Dash Gripes - any ideas?

[Anonymous]

I picked up my Bolt a few weeks ago and I absolutely love the car. I've run into two annoyances and I'm wondering if others figured out solutions since I can't seem to see any one else complaining about them.

1) Car Play and the Clock - If you are in any of the Car Play screens, you've lost your clock. It's not in the DIC. The solutions are cumbersome: press Home to see the Bolt's clock, ask Siri "What time is it?", or buy a watch. Am I missing an easy way to always have a clock in one of the displays? I'd love to have a clock in one corner of the DIC.

2) DIC and Infotainment Auto Brightness is Horrible - Everyday when I leave my garage, the Bolt thinks it's dark outside because it turns on in the lower light of the garage. For the next 20 seconds from the point the dash gets into the sun, the DIC and Infotainment screens are in night mode even when the dash is bathed in sunlight. Inevitably, as I start driving I can't see my displays unless I turn up the brightness (then it's too bright at night) or wait 20 seconds. This is a safety issue. Similarly, the light sensor also jumps the gun and switches into night mode too early in the evening while driving. Usually before the sun sets and shadows are getting longer, my displays become too dark all of sudden. My Toyotas did a much better job adjusting for bright and dark conditions. I wish the Bolt could at least be as good.

I'd love to tweak the auto brightness settings - the delay should be closer to 5 seconds instead of 20. The sensor should pick night mode when it's a little darker outside. That would probably make it work much better and I could avoid constantly futzing with the display brightness knob.

Is anyone else annoyed by the auto brightness/day-night control?

 

[iletric]

There is much too much dimming and undimming delay in Bolt. Spark was the same way and so is Kia Soul. The only EV that had it right was Leaf 1. It was super responsive in tunnels. I always watch for that. All others mentioned are/were such a joke in tunnels. You're 1/4 mile out in daylight and it's still not registering.

I'm hoping Nissan will not mess with the setting in Leaf 2 and keep the good thing going.

Otherwise, I very much dislike almost all the Bolt's displays. I don't know who gave them the overall idea for the "clean look" or what have you, but it's awful. It is however a step up from Spark, which looked like it was designed by a bunch of 10-year-olds.

 

[gpsman]

You could fool the sensor on the dash front & center.
Cover it with black tape. It will think it is night all the time. Put an LED light on it. It will think it is day all the time.

You then can manually adjust the dimmer switch.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks gpsman.

I sort of ended up with something to that effect as a work around for leaving my garage. I have an LED spotlight bulb clamped to a bike hanging over the Bolt ambient light sensor when the car is parked in the garage. I use SmartThings for home automation and made a rule to turn the spotlight on when the garage door opens when it's daytime. Now when I back out of the garage during the day and hit the sunlight I can see the screens and most importantly the backup camera. At night the spotlight doesn't come on so the car is in night mode if I back out.

BTW, I had the car in for service today and asked the service manager about the light sensor and whether or not there was any special service menu they could use to tune its behavior. He looked around the regular menus and then declared my only option was to fiddle with the dash light knob each time the screen was too dark or too bright.

 

[user 1034]

...I have an LED spotlight bulb clamped to a bike hanging over the Bolt ambient light sensor when the car is parked in the garage. I use SmartThings for home automation and made a rule to turn the spotlight on when the garage door opens when it's daytime. Now when I back out of the garage during the day and hit the sunlight I can see the screens and most importantly the backup camera. At night the spotlight doesn't come on so the car is in night mode if I back out.

I really like this workaround. It almost seems better than the issue it is "resolving".

Any excuse for me to tinker!

 

[PV1]

Just to clear up confusion on my part, is the DIC the gauge display or the central radio display? When in CarPlay, I have a clock on the left hand side of the radio display, in the banner that has the CarPlay home button. I've never seen a clock on the display behind the steering wheel.

The auto-dimming/auto-headlights is something I'd rather do without, but it looks like there's no way to disable it without hacking or tricking the car. It's across the Chevy line.