# V9/V10 Feature: Sentry Mode



## Gavyne

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1087849475622588416
Oooh! They've been listening to feedback regarding Model 3 break-ins it seems. Very happy I have EAP.


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## processengr

Wow!! That would be a real game changer!!


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## webdriverguy

processengr said:


> Wow!! That would be a real game changer!!


This is great. Must get on that EAP train. Damn these cars get smarter with very update.


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## Gavyne

It's even better, all cars with AP2+ hardware will get it!


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1087861236665016321


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## webdriverguy

Gavyne said:


> It's even better, all cars with AP2+ hardware will get it!
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1087861236665016321


I don't have to get EAP to get this? This is hugeeeeee


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## BluestarE3

What exactly will sentry mode provide?


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## MelindaV

presumably, cameras will record when it detects an impact


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## TrevP

Hopefully it will put a stop to the constant break-ins


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## Jarettp

TrevP said:


> Hopefully it will put a stop to the constant break-ins


More likely to increase the amount of stolen usb drives. Hopefully he's including a cloud upload with this feature.


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## MelindaV

Jarettp said:


> More likely to increase the amount of stolen usb drives. Hopefully he's including a cloud upload with this feature.


you really like to look on the positive side, don't you?


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## webdriverguy

Jarettp said:


> More likely to increase the amount of stolen usb drives. Hopefully he's including a cloud upload with this feature.


Actually that's a legit question. Not sure how this will work. I also hope tesla gives an option to disable this feauture at home.

Some hints from Teslarati post

Enhanced Autopilot (EAP), Tesla's driver-assist software enabled in February 2017 with the version 8.0 software update, utilizes 8 surround cameras and 12 ultrasonic sensors and radar. Also part of its capabilities is a "Side Collision Warning" feature that, when considered together with the survey hardware, can easily be imagined as the core of an advanced mode for vehicle security. Instead of the built-in software functioning to warn a driver inside the vehicle of objects within certain proximity on the road, an "always on" type system could transmit warning signals to the owner's app and/or have a built in response.

Although details provided on the coming "Sentry Mode" barely exist, Tesla's commitment to the security of its vehicles has been clear. In the Version 9.0 software released last year, a built-in dash cam feature was included which utilized vehicles' 360-degree array of Autopilot cameras to record and save footage to a driver-provided external USB drive. Although the feature could have several uses, hobby or otherwise, it was specifically added to aid with owner security issues such as capturing hit-and-run events. Another possible vision of "Sentry Mode" may merely expand on this functionality to incorporate more advanced recording options, including an "always on" option.


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## garsh

Hopefully this will help us catch license plates of "hit and run" parking lot encounters.

I don't really expect this to prevent "smash and grab" incidents. I don't think thieves will bother grabbing USB drives. But they *may* learn to just put on a mask before breaking into Teslas.


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## iChris93

webdriverguy said:


> In the Version 9.0 software released last year, a built-in dash cam feature was included which utilized vehicles' 360-degree array of Autopilot cameras to record and save footage to a driver-provided external USB drive.


That's a bit of a stretch. It just uses one forward facing camera.


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## MelindaV

iChris93 said:


> That's a bit of a stretch. It just uses one forward facing camera.


The error came from the general v9 features release notes and people confusing the 360 comment (referring to the onscreen ghost cars) and jumping to that meaning 360 camera view. Assuming that as a direct quote from teslarati, that was pretty lazy on their part to make that kind of error so long after v9 has been out. Do the people/person writing for them even have a car with v9?


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## SoFlaModel3

This is definitely exciting, but as my wife would say ... why doesn’t the car alert me when someone is in my blind spot (center mounted screen doesn’t count)


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## iChris93

SoFlaModel3 said:


> This is definitely exciting, but as my wife would say ... why doesn't the car alert me when someone is in my blind spot (center mounted screen doesn't count)


So she's looking for an audible alert then?


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## SoFlaModel3

iChris93 said:


> So she's looking for an audible alert then?


Audible alert or steering wheel vibration. You really can't look at the screen while switching lanes.


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## Taney71

I'll look at this as Tesla trying to respond to its customers' demands which largely has been about the break ins with the rear window. I hope the feature gets added and improves over time like all other things. I'll wait and see until and if it rolls out before judging it.


