The Growing Dash Problem

Just a decade ago, the standard car instrument cluster was a round dial to show the engine revs, another one to show the car’s speed and maybe two more for the fuel level and the water temperature.
They were all right there, directly behind the steering wheel, and it was a simple thing even for drivers with corrective lenses, to glance down at the instruments and quickly focus on the road again. But those days have gone, and car instruments have changed, and corrective lenses must change with them. This change alone is one of the key reasons why Shamir developed the Shamir Driver Intelligence lens system.

Digital screens have become part of an automotive arms race today, and they are becoming ever wider, taking up the entire width of the dash in some models. BMW’s Vision Neue Klasse concept car, shown for the first time this month, that takes up the entire bottom third of the windshield as well.
The problem no car company has thought of is that this screen width is a very difficult layout for corrective lenses to accurately cope with, especially progressive lenses. That makes the screens hard to read for people with corrective lenses, and that makes driving more dangerous, with the drivers’ eyes off the road for longer, and more frustrating than it needs to be.
The major vision issue with these ever-wider digital screens is that drivers need a lens design that lets them focus on their rear and side mirrors, as well as into the distance through the windshield, and still take the minimum possible time to focus on and absorb the critical information from the instruments.

“If you look at the cars from the 1970s to the 2010s, you looked at the road and there were the mirrors to side and the instruments were all straight in front of you, Shamir Chief Technology Officer Zohar Katzman explained.
“In the last 10 years, screens spread across the dash, they became digital, they had more glare and they also became deeper.
“Progressive lenses give you power for different distances, and the power you need today to see all of the dashboard has to be much wider than it in the past.”
These are some of the very modern reasons why Shamir felt compelled to develop the Driver Intelligence™ lens system.

To counter the screen-width issue, the Driver Intelligence™ system is a kit of Sun and Moon lenses for day and night driving, and the lens design has been reshaped, making it easier for drivers to read critical information from screens, while improving their peripheral vision.
“We didn’t feel like we could increase the level of distortion to read all of that screen information, because we still needed accurate peripheral vision for blind spots and mirrors, so we shrank the depth of the reading area, but made it wider.”
The result, according to Alpine GT racer Jacques Neveux, is like nothing he’s ever experienced before.