[Bluefoton]

Can you post a photo of the beam pattern against a wall and identify what's bugging you?

 

[Bluefoton]

Hm. On 18-23, there is a "v-groove" in the headlamp pattern, precisely because of what @Yabbut said. Nothing annoying, and makes sense for it to be there.

But a "hole" in the beam indeed looks weird AF. Even it it becomes a little cutoff "dip" further down the road where light rays converge. Forester owners, which seem to have the same projector assembly, have been complaining about it as well :
2022+ - Headlight Pattern / projector beam cutoff? (merged thread) ('19+)

PS: @Yabbut : Giving a name and a date, especially when YouTube only writes "posted x months ago" ... was the most user unfriendly way to provide a link to a video

 

[Bluefoton]

I can understand how some people would be unhappy with the headlight throw when the road ahead curves significantly upward. There is so little light above the cutoff directly ahead of the car that I can see how people could feel that the road isn't illuminated far enough ahead of the car.

Newsflash, light travels in a straight line. A low beam cutoff is a low beam cutoff, there isn't any (in Europe) or barely any (in North America) light above it. If people get frustrated by physics on hilly roads... well just too bad 🙃 It's not as if generations of drivers survived and still do in the Alps or Rockies on subpar incandescent halogen headlamps..

 

[Bluefoton]

It's the new 2024+ Crosstrek / Impreza and 2022+ Forester projectors. Subaru flopped it, for no reason whatsoever, by changing the pattern and adding that little "shadow" spot in the low beams. Forester owners are pissed off too.. 2022+ - Headlight Pattern / projector beam cutoff? (merged thread)

Earlier-gen LED projectors (and every single other car manufacturer's, for that matter) simply have a cutoff line and were great. In North America, regulations are backwards and sloppy, so from one car brand to the other, there is a lot of variance in headlamp patterns. Including oddities such as the new Subaru projectors.

A mathematically ideal headlamp pattern, with zero glare and reduced beam elevation on the left towards incoming traffic (ECE regulation) looks like this (Morimoto M Led 2.0):
(NB: some might favour a more gradual cutoff line. The pics below show a knife-edge one, aesthetically pleasing, but more distracting for some as opposed to a more delicate fade)

 

[Bluefoton]

It's not about perception. It's about the bloody design of the new Subaru / Toyota LED projector which incorporates a small rectangular "shadow" in the hotspot of the beam, likely due to the actuator flipping the cutoff blade from low to high beams. Especially when projected on the road, it creates a high-contrast black spot, an absolute oddity in beam pattern design, whose presence and movement due to the SHRs is deemed annoying, distracting, and attention-diverting for many. Seeing the pictures, I can understand how it drives a few people nuts.

NB: None of the old HID or LED designs, up to and including 2018-2023 crosstrek and 2017-2023 imprezas have that issue. We have a perfectly smooth, shadowless beam pattern (save for the appropriate cutoff line and two v-grooves so as to reduce glare to incoming traffic).
Reference: 2018-2022 LED projector beam pattern below:

From Forester forums, the infamous new projectors:

Funny coincidence? Someone rented a 2022 Corolla, pointed it agains the wall and.... guess what, same topic discussed on Corolla/Cross forums.
https://www.corollacrossforum.com/threads/led-headlight-pattern-dark-spots.281/

 

[Bluefoton]

I just drove 1500 miles with lots of night driving mostly highway on a new 2024 crosstrek. The low beams dark spots literally distracted me to the point I had to eventually drive with high beams all the time, blinding others.

So, because of your "distraction" by two little dark spots, instead of adapting your driving to your cognitive level, you deliberately chose to send a FY to other drivers, blind them, and create a hazardous situation on he road? Good job.

 

[Bluefoton]

Funny thing is that even if the issue is all across Crosstreks, Imprezas, Foresters, even Toyotas (latest MYs ALL use the same projector assembly), only here it became so dramatic...
('19+) - 2022+ - Headlight Pattern / projector beam cutoff? (merged thread) | Subaru Forester Owners Forum
LED headlight pattern / dark spots | Toyota Corolla Cross Forum

 

[Bluefoton]

There NEEDS to be a limit on how bright and how "focused" and "sharp cutoff" they can be. It's getting ridiculous.

The BIG thing is to put a very hard limit on how much blue light can be emitted, both an absolute limit and a percentage limit.

As it stands, even low beams that are within legal/regulatory requirements are blasting people in the eyes with blinding levels of light, whether from head on, or from behind via the side mirrors.


I have been trying to figure out where and how I could mount white reflectors such that anyone whose headlights are blasting my mirrors would also get a taste of their own klieg lights.

Blame NHTSA and Transport Canada. It's the Wild West here - as opposed to Europe - when it comes to the cutoff pattern allowed projection angle, allowed percentage of glare, and lack of headlamp washers (near point-source light sources, when hitting a dirty lens, create significantly more glaring diffusion that old headlamps). In winter, here, Teslas are amogst the worst offenders when it comes to dazzling from merely dirty lenses. Or pickups hauling a trailer and shooting low beams above my hairline...