does the same, can't remember off the top of my head.

[couchflyer]

Red light does not affect the pupil at night.

In WW2, planes had red light gages for night flying.

Astronomers use red flashlights at night to see the ground because it doesn’t affect their night vision.

[Yuille36]

And that is also why we used red lights at night in the military, to preserve your night vision.