The thought of going for a long drive may sound too exciting. However, it’s not fun to have sun damage due to excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays from sitting for hours inside the car without a tint or having the standard tint with insufficient sun-blocking protection. Too much exposure to UV rays can cause wrinkles, solar elastosis, leathery skin, and premature aging. Meanwhile, excessive exposure to the sun’s infrared light may lead to various retina damage to the eyes, such as retinal burns, corneal ulcers, and cataracts, among others. It’s important for cars to have sufficient protection for both the vehicle and the passengers, and one of the best protective measures to take is to have a smart tint on all car windows.
Car window tints have evolved over time to meet the more demanding needs of car passengers and the rising appetite of drivers for style and uniqueness on the road. In the past, having the standard window tint was enough to add style to the car’s exterior aesthetics. Today, it has become a standard, and your vehicle is nothing unique with the base tint. Even if you have a sports car with sexy looks, the moment a similar car with the same make and model runs beside it, the uniqueness is lost. That’s where car accessories come in, and smart tinting is one way of giving your vehicle a unique touch along with added protective benefits.
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What Is a Smart Tint?
A smart window tint for cars is one of the latest innovations in car accessories that merges style and function. Its main purpose is not just to provide the necessary protection from the unwanted effects of sunlight. It also adds style to enhance the vehicle’s exterior looks. It is specially engineered to provide the chance to adjust the lighting between being opaque and transparent.
This excellent innovation with the modern appeal was first introduced as an electronic window tint for buildings and offices to provide privacy in some rooms and protection from sunlight passing through the windows. The comfort and style the electronic window tint provides have become so popular that it made its way to the automotive industry as a smart tint for cars. It provided one of the best solutions to the issues with direct sunlight exposure during long drives on a sunny day.
It’s called a smart tint for a reason. It gives you the unique chance to switch visibility from transparent to opaque for complete privacy at a touch of a button. It will give your car the style you seek and create a distinction from the rest.
Smart tints have almost similar functions to electronic window tints. The main difference lies in technology. A black smart tint uses a suspended particle device (SPD) to shade the window glass. On the other hand, an electronic window tint for cars uses polymer-dispersed liquid crystal or PDLC glasses.
Just like the rest of the car window tints, a smart glass film can also provide the same protection from both UV light and infrared rays (IRR). Some brands have a sunlight-blocking capacity of 99%. They are also better in heat rejection by effectively deflecting glare and sunlight to keep the interior temperature cooler even during a sunny day.
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What Are the Benefits of Using a Smart Tint for Cars, Vans, Buses, and More?
A smart window film offers a world of benefits for car owners and passengers. Considering the generally expensive cost of smart tints, knowing the benefits can help if it is really worth the investment. Below are the top reasons why you should switch to smart tints.
Complete Privacy
Total privacy is one of the major benefits of smart tints. They can completely block out the visibility of what’s inside the car from the outside while maintaining outside visibility from inside the passenger cabin. While driving in hazy conditions and in places with heavy fog, you can switch to the most transparent side for optimum visibility. Likewise, during parking, you can change the visibility to the darkest shade for maximum protection and prevent potential theft in case you need to leave your bags inside the car.
Excellent Protection from UV Light and Infrared Rays
Smart tints can block up to 99% UV and infrared lights, providing the best protection for the passengers and the vehicle from serious adverse events of too much sunlight exposure. This translates to better health by preventing all sorts of skin problems and eye damage or irritations. This also provides better comfort when entering the parked car after prolonged exposure to sunlight.
Control Flexibility
The unique benefit of smart tints not offered by the other tint types is the ability to control the shade of the glass. Shade is constant in all other tints, including metalized and ceramic tints. What’s best is that it is controllable with smart tints. With a single touch of a button, you can change the visibility according to the situation. In foggy conditions where you need the most optimum visuals, you can switch to the transparent mode. Under the scorching heat of the sun, you need the darkest shade for protection. With a quick press of a button, you can switch to opaque mode. This is also the best mode when parking the car to deter theft.
What are the Disadvantages of Using Smart Tints?
It’s not a perfect world, and all products have some flaws here and there. With that, smart tints are no exception. Some of the drawbacks are as follows.
Expensive Price
Due to the technology and electrical nature of the setup, smart tints will cost you more than what you should be paying, as in the standard car window tint. Prices may vary according to brand. If you’re asking how much a smart tint costs, the tint price is usually twice as much or more versus the conventionally dyed tints.
More Parts with Electric Wires
Unlike the standard car tinting where you only need the tint film rolls, smart tints have more parts. The whole setup requires more than just thin sheets of tint films but also the installation of an electrical setup that provides the chance for switching shades. Electricity powers such a feature, and the wirings make installation difficult and time-consuming, even for smart tint installers.
Availability
Smart tints are still not so popular because of the highly technical nature of the installation process that requires sufficient expertise in the electrical setup. Budget-conscious car owners also shy away from using this type of tint due to the expensive smart tint cost. Due to a lack of demand, they are not available as much as traditional tints are.
What Are Some Brands that Produce Smart Window Tints for Cars?
Smart tints have already been in the market for quite a while, but they are common in offices, commercial establishments, and homes. In the automotive industry, smart window tints are new. That’s why there are only a few brands that offer this revolutionary car window tinting technology. Among the top brands is SONTE, which is well-known for its advanced smart tinting for home and office windows and panes. Rayno window film also provides switchable films for commercial buildings and offices. Likewise, InvisiShade™ is a leading innovator of switchable privacy films for office buildings and commercial establishments. For automotive use, Smart Tint® film is one of the best around. These brands are by no means the only names in the marketplace, but they are among the best with excellent quality.
The Future of Car Windows – Smart Windows, Utilizing AR
Car window tinting is a continuously evolving market as newer and advanced technology is introduced. From the traditional dyed tint films that quickly fade over time, it has evolved into metalized tints with longer durability. Later on, ceramic tints came to provide more stable shades that won’t fade and with better heat rejection capacity. Ceramic window tints also have a high UV light-blocking feature, without the radio signal interference, which is common in metalized tints.
Smart tints are now the new trend in window shades, with a unique offer of allowing you to switch the visibility through the glass. However, the expensive cost and the required technical expertise for the installation remain a major hindrance, resulting in poor popularity among many car owners. Despite the higher cost, it’s important to switch to the current trend in automotive tinting, not only because of the unique benefits but also because it is a prelude to the future of car windows, which is moving in the direction of augmented reality (AR) glasses.
In fact, some luxury car manufacturers have already integrated AR into their production lines, particularly the high-end models of BMW, Mazda, and Jaguar. With augmented reality, drivers have easy access to vital data such as speed, fuel tank level, and road directions on the glass, without the distraction of looking down on the dashboard.
Other top car manufacturers like General Motors are using prototype passenger-side window glasses that allow playtime or movies. Meanwhile, Toyota has another approach by developing hybrid AR windows with photography features that let you zoom in on anything from the outside of the window.
Augmented reality car windows are already available today. However, the technology is still in its infancy and development stage, and it comes with a super high cost. Until AR becomes affordable to most vehicle owners, they remain the future of automotive windows. For now, car window tints are still the best way to add a sunlight barrier in the car for protection and privacy, and the trend presently brewing in car tinting is a smart tint.
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Last update on 2023-03-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API