GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I recently got a new set of shades that are polarized to reduce glare. They are awesome except for one thing. i have to turn my head to the side (ear on shoulder) to see the display on the radio. looking at it straight on makes the display totaly disapear.Are there any mods to the radio's display i can make to eliminate this problem. YES, I could get non poloarized shades but i would rather not.Thanks

there is no simple mod you could do to the radio. The LCD display in the radio works by utilizing polarized light, so short of swapping the LCD panel, there is no mod.

Has anyone else experienced this also??

Yep. Same story when I use polarized sunglasses. However, the problem goes away at night when I toss the shades. During the day, I generally leave the XM radio on the comedy channel (#150) and drive around, amused.

Reminds me of when I was trying to watch a show on my Casio LCD tv and thought it had crapped out because I could hear the sound, but no picture.......till I remembered I had my polarized fishing glasses on.I don't think there's any way around the stereo display though, other than turning your head, or find some polarized sunglasses that have round lenses in them and rotate the lenses.

I second Cohocarl. No way to do it other than to turn the lenses themselves.

You could rotate the lenses, but they'd no longer do their job properly...I have the same problem iwth my skyfi...polarized lenses and LCD displays don't play nicely...just inherent design issue I suppose...

They'd still do their job no matter which way they're rotated. Most polarized sunglasses aren't oriented the same way between the two pieces of glass, which is where most of the problems come from.The issue would be finding the exact right rotation. Keeping in mind if you move your head slightly either way, the problem comes back.

the problem is my lenses are not round or able to rotate. maybe if i could just replace or re-position the lens on the radio somehow.

I think it'd be way too costly to get someone to make a specific piece of polarized plastic. Plus, depending on how the radio display is built, it might not be replacable without completely replacing the display itself, which would be quite costly.

well, maybe you could rotate the dash sideways, at 90 degrees to your sunglasses. That would be pretty cool -- a rotatable dash.

Some LCD's the polarization filter is removable. If this one is, take it out and turn it end-for-end. My sunglasses are polarized as well. But I must of gotten lucky, I have to turn my head for the interference patterns to mesh.

Or, you could experiment and try to make a pair of sunglasses using rotatable circular polarizing photographic lens filters (i.e., the type that screws on to the lens). It might be simpler, though, to use "flip up" sunglasses so that you could quickly go between polarized or not.