Rivian VP of Autonomy and AI James Philbin has confirmed that the 2026.36 update is why some sunglasses no longer work with Universal Hands-Free on model year 2025 and newer vehicles, since the new driver monitoring model now checks whether it can see your eyes before it trusts that you’re paying attention.
James from the Autonomy team explained on Reddit that sunglasses are still supported, and for most people wearing them the updated model reads gaze better than before. Some lenses block the infrared light the mirror camera depends on, though, and .36 now recognizes when it can’t reliably assess attention and won’t let UHF stay engaged. Rivian estimates that affects fewer than 1% of regular sunglasses wearers.
That fills in the piece I was missing when I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. I framed it as a lens coating problem, which it still is, but the 2026.36 release notes called out a driver attention change for sunglasses and the update reached owners two days before my post went up.
James also shared that .36 added contextual risk weighting, which adjusts how long you can look away based on how complex the driving around you is. His example was having more time to pick a song on the highway in light to moderate traffic, and that lines up with what one of you asked for in the comments on my original post.
Under 1% is a small group until it includes your prescription pair, and one reader told me that’s his situation. I still think a stricter check is the right call for a system that lets you take your hands off the wheel. The TV remote test from my first post is the quickest way to see if your shades will work before you spend money on a new pair.
Ford Mach E had that problem and it was so bad with my oakley sunglasses that I ended up disabling the feature. Good sunglasses are supposed to filter out a lot. So I guess the solution to the problem is to buy cheap sunglasses and a cheaper car (Tesla) if you don’t want that problem.