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## MelindaV

Taney71 said:


> Tesla trying to respond to its customers' demands which largely has been about the break ins with the rear window


I assume you have not been following Tesla/model 3 for more than a few months, correct? When the v9 features come out (and before), there was tons of complaints the onboard dashcam only used the one camera, only recorded the last hour, only worked when driving, etc, etc. the last being the least of the complaints. 
The rear window breakins have been a thing on Teslas for years (in some cities) and is just now getting talked about with the larger number of cars on the roads (or dark streets/parking lots).


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## kort677

MelindaV said:


> you really like to look on the positive side, don't you?


 are you saying that being a realist is bad?


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## TrevP

What Tesla needs to do is publicly advertise the feature so that vandals/thieves know they will be recorded. Trust me, that info will spread like wildfire to that community.


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## Model 3 Ron

Gavyne said:


> It's even better, all cars with AP2+ hardware will get it!


What is considered AP2+ hardware. I assume all Model 3 cars have AP2. What is the +?


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## iChris93

Model 3 Ron said:


> What is considered AP2+ hardware. I assume all Model 3 cars have AP2. What is the +?


All Model 3s have 2.5. So AP2+ means anything greater than 2. AP 2 was introduced in the S/X then pretty quickly moved to 2.5.


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## Gavyne

Model 3 Ron said:


> What is considered AP2+ hardware. I assume all Model 3 cars have AP2. What is the +?


All Model 3 are on AP2.5. AP2+ refers to Teslas built after October 2016, when they upgraded cars with hardware 2 (AP2). So the Sentry Mode will be available to those with AP2 and AP2.5 (any Teslas built after Oct 2016).


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## John

I may have heard a rumor that Tesla might let us record custom audio announcements that would work something like this:

1. [An announcement that would be quietly played at volume=1 if someone comes close to the car]
2. [An announcement that would be loudly played at volume =5 when a window smash is detected]
3. [An announcement that would be played at volume=10 as the person leaves]

One revenue stream suggestion for Tesla might be taking stills from the video of a break-in and making a quality coffee table photo album entitled, "Breaking Bad: Candid Camera Car Burglary."


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## NJturtlePower

Jarettp said:


> More likely to increase the amount of stolen usb drives. Hopefully he's including a cloud upload with this feature.


Somebody start designing a Model 3 USB hub lock box for the console... fingerprint enabled like a gun safe.


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## GDN

Would be nice to see this, but I would think they would need to get the video stored in the cloud. This shouldn't be hard, they already upload video from our cars right? So they just need to keep the streams tied to the car/account for access. I'm on the boat about stolen USB's though. Once the thieves learn of the "sentry" should they decide to break in anyway, they would know to go for the USB stick as well. 

I think this is where Tesla went wrong with their cameras too. If they'd just gone with an HD camera they could have easily used lower resolution for driving decisions, but would have the video recordings worth while and usable. The resolution off of these cameras is not going to really do what we expect these days from a dash cam.


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## iChris93

GDN said:


> Would be nice to see this, but I would think they would need to get the video stored in the cloud. This shouldn't be hard, they already upload video from our cars right? So they just need to keep the streams tied to the car/account for access. I'm on the boat about stolen USB's though. Once the thieves learn of the "sentry" should they decide to break in anyway, they would know to go for the USB stick as well.


It's worth noting Elon was responding to a Tweet about a hit and run. These people aren't naturally thieves so may leave the USB alone.


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## FRC

In those areas where thieves are breaking windows, just put a small sticker on those windows that says "you're on camera". This will chase the crook to another car much like home security signage does.


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## GDN

iChris93 said:


> It's worth noting Elon was responding to a Tweet about a hit and run. These people aren't naturally thieves so may leave the USB alone.


Good point - we got quickly deflected by thieves and cars being broken into. There are useful purposes of all kinds. And if it gets added at no cost, I'm not complaining.


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## NJturtlePower

JWardell said:


> We had a girl kidnapped last weekend....
> 
> Two weeks ago, my neighbor stabbed a delivery man with a sword....


Time to move buddy


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## Vin

TrevP said:


> What Tesla needs to do is publicly advertise the feature so that vandals/thieves know they will be recorded. Trust me, that info will spread like wildfire to that community.


