Night review of the interior accent lighting options on the Rivian R1S Gen 2

[carsly]

The second Gen Rivian R1 has configurable accent lighting (hurray) but the choices are limited to a narrow selection of pre-configured colors. As I hadn't found another resource I thought I'd take a 4K video at night to show what these options look like at varying levels of brightness.

Takeaways:
- choices are nice, more choices are better
- why do we need sounds? these only play when you select a theme and never again. seems like an odd place to spend more than 30 seconds of engineering time.
- these are almost all invisible during daylight hours, even at full brightness
- while people seem to be amazed at the new indirect lighting on the Model Y rear trunklid, all the accent lighting inside the Rivian is indirect as far as I can tell
- weirdly, there are brighter and dimmer spots in the lighting along a panel. not sure why but it makes it feel cheap.
- the effect is very subtle, unlike the direct strip LED's found in other automakers vehicles

Hope this helps anyone who wants to see what these look like in real life under normal (street lights outside) conditions.

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[ElGuano]

I agree 100% with all your takeaways.

I'd love for an option to boost the brightness by 50%, and a color wheel.

 

[carsly]

I agree 100% with all your takeaways.

I'd love for an option to boost the brightness by 50%, and a color wheel.

yeah, these are weirdly dim. it seems the only setting are off, super-low or full-on. The brightness range that they operate in is very narrow, especially considering these are indirect.

BTW, I have an Ocean Coast interior so the in-cabin reflection off of the lighter surfaces is as good as it gets in terms of reflect interior light. I'd imagine that in the dark interior these are functionally irrelevant. Might as well leave them as white and on/off in that case.

 

[ElGuano]

BTW, I have an Ocean Coast interior so the in-cabin reflection off of the lighter surfaces is as good as it gets in terms of reflect interior light. I'd imagine that in the dark interior these are functionally irrelevant. Might as well leave them as white and on/off in that case.

Same, Ocean Coast + Driftwood here, and even with the pure white accent panels, I still think it is way, way too dim. I cannot imagine how ineffective the lighting is on the darker decors.

 

[FreddyFugazi]

Coming from a BMW, most of the colors look washed out. Like its not at full richness/brightness. Maybe its by design but I'd like more bold options as well. The purple and green have the best color but green clashes with my interior/exterior so purple it is! I'd really like a brighter yellow and deeper red option.

Also, I'm almost positive the ambient lighting does not turn on at all until the car goes into night mode. In my bimmer it was always on, and even brighter during the day so it was quite visible. In fairness the bimmer LED strip was directly visible, but I do think Rivian's indirect lighting has room for improvement.

 

[MountainBikeDude]

I like that it's subtle and not in your face. Most others are directly lit, with the LED's seeming aimed at the occupants, where as Rivians are more reflective, trying to capture more of a mood I suppose by bouncing the light off the wood grain etc.

 

[carsly]

I like that it's subtle and not in your face. Most others are directly lit, with the LED's seeming aimed at the occupants, where as Rivians are more reflective, trying to capture more of a mood I suppose by bouncing the light off the wood grain etc.

completely agree, though I think they need to have a higher brightness setting in that case as most of the options are indistinguishable from one another unless (1) brightness set to max and (2) you're in a very dark area.

 

[paranee2]

Even after 2 years, nothing has improved. Basically, that light is kind of useless. Can they make it brighter than what we have? Mercedes-Benz or BMW have very nice, bright lights.

 

[electruck]

this is accent lighting, I don't understand the desire for it to be any brighter. can someone clue me in?

 

[carsly]

this is accent lighting, I don't understand the desire for it to be any brighter. can someone clue me in?

Different approaches. BMW, Mercedes, Tesla etc, typically have direct lighting, sometimes pinstriped, for these changeable LED accent lights. My Defender is similar to the R1S, it's indirect lighting and more of a diffuse mood light that adds a little color tone but it's by no means intended for bright illumination.

 

[Great Gatsby]

this is accent lighting, I don't understand the desire for it to be any brighter. can someone clue me in?

TLDR: It's a vibe at night.

Bought a car without accent lighting. Huge mistake. Makes the interiors feel really boring at night.

Rivian is okay at this. The lighting is fine but as others have said, more on the dim side and falls into the background.

Tesla does a nice job. I really enjoy night drives in our new Model Y. It also lets you pick any color under the sun (moon I guess?) and can even be synced to the song your listening to. Some call it gimmicky, I quite enjoy it. YMMV.

Mercedes takes this to the next level. Almost overdone. You are basically in a nightclub. Still prefer this over nothing. As someone else mentioned, BMW is a good balance of all of the above.

Basically, it's fun and makes a vehicle feel less like a tool from getting from point A to point B and more like a third place to enjoy spending time in. I do hope the R2 is better than the R1 in this regard, though it doesn't seem like it.

 

[electruck]

ok, got it. y'all are just weird!

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