Ry4an

Has anyone yet figured out if the daylight saving time changes taking effect this year are going to affect us? I supect they will. I believe our car clocks set themselves off the XM time feed, but that will come down in GMT and then the time zone delta is applied in the car based on either the car's location or selected timezone depending on how you have it set (defaults to by location).

If the DST rules are turned on (as they are by default) it'll spring-forward and fall-back on the old days, not the new ones. So unless Acura fixed the DST rules in the latest Navi disc it'll go from being something I didn't even have to think about to something I have to manually correct four times a year. Thanks, congress.

Mike_TX

I guess I thought our clocks are regulated via the GPS ... in which case they'll make the change on the right day, no matter what it is, won't they?

I mean, the Gov tells the GPS satellites what to broadcast, and I believe they are tied to the atomic clock in Denver if I'm not mistaken. Our PC's won't have the same guidance, although I expect Microsoft to send updates to Windows to change on the right day.
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GoHawks

The clock is set by GPS, not XM.

Ry4an

D'oh, I, of course, meant the time comes in by GPS, but GPS only transmits greenwhich mean time -- not local-time. GMT doesn't do daylight saving time, but (most) localtimes do, and the car applies that difference based on time zone rules acura programmed into it. Unless Acura has updated those rules (latest Navi disc?) since congress changed them last year our cars are going to need manual correction four times a year now. I'd love to be wrong about that, but I think we're going to have to manually change our time zones on March 11th to correct for a car that's planning to spring forward on the "old" date in early April.

jhr3uva90

Sounds like Acura needs to make a TSB available. The question is whether they will do it and if they will do it in time.

Don't you love the government for arbitrarily creating a new hassle?

dwboston

It's not that hard to adjust the time in the Nav system. You can shut off the Auto DST function and/or manually adjust the time in the Setup menu. I don't think it requires a TSB. If you shut off the Auto DST function at most you will be making 2 changes a year, assuming it doesn't function correctly when the changeover occurs in March.

Ry4an

That's true, I'll only have to grumble twice a year if I turn off the auto-adjusts while I'm in there adjusting the time manually. It'll be just like all the cars I've owned that weren't supposed to let me forget the time change.

I'll put up a poll come time-change and if it turns out they fixed the DST rules in the latest navi disc, I'm there.

jhr3uva90

This should be a free update, I think. Why should we have to manually change the time in such a high-tech car?

Mike_TX

I'm so glad to have more DST that I'll happily take the extra couple of minutes to change my clock if necessary.

I'm ready to go to DST year-round.
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jhr3uva90

Surely you realize that daylight savings time doesn't really save daylight. All they did was move the clock back one hour, which means sunrise is one hour later as well as sunset.

jhr3uva90

Here's a simple explanation why days are longer in the summer:

http://www.sciencetheatre.org/ask_st/051596.html

dwboston

I can't believe a few button pushes are that big of a deal. Maybe the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth can wait until the actual DST change happens and we find out whether the system handles the change accurately or not. And I think most people (especially here) understand that DST has no effect on the actual hours of sunlight vs. darkness, unless Congress has somehow managed to legislate the rotation of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around the sun.

jhr3uva90

It isn't so much the button pushes as the fact that tech companies have to take action in response to arbitrary legislation. Increasing DST does not save daylight, it doesn't save energy, it just makes the Federal government look good among those who think DST actually saves daylight, which is a shockingly large segment of the population.

Mike_TX

You ARE kidding, right?

I've never heard of anyone thinking there is somehow more daylight in a day because of DST. I like it because it stays light longer (that is, to a later hour) than when we're on Standard Time. And, yes, I know there is less "daylight" in the first part of the day so there ca be more at the end (Duh).

I personally don't need sunshine early in the morning, but I find it depressing in winter months when it's dark at 5:00 in the afternoon. To my own way of thinking, we need DST more in the winter than we do in the summer, but I also realize earlybirds would probably not like another hour of darkness at sunrise.
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Oh, and BTW - my parents and grandparents thought the implementation of DST was "arbitrary action" on the part of the government, and always hated it!
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Mike_TX

Just found this on Google:

" However, Daylight Saving Time does save energy. Studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation show that Daylight Saving Time trims the entire country's electricity usage by a small but significant amount, about one percent each day, because less electricity is used for lighting and appliances. Similarly, in New Zealand, power companies have found that power usage decreases 3.5 percent when daylight saving starts. In the first week, peak evening consumption commonly drops around five percent.

Energy use and the demand for electricity for lighting homes is directly related to the times when people go to bed at night and rise in the morning. In the average home, 25 percent of electricity is used for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs, and stereos. A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, the amount of electricity consumed each day decreases.

In the summer, people who rise before the sun rises use more energy in the morning than if DST was not in effect. However, although 70 percent of Americans rise before 7:00 a.m., this waste of energy from having less sunlight in the morning is more than offset by the savings of energy that results from more sunlight in the evening.

In the winter, the afternoon Daylight Saving Time advantage is offset for many people and businesses by the morning's need for more lighting. In spring and fall, the advantage is generally less than one hour. So, Daylight Saving Time saves energy for lighting in all seasons of the year, but it saves least during the four darkest months of winter (November, December, January, and February), when the afternoon advantage is offset by the need for lighting because of late sunrise.

In addition, less electricity is used because people are home fewer hours during the "longer" days of spring and summer. Most people plan outdoor activities in the extra daylight hours. When people are not at home, they don't turn on the appliances and lights.

There is a public health benefit to Daylight Saving Time, as it decreases traffic accidents. Several studies in the U.S. and Great Britain have found that the DST daylight shift reduces net traffic accidents and fatalities by close to one percent. An increase in accidents in the dark mornings is more than offset by the evening decrease in accidents."
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jhr3uva90

I have slightly different evidence:

"Government research from the 1970s suggests that extended daylight-saving time produces a modest but significant energy savings of about 1 percent. A British experiment with extended daylight time in the late 1960s failed to produce much corroborating evidence."

http://www.slate.com/id/2123403/

Is it worth it to save 1 percent? Also, if the day is "longer" and people are more likely to go out as a result, wouldn't it cancel out the advantages, especially with the current price of gasoline?

Mike_TX

Hmmm ... given that we use more than 20 Million barrels of oil a day in the U.S. alone[url[http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption[/url], 1% of that (200,000 barrels) isn't anything to sneeze at.

Even though it was pitched in part as an energy-saving measure (the 1973 legislation was actually called "The Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973"), it was actually begun during the WW I years to aid productivity by extending the daylight work hours.

I personally don't care about the energy-saving angle ... as I said before, I just like the additional hour of daylight at the end of the day.

But the issue is whether the RL will or will not switch on the new schedule, and I guess we'll have to wait and see!
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westpar

I'm betting that the time will reset without a need for intervention from us. When we drove our car from the point of purchase in the eastern time zone to our home in the central time zone, the clock automatically changed to the correct central standard time as we entered into the new zone. GPS, navi DVD, magic? We'll see!

Jim

subhradyuti

Most probably the new DST rule will break automatic DST on/off function. At least in my lowly TSX

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36139

I don't know if Acura can push the update in RL through AcuraLink.

Bad congress! Sucks big time.