Just thought of an idea, don't know if it would work, but remember the "dog" mode feature that displayed on the screen "pet is ok, owner will be right back".
What if there was a theft mode that displayed on the screen that "you are now being recorded and showed the thief an image of themselves on the center screen".
Maybe this will just lead to thief selfies or discourage 
ideally I wish there was a "trunk-cam" that showed on the center screen the inside of your trunk (emply)


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## Jay79

How about a Christine Mode?

Said thief approaches car and breaks window, Model 3 turns on and is super pissed. The thief quickly realizes something is going terribly wrong and runs away only to have the Tesla chasing him/her in hot pursuit


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## Vin

Jay79 said:


> How about a Christine Mode?
> 
> Said thief approaches car and breaks window, Model 3 turns on and is super pissed. The thief quickly realizes something is going terribly wrong and runs away only to have the Tesla chasing him/her in hot pursuit


I like it, call it Summoners mode. Or "Punisher" mode


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## Needsdecaf

Waiting for someone to ***** about vampire drain from cameras always being active......


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## Bokonon

Needsdecaf said:


> Waiting for someone to ***** about vampire drain from cameras always being active......


The cameras may or may not be active the entire time (they might only activate in response to a bump or other accelerometer signal), but the car will definitely need to be awake in order to detect the disturbance and react.

I expect that the vampire drain rate will be similar to what folks are currently seeing when the car stays awake to exercise the charge port latch continuously in cold weather.


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## kort677

Needsdecaf said:


> Waiting for someone to ***** about vampire drain from cameras always being active......


nobody should because any sort of drain is negligible


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## MelindaV

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1093425726139772929


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## JWardell

MelindaV said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1093425726139772929


Note the mention of dog mode: Finally using the interior camera to look in on your dog?
Probably just setting the HVAC to room temp and displaying a message on the display that the dog is comfortable.


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## JustTheTip

JWardell said:


> Note the mention of dog mode: Finally using the interior camera to look in on your dog?
> Probably just setting the HVAC to room temp and displaying a message on the display that the dog is comfortable.


Or Summon that follows you like a pet. lol

But yea. You're right I am sure.


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## NJturtlePower

JustTheTip said:


> Or Summon that follows you like a pet. lol


I feel like that's what Sentry mode should be... you break a window, it records, posts the info on the display and drives itself to the nearest police station.


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## BluestarE3

Received this e-mail a short while ago:


> As a Model 3 owner, you can make your car even safer by activating additional security features. To enable these features, go to Controls > Safety & Security on your car's touchscreen.
> 
> *Pin To Drive*: requires four-digit verification to start your car​
> *Manual Entry*: disables Passive Entry via the Tesla app and requires a key card for entry​
> *Security Alarm*: activates when a locked trunk or door is opened without a valid entry key​
> Soon, Sentry Mode will be enabled on your Model 3 via an over the air software update, and will monitor your car's environment while it's parked. When a potential threat is detected, the cameras on your car will begin recording, and the alarm system will activate. In the meantime, for owners looking to prevent theft, we also recommend removing valuables from your car and leaving the rear seats folded down with the trunk empty when parked.


While I agree that capturing them on video is not, by itself, a deterrent; hopefully, coupling that with the alarm sounding will make the Model 3 a less desirable target. After all, their modus operandi is to get in and out quickly without drawing attention on themselves, especially if they want to hit multiple cars in a parking lot. It may take some time before knowledge of these added features makes its way around the leagues of thieves, but hopefully the car eventually will become a pariah for them.


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## Eli

"Monitoring the car's environment while parked" is the interesting bit, effectively adding more triggers to the alarm system. I doubt it's vision-based, you'd have so many false positives it would be a total nuisance, maybe they are listening for sound with the interior mic or for physical shakes via an accelerometer.


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## JWardell

Tesla posted details of sentry mode to their blog:
https://www.tesla.com/blog/sentry-mode-guarding-your-tesla

