What’s the triangle thing? I don’t feel like leafing through the manual 😉 The car doesn’t have a forward camera (but that sure looks like a camera), adaptive cruise, emergency braking...I don’t think the car has a front parking proximity sensor either, does it?

What is that?

 

Looks like sign recognition camera to me.

 

Do you have the LED headlights, PDLS++ or whatever it was called? I think that's the camera for the automatic high beams. Not included with the lesser headlight packages.

 

That was going to be my next guess. That must be the thing that detects the high beams of the oncoming cars. You’re probably right.

 

Looks like a Henway to me.

 

Lesser... ha! How haughty of you.

That was one of the reasons I didn't go up to PDLS, to keep away from the extra sensors and eyeballs that come along with. Just one more thing like SXM nub or parking sensor warts to make me twitch. Ultimately I decided I just liked the tighter dot matrix on the 'lesser' mid level headlights, and would have even gone down to the base headlight without washer nipples but the terminator inspired housings were a step too far.

 

I also went with the mid-level headlights, and for exactly the same reasons. Less is more.

 

Yes it is for the PDLS+ system, not only does it detect any headlights (low/high) but taillights as well, then switches your headlights to low beam.

 

Yeah, that must be it. But I deactivated the auto high beams the first week I owned the car. Where I live, the roads are mostly quite curvy (horizontally and vertically). When I first drove it, I though, “WTF are these headlights doing?” Upon rounding or cresting a sharp, blind curve, I found that the automatic sensor generally switched the high beams off either too early of too late. And then it would turn them back on either too early or too late. It took me a couple of drives to realize that the car was delivered with the setting on. I deactivated it, and do not miss it. The PDLS lights are otherwise great. They are quite bright and work well turning side to side or raising/lowering to follow the road.

 

Actually in some locations IIRC it is, that feature is not active in North America, but they did have the option to read speed signs and display the posted limit. Possibly the EU?

 

Here's the feature directly from the Porsche site. You guys are spot on about lighting.

• High Beam Assistant - When a camera located inside the rear-view mirror detects the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, the high beams are automatically turned off at a distance of approximately 2,600 feet. If the taillights of a vehicle traveling in front are detected, the high beam is then turned off at a distance of approximately 1,300 feet.