Quote:
Originally Posted by MartyTX
I bought a Subaru Forester that has red dash lights and gauges. Really didn't like it at first.
Found out that Subie borrowed the idea from airplane cockpit and submarine lighting. It's easier for your eyes to adjust from red light to dark than from white light to dark. You can stare at red gauges without causing the pupils to contract, so your eyes can more quickly adjust to seeing in the dark.
Are eyes are tricky things!   |
Things in the world have moved far on from "the red light at night" days and red light is in most situations regarded as inferior. It is generally now recognized ( in my own experience for at least 20 years) that low level white or, in some cases blue/green/yellow, is the best compromise between being able to see (e.g. read) things properly and maintaining night vision. One interesting simple article as to why this is so is at
http://www.astromax.org/activities/members/kniffen.htm.
My experience is, in the main, in marine, although I have had some exposure to large commercial aircraft. Red lighting is basically a non event, aircraft have glass cockpits with color displays and on ship bridges ECDIS (electronic charts), radar, AIS, etc. are all large color displays and small instruments are LCD. I can't recall when red lit instruments started disappearing from marine but I do remember that 2 fast ferries I managed the design and build of around 12-15 years ago were specified with red lit engine instruments but ended up with LCD displays; there was also no red bridge lighting on those.
Ship bridges are normally run dark, as are commercial aircraft cockpits except they may be (and I am told they mostly are) "white" lit while en-route (such aircraft are separated by air navigation services so don't need to see out en-route, whereas ships are not separated by external services and so reliant on both visual and electronically assisted e.g. radar and AIS, watch keeping). Red light, if used, was a problem back when paper nautical charts used to be used (and sometime still are) as, for example, some features on them are red or magenta (e.g. submarine cables), both of which lose contrast when lit with red light and so not seen easily.
On my own boat the engine instruments are red lit and analogue as that was all that the engine manufacturer supplied when the boat was built for me. Charts are electronic on flat LCD computer screens and all the sailing and navigation instruments are passive LCD (relies on reflected light from the environment) with selectable internal low level warm yellow lighting for when there is insufficient ambient light - they are far superior to the engine instruments for readability and maintaining night vision. There is no red cabin lighting at all and unlit instruments e.g. on the electrical panel, rely on that cabin lighting.
Current Subarus in my country have edge white lit instrument displays (not red) except for the navigation/media/etc. display which is, of course color. This is similar to every modern car I am familiar with, but there may be exceptions (I think I recall bluish ones somewhere?), where the graduations and essential labels are all that appear lit and so there is not enough light to effect night vision at all (besides one usually has headlights on, from which the reflected light does impair night vision).