*Sentry Mode: Guarding Your Tesla*​The Tesla Team February 13, 2019​According to federal statistics, there was an estimated one motor vehicle theft or attempted theft every 40.8 seconds in the United States in 2017- and that doesn't even include the vast number of car break-ins that happen nationwide. To further enhance the security of our vehicles and give our customers additional peace of mind, today we're starting to roll out a new safeguard - Sentry Mode - to protect against break-ins and theft.​Sentry Mode adds a unique layer of protection to Tesla vehicles by continuously monitoring the environment around a car when it's left unattended. When enabled, Sentry Mode enters a "Standby" state, like many home alarm systems, which uses the car's external cameras to detect potential threats. If a minimal threat is detected, such as someone leaning on a car, Sentry Mode switches to an "Alert" state and displays a message on the touchscreen warning that its cameras are recording. If a more severe threat is detected, such as someone breaking a window, Sentry Mode switches to an "Alarm" state, which activates the car alarm, increases the brightness of the center display, and plays music at maximum volume from the car's audio system.​If a car switches to "Alarm" state, owners will also receive an alert from their Tesla mobile app notifying them that an incident has occurred. They'll be able to download a video recording of an incident (which begins 10 minutes prior to the time a threat was detected) by inserting a formatted USB drive into their car before they enable Sentry Mode.​Sentry Mode must be enabled each time a driver wants to use the feature by going to Controls > Safety & Security > Sentry Mode. The feature will begin rolling out today to U.S. Model 3 vehicles, followed by Model S and Model X vehicles that were built after August 2017.​While no alarm system can prevent against all vehicle thefts, break-ins and threats, we hope that with Sentry Mode and our other security features, your Tesla will be even more secure.​


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## Bokonon

JWardell said:


> The feature *will begin rolling out today to U.S. Model 3 vehicles*, followed by Model S and Model X vehicles that were built after August 2017.


Popcorn: check.
TeslaFi firmware tracker on auto-refresh: check.

We're ready for you, 2019.4!


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## GDN

Not sure I like having to enable each time, but that kind of makes sense. It needs to be enabled from the app on the phone. Make it easy to enable if you've already left the vehicle and forgot and easier than digging through the menu.

PS - all of you with Google Routers at home - time to start watching them for downloads to your cars !!!!


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## GDN

Bokonon said:


> Popcorn: check.
> TeslaFi firmware tracker on auto-refresh: check.
> 
> We're ready for you, 2019.4!


Teslafi now has 1716 Model 3's and all but 34 have made it to some version of 50.X. Looking good. I've got to find something to watch my network at home. I've got a couple of things, but nothing to watch each IP/MAC address. I need to see if Wireshark has a capability like that.


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## webdriverguy

GDN said:


> Teslafi now has 1716 Model 3's and all but 34 have made it to some version of 50.X. Looking good. I've got to find something to watch my network at home. I've got a couple of things, but nothing to watch each IP/MAC address. I need to see if Wireshark has a capability like that.


Teslafi is now showing one car with 2019.5.2 can't wait for sentry mode


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## Darrenf

Per Tesla today..


> Sentry Mode must be enabled each time a driver wants to use the feature by going to Controls > Safety & Security > Sentry Mode.


Why on earth would they make us manually enable it everytime? The one time you don't enable it will be the time your car is broken into.


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## webdriverguy

Darrenf said:


> Per Tesla today..
> 
> Why on earth would they make us manually enable it everytime? The one time you don't enable it will be the time your car is broken into.


I would prefer it be enabled or disabled location based


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## wst88

This was posted Today on Tesla Site

Sentry Mode must be enabled each time a driver wants to use the feature by going to Controls > Safety & Security > Sentry Mode. The feature will begin rolling out today to U.S. Model 3 vehicles, followed by Model S and Model X vehicles that were built after August 2017.

Tesla Sentry Mode

Looks like we get the feature this week.


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## FRC

Wil we be allowed to select the music that is played while our cars are violated?


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## Darrenf

wst88 said:


> This was posted Today on Tesla Site
> 
> Sentry Mode must be enabled each time a driver wants to use the feature by going to Controls > Safety & Security > Sentry Mode. The feature will begin rolling out today to U.S. Model 3 vehicles, followed by Model S and Model X vehicles that were built after August 2017.
> 
> Tesla Sentry Mode
> 
> Looks like we get the feature this week.


What a stupid way to implement it. If I'm reading that correctly, we have to enable it each time we leave the vehicle. Security that you have to constantly turn on isn't going to be very helpful in the real world.


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## FRC

webdriverguy said:


> I would prefer it be enabled or disabled location based


We have walk away lock as an option, why not walk away sentry mode?


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## GDN

Hoping that they will improve how this is enabled with time. Getting it added and getting the bugs worked out will take a release or two at least. It's a big start. I think enabling each time or remotely by the phone app would be nice. I really like that they've added a phone notification when it goes off.

