You had me curious so I went out and checked on my LCI. I confirmed that all four doors have the ambient lighting in the lower storage bin.

 

Thanks for checking. Any chance you noticed the driver's door being way brighter than the others? I just sat in the other seats and see that there is a very faint light in those storage bins but the lighting in the drivers door is much brighter -- really illuminates the whole bin whereas the others is just a faint light that does very little of anything.

 

LCI ambient lighting not as noticeable as pre-LCI. You have to turn it up pretty high to see. And if you select the modern light, its really not noticeable.

 

I know that. But this is a very noticeable difference between the drivers door bin and the three others. Just wondering if that is normal or I should bring it in to service for them to take a look.

 

Wow, is the ambient lighting in the LCI really dimmer than pre-LCI? This is not the first time I heard that either. I wished for more ambient lighting in the LCI from the pre-LCI, and was happy to hear that the footwells are now softly lit on the LCI models, which was necessary, but dimming the rest is really a step back. The interior is dark enough on an all black interior on the pre-LCI.

 

It's dimmer--you have to crank it all the way up to see it and if you choose the "modern" color , see it even less. I had a 2011 F10, which showed the ambient besutifully (i think it eas in my e60, but don't remember) and at first I thought they eliminated it along with the fog lights on the "non-line cars Nope, just not that bright.

 

Isn't the point of "Ambient" light to NOT to be able to see it?

 

People are misquoting the feature. It is not "ambient" lighting, but "ambiance" lighting. Different meaning and purpose.

 

Actually, markl53 is correct. Check the spec lists on any BMW with this feature and you'll see it referred to as "Ambiance lighting". For example, here: http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Vehicles/2014/5/550iSedan/Features_and_Specs/Default.aspx

VIN decoders also list this as "ambiance". The owner's manual isn't always correct. Regardless, one is an adjective. One is a noun. They roughly equate to the same thing.

"The indirect ambient lighting creates such a wonderful ambiance inside my car."

 

I am having difficult posting the links that show that the website clearly refers to the lighting as ambient lighting -- but if you clink on the below link, the first two links on that page will show it to be the case (as will numerous other links from that search -- for example, if you go to the second page and click on "6 Series - Ambiance Highlight" then click on "more" you will see "With the standard ambient lighting package, LED lighting strips in the upper section of the door trim, the map pockets and other selected sites emit a warm orange tone. The light curtains shape the whole interior, creating a feeling of space, even in the dark, and an exclusive atmosphere. "

http://www.bmw.ca/ca/en/general/search/simple_search.jsp?page=0&advanced=&q=ambient

Anyways, those are just a few examples of the BMW website itself referring to it as ambient lighting. The link that you posted refers to ambiance lighting -- and then continues on to say that such lighting are the courtesy lights with automatic dimming; I would think that would refer to the overhead and reading lamps that turn on when you open your doors, etc and then automatically dim until they are turned off when you close the doors. That may also be what the VIN decoder is describing.

I do agree that the ambient lighting helps to make a wonderful ambiance in the interior of the car.

 

Ambient light is the light cast by the light bulbs. It is not a quality/type of light. It can however, create a nice ambiance in your car.

 

Whatever . Anyway, I was just out washing my new car, oh just before it rains tomorrow, but I couldn't stand it dirty. Anyway, as I was parking in the garage, I played around with the iDrive Lighting menu again. I never had my '11 535i "ambient" lighting cranked up all that much, but it seems when I use the iDrive method, it can become pretty bright. Remember, this is a different control method than just turning the dimmer on the dashboard control. For those of us with black trimmed doors, the lower bin lights are not really going to show up unless there is something reflective in the pockets (as I mentioned above). By "bright", I mean the light strips themselves become bright, not that it will light up the whole interior of the car, especially with darker-trimmed interiors.

 

I just came back after playing around with ambient lighting on my '14 535i, it actually can get really bright even in the lower door bins.

Ambient Lighting is dependent on two things

1. Primarily on the instrument lighting knob setting
2. Secondarily on the setting in the iDrive -> Lighting Menu

The illumination is calculated by adding settings for both i.e. 2+2 = 4, so if you really want the ambient lighting to be visible you have to crank up both!

In my experience, even if you set Ambient Light intensity in iDrive to Max, it still won't be visible until you crank up instrument lighting (the knob near headlight switch) to more than 75%. Btw, the same applies to iDrive screen's brightness, however, it is dependent on Instrument Lighting knob + "Control Display" brightness setting in iDrive.

What I did was set Ambient light to full in iDrive then adjusted the lighting knob so that ambient light was at my desired illumination - think it's at 80-85% mark. After that I went into iDrive menu and adjusted (lowered in my case) idrive screen's brightness so that it's somewhat dimly lit as I don't like too bright iDrive at night.

One observation I made was that although Classic light is more BMW like, Modern (white) actually lights up the lower bins even better at lower brightness setting.