I have a question. Is dimming the high beam lamp to serve the purpose as a DRL unique to the current 4Runners? I do not notice this on other cars on the road but have not really looked either.
Dimming an incandescent lamp is easy. Dimming LEDs of any sort without flicker, requires a purposely designed, more sophisticated (+$) driver circuit that must also be compatible with the dimming signal. Take a look at the plethora of screw-in LED replacement lamps on the shelves at retail stores and you will see some that denote on the packaging that they are “dimmable”. Screw a non-dimming LED lamp into a fixture in your home, and you are very likely to see herky-jerky dimming/flashing as you slide your dimmer; not a smooth transition from bright to low. And when left at a static dimmed level (as what happens in our 4Runners), flicker is very common.
While I am not an electrical engineer, I do work in the architectural lighting industry and there used to be a lot of compatibility issues between the dimmers and the drivers that operate LED sources. That issue has substantially improved these days but the same cannot be said for the low cost driven, retail lighting market.
If only a handful of vehicle models use this cheap-out approach of dimming the high beam lamp for DRL use, then I would be surprised if Xenon Depot will go through the expense to re-engineer the electronics in their product to remedy the flicker.