One thought on why it may not be enabled every time, they note they will have the previous 10 minutes of video that will automatically record. I imagine this isn't possible if the car is asleep right? I'm not sure what systems might still be running and what are not running during sleep cycles, but it sounds as though this mode will keep the car from sleeping so there could be implications from drain, etc. With time it will improve and have more options once we get to experience it and give feedback I'm sure.


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## Darrenf

GDN said:


> Hoping that they will improve how this is enabled with time. Getting it added and getting the bugs worked out will take a release or two at least. It's a big start. I think enabling each time or remotely by the phone app would be nice. I really like that they've added a phone notification when it goes off.
> 
> One thought on why it may not be enabled every time, they note they will have the previous 10 minutes of video that will automatically record. I imagine this isn't possible if the car is asleep right? I'm not sure what systems might still be running and what are not running during sleep cycles, but it sounds as though this mode will keep the car from sleeping so there could be implications from drain, etc. With time it will improve and have more options once we get to experience it and give feedback I'm sure.


The first week we had our 3 last year I accidentally set off the alarm. Both my phone and my wife's phone got notifications that the alarm was going off.


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## webdriverguy

FRC said:


> We have walk away lock as an option, why not walk away sentry mode?


Yes true but I don't want it to be enabled when I am parked at home.


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## JustTheTip

They need to add this to the shortcut section where the energy meter/web browser are.


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## zosoisnotaword

It seems obvious to me that having to enable sentry mode for each use is the correct way to implement the feature because of the expected drain. It's a pretty safe bet that the people who want it enabled every time they're parked are the minority. Maybe they will add a toggle feature or location-based feature in an update down the road for the people who want to use it full-time.


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## Darrenf

zosoisnotaword said:


> It seems obvious to me that having to enable sentry mode for each use is the correct way to implement the feature because of the expected drain. It's a pretty safe bet that the people who want it enabled every time they're parked are the minority. Maybe they will add a toggle feature or location-based feature in an update down the road for the people who want to use it full-time.


How do you have any idea what the drain would be? You have no idea how it will be implemented yet. Also, if that is a concern, it should still be allowed to always be enabled when plugged in.

Bottom line, there is no reason that we can't be able to make the decision for ourselves, what is best for you, isn't best for everyone. Hopefully they give us more options with a further update.


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## HeavyPedal

I think Tesla was smart to implement it this way, at least until both developers and owners get more experience with Sentry Mode and can be sure it's not going to cause more problems than it solves. Once they've had a chance to fine tune it, I imagine additional methods of enabling sentry mode (automatically, by location, or whatever) will be introduced.


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## RichEV

My question: Will we be able to test or demo sentry mode without busting into our vehicle?


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## JWardell

They claim this is for 2019.5.1 but we don't have a thread:


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1095939204909957121


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## Needsdecaf

Told you it would increase vampire drain. 

Also, in reading the release notes....is it me, or does it NOT look like you have to enable it each time?


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## RichEV

RichEV said:


> My question: Will we be able to test or demo sentry mode without busting into our vehicle?


Okay, yes we can at least demo Alert mode with cameras rolling.


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## Darrenf

Needsdecaf said:


> Told you it would increase vampire drain.
> 
> Also, in reading the release notes....is it me, or does it NOT look like you have to enable it each time?


Looking at those release notes, they do not imply it would need to be enabled each time. I hope you're right.


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## zosoisnotaword

Darrenf said:


> How do you have any idea what the drain would be? You have no idea how it will be implemented yet. Also, if that is a concern, it should still be allowed to always be enabled when plugged in.
> 
> Bottom line, there is no reason that we can't be able to make the decision for ourselves, what is best for you, isn't best for everyone. Hopefully they give us more options with a further update.


I didn't specify what the drain would be or how it would be implemented; just that there will be additional drain. I'm sure we can all agree that this feature will not exist without additional drain. I also hope they add more options to enable it in the future.


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## Darrenf

zosoisnotaword said:


> I didn't specify what the drain would be or how it would be implemented; just that there will be additional drain. I'm sure we can all agree that this feature will not exist without additional drain. I also hope they add more options to enable it in the future.


Your statement that the drain is why they are implementing it this way (enable for each use) doesn't hint at you knowing it will cause additional drain (yes, we can all agree on that), but that the drain is so significant that they don't want it enabled all the time because it will deplete the batteries too rapidly. The way you worded it belied you professing to know something that people outside of Tesla working on that feature would have no way to know yet. We now know from the release notes, that just like climate control, this feature will not work with the battery below 20% SOC.


