When I wear my prescription sunglasses, I am having a hard time reading what the GPS is saying. I believe it is because of the polarization of either my glasses, the GPS, or both. If I lean my head over onto my left shoulder, it clears up considerably, but obviously that is not ideal.


Is anybody else dealing with this? I have missed some turns as a result of this, and it is irritating at the least and maybe dangerous at the most. I am riding to Maine in August, and it would be nice to have a solution in place.


By the way, I have a sunshade that covers the top and sides of the screen, so glare from the sun is not the issue.


John

 

You may be right about the polarization. When I wear my polarized sunglasses everything is fine until I pull the shield down un my helmet which is polarized.

 

It is the glasses, polarized classes renders LCD displays almost useless. As a pilot I could not get polarized glasses because it rendered my GPS and some of my gauges useless. Some phone screens have the same issue, I use my iPad for GPS information when flying and if I look at it vertically it is almost useless, turn it horizontally it works great...I don't know the explanation for it though. Are you using the HD Infotainment system of do you use a portable device? If a portable, try a different angle and see if that helps.

 

Definitely the polarized glasses causing the problem. Explanation for the vertical/horizontal thing from the interwebz:

What causes glare?

Light is made up of waves travelling in different directions. Vertical light is useful to the human eye; it helps us see. Horizontal light, however, simply creates glare. Glare is concentrated light reflecting off a horizontal shiny surface, such as a car windscreen, sand, water, snow or asphalt roads. It reduces visibility and can make it uncomfortable, painful and even dangerous to carry on driving, cycling, skiing or just sunbathing.

And:

Regular non-polarized sun lenses indiscriminately filter all light whether it is horizontal or vertical. Glare is dampened, but not eliminated. More importantly, by filtering all components of light, visual acuity is diminished. On the other hand polarized lenses allow in the vertical component of light, which is preferred for clear vision, while eliminating the easily scattered and skewed horizontal component of light. Vertically aligned light is preferred because it respects the natural tendency of the visual system to focus on the vertical component of an image.

And finally:
Viewing liquid crystal displays (LCDs) - Polarized lenses can make the liquid crystal displays of certain objects more difficult to read. As most modern motorbike instrument’s and the instrumentation in modern aircraft have LCD displays at eyekit.co we do not recommend their use.


So it seems that polarized glasses help you to see better, unless what you want to see is an LCD screen.

 

I am in LCD optics and this is exactly the problem. The sunglasses are linear polarizers and so is the front of the display (it is set to 135 degrees or 45 degrees to the left). When you wear polarising sunglasses, tilting you head to 45 degrees to the right will cancel out the light transimission. To fix it, you need to add a "quarter-wave retarder" to the display, making the GPS display a "circular polarizer" which prevents the two linears fronm canceling each other. Go to a platics company (on the west coast we have Tap Plastics) and get a clear piece of polycarbonate. If it is thin enough, the touch screen should still work. Even a layer of Saran Wrap should "retard" the light enough.

 

I am in LCD optics and this is exactly the problem. The sunglasses are linear polarizers and so is the front of the display (it is set to 135 degrees or 45 degrees to the left). When you wear polarising sunglasses, tilting you head to 45 degrees to the right will cancel out the light transimission. To fix it, you need to add a "quarter-wave retarder" to the display, making the GPS display a "circular polarizer" which prevents the two linears fronm canceling each other. Go to a platics company (on the west coast we have Tap Plastics) and get a clear piece of polycarbonate. If it is thin enough, the touch screen should still work. Even a layer of Saran Wrap should "retard" the light enough.

 

 

so, you need a "retarded" GPS system.. I think that is what my Ford had..

 

Yep.

New guys come to the jet and learn before the aircraft is even powered up for the first time that polarized glasses = No. Almost every gauge and instrument or panel is on a screen.

 

The polarization on the eyewear is the thing, even on smartphone screens. My sunshades on my Schuberth blank out my Zumo screen to some extent too....No biggie, just flip it up to navigate as needed...