The Auto Industry Is Sleeping On Puddle Light Technology

I’ve noticed a new group showing up at my fourth-favorite taillight bar, the Crimson Candle, and the members of this group seem to be part of a small and relatively new clique in the taillight community: puddle-light fetishists, known in the community as Puddle Peddlers, or just “puddlers.” While not strictly taillight-related, puddlers are focused on cars that use “puddle lights,” and, as that is part of the vehicular lighting spectrum, were welcomed at the taillight bar. I can’t say I enjoyed their company, but what they were about got me thinking.

I guess first I should explain just what the hell “puddle lights” are, in case you’re somehow unaware. A puddle light is mostly just done for fun, for brand identity, and just to add a bit of drama to the act of entering and exiting your car, especially at night. Essentially, puddle lights are little projector-type lights, usually mounted on the underside of the side-view mirror.

The light pattern these lights cast can vary anywhere from a simple literal puddle of light to shaped logos and even, in some cases, actual animations. Here’s a couple of examples, on a Rivian and a Mach-e:

See? Those are puddle lights! Little projections, on the ground. Now, the puddlers at the Crimson Candle were very enthusiastic about their puddle lights, and wouldn’t leave me alone until they showed me all of their puddle lights on their Minis and Lincolns and whatever, and while I appreciated their enthusiasm, I still felt that these lights were a bit frivolous.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I adore frivolity; I’ve sort of made a career on that, if I’m honest. But taillights are working lights, and there seems to be a lot of untapped useful potential in puddle lights, potential that, so far, most of the auto industry has been sleeping on.

Maybe not all, of course; Audi, for example, has some extremely advanced “digital matrix lights” that do a lot of this sort of projection for safety and communication work, as you can see in this video:

As these are headlight-based light systems, these are illegal in America, which is why US-market Audis do not have these advanced safety features or fun animations. I have no idea why the US is so backwards when it comes to lighting regulations, but we kind of always have been, and I’m not going to fight this fight now.

No, instead I have some ideas that can leverage the possibilities of puddle lamps in non-headlamp contexts, which could mean these would be street-legal even here in America. I think there are two primary applications of puddle lamps that could genuinely provide some real safety benefits.

First, we can once again look at the current common use of puddle lamp tech:

Okay, let’s look at what else could be done with essentially this same basic tech: projector lamps mounted in side mirror housings. With only some minimal adjustments to projection angle and maybe intensity, it should be possible to use very close to existing hardware to have puddle-enhanced turn indicators:

For nighttime highway driving, this could provide some real, tangible safety advantages by not just indicating the direction of a turn – or, in this case, a lane change, but also by marking the rough area the car is intending to occupy after the turn/lane change.

On a busy, fast-moving highway, a driver may not notice the car in the lane next to them signaling, but I bet they sure as hell will see that patch of orange light on the road in front of them, and will be ready to make room for the car that will soon be filling that space.

Perhaps the illuminated area should be projected a bit ahead of the car? That may work even better. Still, same basic principle. This has the most benefits for lane change contexts, but certainly can’t hurt visibility for pretty much any turn, generally.

Okay, this next one would require new puddle lamp projectors to be installed at the front and rear of the car, but I think that’ll be worth it. Here’s what I’m thinking: as you drive, projector lamps on the front of the car project onto the road guidelines to show, roughly, your safe braking distance.

So, when you’re going slower, there’s a shorter warning area projected, and as speed increases, more and more distance is shown – at least, as far as the lights can reasonably project, which, if the Audi system is any indicator, could be quite far.

These forward-facing projections would be amber and not part of the headlamp system, so should be legal, likely falling under the same categorization as foglamps or driving lights. Even if the full braking distance couldn’t be entirely illuminated, what is shown should be enough to at least remind people how long it takes to stop at speed, which is always helpful.

At the rear, why not include a projected brake light onto the pavement behind the car? It can’t hurt, right? A nice red STOP image on the ground behind your car can only help to get people’s attention and keep them from smacking into you when you’re coming to a stop.

That’s the beauty of the taillight community: all the various subgroups and sub-fetishes can combine and put their fascinations into the roiling stew of ideas that is always cooking in a healthy taillight culture community, and sometimes those ideas can actually be something of value to everyone, not just weirdos like those puddlers.

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