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## zosoisnotaword

Darrenf said:


> Your statement that the drain is why they are implementing it this way (enable for each use) doesn't hint at you knowing it will cause additional drain (yes, we can all agree on that), but that the drain is so significant that they don't want it enabled all the time because it will deplete the batteries too rapidly. The way you worded it belied you professing to know something that people outside of Tesla working on that feature would have no way to know yet. We now know from the release notes, that just like climate control, this feature will not work with the battery below 20% SOC.


I've re-read my original post and I'm not sure how I implied I know anything other than what is already common knowledge, such as battery drain for an active car vs. an asleep car. I think we should just leave it that we both want the same things for this feature so we don't bog down the thread.


zosoisnotaword said:


> It seems obvious to me that having to enable sentry mode for each use is the correct way to implement the feature because of the expected drain. It's a pretty safe bet that the people who want it enabled every time they're parked are the minority. Maybe they will add a toggle feature or location-based feature in an update down the road for the people who want to use it full-time.


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## JWardell

It's Hal!



http://imgur.com/najobUW


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## rxlawdude

Of course, the thief will now know to steal all USB flash drives from the car as they leave. You have to put a USB flash drive in BEFORE implementing Sentry Mode.


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## Needsdecaf

rxlawdude said:


> Of course, the thief will now know to steal all USB flash drives from the car as they leave. You have to put a USB flash drive in BEFORE implementing Sentry Mode.


yeah, I read that and was disappointed. Average street thief won't know but anyone who reads anything and is at all tech savvy will know to take the USB. Pity.


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## webdriverguy

rxlawdude said:


> Of course, the thief will now know to steal all USB flash drives from the car as they leave. You have to put a USB flash drive in BEFORE implementing Sentry Mode.


First iteration, I think we should be all thankful that tesla has pushed this out. Just don't get why ppl complain.


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## NJturtlePower

Needsdecaf said:


> yeah, I read that and was disappointed. Average street thief won't know but anyone who reads anything and is at all tech savvy will know to take the USB. Pity.


Console lock boxes coming soon from aftermarket vendors... you watch.


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## airj1012

It's probably been mentioned else where, but any recommendations on USB drives? Curious if the required specs have changed now that the system will be using more than one camera. I haven't turned on Dashcam yet, but now I'm not intrigued to do so. Thanks.


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## Jay79

airj1012 said:


> It's probably been mentioned else where, but any recommendations on USB drives? Curious if the required specs have changed now that the system will be using more than one camera. I haven't turned on Dashcam yet, but now I'm not intrigued to do so. Thanks.


I have a 64G stick in mine, that should be plenty of space. I recommend doing the same


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## BluestarE3

Needsdecaf said:


> yeah, I read that and was disappointed. Average street thief won't know but anyone who reads anything and is at all tech savvy will know to take the USB. Pity.


And any tech savvy thief who reads anything will know Tesla vehicles now will make a hellava racket when it's molested (nevermind the candid camera), so it's no longer worth bothering. Why cut short a lucrative evening of stealthy smash-and-grabs at the local cineplex parking lot by drawing unwanted attention on yourself? Better to target some other makes of cars.


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## JWardell

airj1012 said:


> It's probably been mentioned else where, but any recommendations on USB drives? Curious if the required specs have changed now that the system will be using more than one camera. I haven't turned on Dashcam yet, but now I'm not intrigued to do so. Thanks.


USB drives have been discussed and recommended extensively in https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/v9-features-dashcam.8970/
Most will work fine, be sure to format properly and create the right directory.
I went with a wifi one just in case I need to access footage from my phone.
Which reminds me...I need to find out where I put that thing since I haven't used it in months...more fun features to play with!


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## NJturtlePower

Jay79 said:


> I have a 64G stick in mine, that should be plenty of space. I recommend doing the same


See my signature... Anker Hub and Samsung USB's working great!


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## webdriverguy

Needsdecaf said:


> yeah, I read that and was disappointed. Average street thief won't know but anyone who reads anything and is at all tech savvy will know to take the USB. Pity.


This is not that simple. Here is the reason why -

The guy smashes your car. Now he is on camera and things are about to get loud, no one's crawling over glass shards, going in through a window, to fish for a USB drive in a center console somewhere. Just so they can try to retrieve video of what they're doing, while everyone's looking at them now and they're bleeding out. Then on their way out from the broken driver's side window they might get cut more by broken glass. So many risks and it's not worth taking for the thief.

