How to light up the buttons when driving in the night?
 

When I drive in the night, all the buttons have no backlight. So I literally cannot see any of them. For example, when I arrive my home and need to press the button on the rear view mirror to open garage door, I have to try several times to hit the right button. This is also true for all the other buttons. I believe all my other cars by default will have backlight for, at least, some important buttons. Is there anyway to solve this problem? Thanks in advance.

I find it hard to believe that all your console buttons are not lighting up. Are you just referring to the buttons on the homelink mirror?

I am serious. The odometer button, the display button, the audio/gps button, none of them light up in the dark. I set my headlight to auto.

Did you at least try to turn your headlights on manually instead to see if that helps?

And make sure this furthest left dial by the trunk button area is turned up to maximum. This is the dial for the interior gauges and buttons lights.
Attachment 60397

Gonna sound crazy to you but nothing happens when you turn on your headlights?

Do your headlights even come on?

Get that checked ASAP. Usually the headlight switch has three settings, OFF, daytime lights and headlights ON (or something to that effect). Stage 2 and 3 should turn on your backlighting.

Is this on BRZ?

Thanks for your guys help. I went downstairs and checked again. But it is day time, so I might be wrong. Will double check again.

It seems that the button on the mirror for garage door never lights up.
I turned the dial to 'headlight' it seems that I got some backlight. But I can swear I cannot get any backlight when driving in the night under 'Auto'. But let me double check again tonight to make sure.

Please tell us that you have tried using the "Illumination Brightness Control" dial. This is located on the lower left area of the instrument panel and next to the "headlight Beam Leveler" dial. See KALMIGHTY's post # 4.

It is described on page 10 of your 2013 BRZ Quick Reference Guide panphlet that should have come with the purchase of the vehicle.

Let us know if this works. Be sure your light switch is ON. This is for your INSTRUMENT PANEL BACKLIGHTING.

LET US KNOW...

Those buttons do not light up on mine either....I think it is the way they are...

Correct, that's how it is.

Hmmmm.... no answer yet. Does the original poster read the posts??? The poster still hasn't qualified if he/she is talking about JUST the 'mirror' illumination or the instrument panel illumination or both.

Homelink mirror garage door button is easy to find by muscle memory. Just program the first button on the left. Simple. (1st world problems for sure)

:confused0068: must be the OP's first car.

Sorry, just came back from lunch. From all the responses, I believe the home link buttons simply do not have back light.

For the instrument brightness control nob, I always set it to the middle. So I guess it is not a concern ever.

What I need to compare is whether it makes any difference whether I set the head light to 'auto' or 'on'. My suspicion is that that 'auto' is not smart enough. When I played in day time today, with, it on 'on', I saw some back light I never saw before. Will report back tonight. Thanks for the help.

With AUTO on, it will only backlight dials (also dim the head unit) when the headlights come on (low light conditions) otherwise just your parking lights/DRL's stay on. I would personally prefer auto to turn on all the instrument lights but NOT dim the head unit when in day light

Or just program all three to be the same.

Okay, I did the check and now I am sure that if I put head light to 'auto', the audio/gps/temperature buttons do have back light. The garage open buttons and the three buttons for odometer/mileage/miles kilo conversion won't light up. I previously BELIEVED that these three SHOULD have back light. Guess I set up my expectation too high.

One interesting question is that I can never turn on one set of front lights. I know we have side maker lights and the big head lights. For the lights around head lights, I am wondering what they are? DRL?

Also I know that the two lights at the very bottom on each side are fog lights. However, I can never turn on the two linear lights right above fog lights. Can anybody educate me what they are?

Also pretty disappointed to find that fog light has a yellow hue, not matching other lights. What are they thinking about?

The lights around the headlight or boomerangs as some people call them are parking lights, the light strip above your foglights is a DRL and runs only when the handbrake is down or it isn't in park (for autos).

Read your owners manual it will tell you what everything is and the events in which things will illuminate or not illuminate. And if you don't have one there is a copy on the forums

As per many people have now already said, please read the manual. They already have given you their personal instructions AND the RTM instructions.

As for fog lights being yellow - that is CORRECT. Fog lights are meant to penetrate below the fog and light up items behind the fog. Yellow lights do not glare as much if they hit fog compared to white lights. This is a functional decision and not one based on looks.

As far as I know, the 3 buttons to the left of the steering wheel do not light up. Those buttons control the Odometer, Trip, MPG, Avg MPG, Tach settings, Rev Indicator, etc. They are not supposed to light up at night. As far as the buttons on the Navigation, I'm pretty sure those DO light up at night.

This is very helpful. Thanks for the tips.

About the fog lights, this is very true! :party0030: Putting HIDs in fog lights is just going to blind everyone. Halogen yellow or normal bulbs are what you want in fogs, and please just turn them on when it's foggy.

Also to go along with everyone else, it is normal for the garage door buttons to not light up. If you have trouble finding them, maybe program all three to do the same thing?

Reminds me of the woman who ranted about her sons 86 how the nav is touch screen, wanting buttons on steering wheel and wanting to do both while drinking coffee.

I only realized that there is no buttons at all on BRZ when I looked at the pictures for the new WRX. Its steering wheel is full of buttons. Now I miss those buttons. Why does WRX deserve those buttons while BRZ does not? Does Sti have those?

That was an intentional decision on Subaru/Toyota's part to leave the steering wheel for the actual driving, to help keep the experience less distracting. The steering wheel on the Porsche Cayman and 911 is similar. I actually really like the lack of buttons, personally.

It is called "cost containment".

If you paid upgrade fee, Porsche's steering wheel can be equipped with buttons ...

True, but I actually prefer it without them.

crutchfield.com has steering wheel buttons for the radio that can be installed. Would be nice to have, but think about how many times you would actully use it?

I just connect my phone to pandora and im good to go.