BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

One thing about my 2007 RT that I find very irksome and unsafe is that it is extremely difficult to read the screen unless the sun is coming directly onto it over your shoulder. It really isn't a matter of glare off the screen, or needing to shroud the screen, it's just that the back lighting (which I assume is always on and not triggered by a light sensor?) is insufficient. I think it's just too dim to overcome our daylight vision with our pupils contracted. It should be quite easy to provide a button that would briefly increase the backlighting the screen. Anytime spent with your eyes not on the road ahead can lead to unpleasant surprises. Have they added this to later models?

The screen back light can be adjusted for brightness using the two buttons under the clocks (or one of them) it also has a daylight sensor which automatically turns the back light off in daylight. 2011 RT.

Yes, the adjustment is there and not easy to find on the 2007. I have mine turned up all the way all the time. (Turn it up to 11!)

It's readable, for me, when I lift the internal sun shade in my helmet.

I put a phone holder across the handlebars, and that actually helped with the LCD since the phone holder casts a black shadow right on the LCD! That shadow (reflection?) keeps other things from glaring off the LCD as much, and that makes it easier to read.

I'm guessing a newer bike will have a full color TFT screen!

I'm hoping someday that motorcycles will come with a USB-C cable that transmits all that data so that riders can use whatever cell phone they want to display it. You might have to have a BMW instruments app to show it, but that would be a better long-term solution since the screen could change to whatever was current.

The information could also be displayed in whatever way you wanted. No dedicated this or that.

Never had a problem with glare but I did see a 2010 RT with a home made peak above the screen to stop Any glare. It seemed he used an old 5lt plastic water bottle and painted it black then cut it to size so it would slip above the clocks. Seemed to work for him

I do love making things by hand.