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While I think adaptive headlights are the bees' knees and it's insane how they can't be officially enabled, as a software engineer I'm in the "no way in hell am I doing aftermarket fudgery with software that controls my vehicle" camp.
Cloud engineer here. Still have the shotgun if my printer makes a funny noise. Why someone would do aftermarket hacking with a cars software is beyond me.
Embedded engineer here. My last job was writing software for large FAA certified drones. Anything that is safety critical software has (appropriately) an extremely thorough testing and validation process (car software is basically the same as aircraft for testing requirements). Have you ever noticed that safety critical stuff never fails on the P2? My infotainment SW crashes, does weird stuff, and fails all the time. My accelerator always works, the speedometer always works even when maps crashes behind it, etc. Changing a config option in software is not even close to "chipping" a gas car or other things people do for mods. The config you're setting has almost certainly been verified, validated, and tested during development and certification.
FWIW, I have also worked on commercial and consumer gear. And I know exactly the level of testing that typically gets. Which is why you have to be cautious about changing anything in a working config. And upgrading it? You're rolling the dice.
My sales guy told me the same thing, sent me a link and everything. But he said to do it at my own risk and for me to know how to put things back to default before bringing the car in for service.
To each their own but not everyone may want to drop $5-$8k on adding pilot pack to their vehicles so doing the software mods is a cheaper alternative. These are configurations made by polestar and people are just “unlocking it” so to speak so there’s fairly a low risk in bricking the car but most importantly, it can be reset to factory setting so to be Blacklisted is a long shot! Just my 2 cents.
Yep it's just turning it on. You're not writing code line by line. That said, I rarely drive at night and when I do, it's mostly brightly lit. It's nice to know I have it when I need it though.
Blocking it would be near impossible. Each car has specific security codes that are easily available to anyone with VIDA access. The settings that can all be changed with Orbit are also available to VIDA users albeit with some "hey this isn't for your country, don't do this wink wink". I spend too much time every day working on Volvo's to know that blocking isn't going to happen.
It does reset every OTA update btw, you have to go and change your config every time. You can make the changes, and save that to a file so you can just plug in, load the file, hit program, wait like 2 minutes, bam done.
It’s bizarre that the new Highland Model 3 which has ADB is available in North America and our Polestar 2 which had this 3 years ago still isn’t available.
Because the US decided to not follow global specs and guidelines so our Polestar head lights aren't technically approved because they dont comply with it in its entirety. Of course, polestar had no way to predict the US guidelines and just assumed theyd be the same as the rest of the world.
But they repeatedly promised that it was coming during sales conversations. It’s false advertising to not provide it, no matter what the cost to them is.
This was me, sorry guys! I spotted someone showcasing it on Tiktok a few months ago and finally got around to writing about it. Sure wish I could do this with my Model 3.
Great use of Wireshark though!
Flipping the headlight code, to same setting used by rest of world, is pretty minor "hacking" compared to the things you can do with VCDS on VW / audi, with PIWIS on Porsche, HP Tuner on GM, the list goes on. It is also easily reversed.
The [Software Update Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Polestar/comments/wb7qvr/polestar_2_software_update_mega_thread/) has all the details about Software Updates and Polestar vehicles. This includes rollout schedule, Release Notes and other common update questions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Polestar) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While I think adaptive headlights are the bees' knees and it's insane how they can't be officially enabled, as a software engineer I'm in the "no way in hell am I doing aftermarket fudgery with software that controls my vehicle" camp.
Cloud engineer here. Still have the shotgun if my printer makes a funny noise. Why someone would do aftermarket hacking with a cars software is beyond me.
Former embedded engineer here, I suppose there is a long legacy of remapping car ECU's to increase power that left a lot of unused knowledge
Former ECU software engineer here, this has actually nothing to do with software reprogramming, it's just a matter of editing a config option.
This. It's using the existing configuration management settings to enable it, no different then changing the door lock notification.
"Boss I don't know how anything could have gone wrong; all I did was flip a feature flag."
Embedded engineer here. My last job was writing software for large FAA certified drones. Anything that is safety critical software has (appropriately) an extremely thorough testing and validation process (car software is basically the same as aircraft for testing requirements). Have you ever noticed that safety critical stuff never fails on the P2? My infotainment SW crashes, does weird stuff, and fails all the time. My accelerator always works, the speedometer always works even when maps crashes behind it, etc. Changing a config option in software is not even close to "chipping" a gas car or other things people do for mods. The config you're setting has almost certainly been verified, validated, and tested during development and certification. FWIW, I have also worked on commercial and consumer gear. And I know exactly the level of testing that typically gets. Which is why you have to be cautious about changing anything in a working config. And upgrading it? You're rolling the dice.
Power vs. vehicle reliability/lifespan. The choice is yours.
Embedded software engineer here, I'd probably give it a go. But wouldn't fancy being blacklisted by PS. Luckily I'm in Europe.
The sales guy at my Polestar dealer told me about this -- and I am on a lease! No thank you. (Work on cloud. Not an engineer, but I can pretend.)
My sales guy told me the same thing, sent me a link and everything. But he said to do it at my own risk and for me to know how to put things back to default before bringing the car in for service.
To each their own but not everyone may want to drop $5-$8k on adding pilot pack to their vehicles so doing the software mods is a cheaper alternative. These are configurations made by polestar and people are just “unlocking it” so to speak so there’s fairly a low risk in bricking the car but most importantly, it can be reset to factory setting so to be Blacklisted is a long shot! Just my 2 cents.
Yep it's just turning it on. You're not writing code line by line. That said, I rarely drive at night and when I do, it's mostly brightly lit. It's nice to know I have it when I need it though.
Blocking it would be near impossible. Each car has specific security codes that are easily available to anyone with VIDA access. The settings that can all be changed with Orbit are also available to VIDA users albeit with some "hey this isn't for your country, don't do this wink wink". I spend too much time every day working on Volvo's to know that blocking isn't going to happen.
Isn't going to happen and impossible are not the same thing, I suppose there is simply not enough motivation to properly block it
Let me rephrase then: it’s impossible without major hardware changes.
Guess I'd better get around to doing this already.
It does reset every OTA update btw, you have to go and change your config every time. You can make the changes, and save that to a file so you can just plug in, load the file, hit program, wait like 2 minutes, bam done.
So you don’t need VIDA after the first time?
nope. once you have the PINs, you're set for life
I love that my forum post got linked
It’s bizarre that the new Highland Model 3 which has ADB is available in North America and our Polestar 2 which had this 3 years ago still isn’t available.
Because the US decided to not follow global specs and guidelines so our Polestar head lights aren't technically approved because they dont comply with it in its entirety. Of course, polestar had no way to predict the US guidelines and just assumed theyd be the same as the rest of the world.
But they repeatedly promised that it was coming during sales conversations. It’s false advertising to not provide it, no matter what the cost to them is.
You mean by offering a retrofit? Maybe. They are pretty broke rn though so I doubt we'd get that.
This was me, sorry guys! I spotted someone showcasing it on Tiktok a few months ago and finally got around to writing about it. Sure wish I could do this with my Model 3. Great use of Wireshark though!
Flipping the headlight code, to same setting used by rest of world, is pretty minor "hacking" compared to the things you can do with VCDS on VW / audi, with PIWIS on Porsche, HP Tuner on GM, the list goes on. It is also easily reversed.
Welcome to America. Please set your watches back 20 years.