On top of this guess what some aftermarket accessories will come out which will make it even more hard to take the USB out. Now you have to be a idiot to take a huge risk of pulling the USB out from the center console while the alarm is going off and music is playing on full volume.

Now you might say what if they spray/ tape/ hit the side cameras before they break into your car. Pretty sure tesla can program this to start sounding a alarm and music on full volume as soon as they recognize this.

Whatever they put out is nice and it will only get better from here.


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## FRC

One thing being overlooked here. These smash and grab crooks have one common trait. They are all stupid, stupid, STUPID.


----------



## Nautilus

FRC said:


> One thing being overlooked here. These smash and grab crooks have one common trait. They are all stupid, stupid, STUPID.


Not so sure. They were smart enough to figure out how to just smash the rear quarter window to gain access to the trunk via the rear seat latch to determine if there was anything in the trunk worth stealing. Never underestimate one's adversary. I agree with others that the system will only get better, so the initial roll-out is a good starting point, with opportunity for improvement/enhancement.

For every measure there's a countermeasure. For every countermeasure, there's a counter-countermeasure. Think Spy vs. Spy in Mad Magazine. Wait, those two WERE stupid...


----------



## MMMGP

Agree with WDG. These are smash and grab incidents, 30 seconds tops. I wouldn't be surprised if the thieves use a walking cane to fish items out of the trunk once the window is broken and the seats are in the down position.

And my vote is for Ride of the Valkyries at full volume! That should turn some heads.


----------



## r-e-l

I read the announcement of the upcoming Sentry and it wasn't what I thought it would be … and maybe it still is.

I first learned about Sentry mode after someone posted on twitter a picture of his car that was scraped by unknow soul in a parking lot and left without a note. Musk then replied and mentioned Sentry - this is was the find time I heard of it.

As such I thought it will be a mode that if another car will hit my car and drive away, there will be evidence / picture of that car.
The notes seems to be focusing on car break-ins which is great but I feel luck (or not?) to live in an area where most likely I will get hit in the parking by another car then be broken in.

Do you think there is something in the feature that will prevent it to work for "hit and run" but will work for car burglars? Do you think there are privacy laws they are trying to avoid?
for whatever reason, even if the feature can be used for both scenarios, they choose to highlight only one of them.

So its either the feature will not be ideal for the hit and run scenario or it will but they rather not talk about it or … maybe break-ins is more universal problem?


----------



## BigBri

r-e-l said:


> I read the announcement of the upcoming Sentry and it wasn't what I thought it would be … and maybe it still is.
> 
> I first learned about Sentry mode after someone posted on twitter a picture of his car that was scraped by unknow soul in a parking lot and left without a note. Musk then replied and mentioned Sentry - this is was the find time I heard of it.


The Tesla blog post makes mention of it recording if someone leans on the car so it'd certainly record an impact. It'd just be looking for the sudden hit.


----------



## raptor

So if Sentry mode keeps the car awake, it could keep my multiple dashcams running as well. This just got even more interesting.


----------



## JWardell

r-e-l said:


> I read the announcement of the upcoming Sentry and it wasn't what I thought it would be … and maybe it still is.
> 
> I first learned about Sentry mode after someone posted on twitter a picture of his car that was scraped by unknow soul in a parking lot and left without a note. Musk then replied and mentioned Sentry - this is was the find time I heard of it.
> 
> As such I thought it will be a mode that if another car will hit my car and drive away, there will be evidence / picture of that car.
> The notes seems to be focusing on car break-ins which is great but I feel luck (or not?) to live in an area where most likely I will get hit in the parking by another car then be broken in.
> 
> Do you think there is something in the feature that will prevent it to work for "hit and run" but will work for car burglars? Do you think there are privacy laws they are trying to avoid?
> for whatever reason, even if the feature can be used for both scenarios, they choose to highlight only one of them.
> 
> So its either the feature will not be ideal for the hit and run scenario or it will but they rather not talk about it or … maybe break-ins is more universal problem?


I bet it will work. The Model 3 does not have ultrasonic motion sensors inside (which was recently added as an option for S/X), so my guess is they are just watching the vehicle accelerometers typically used for traction control (yaw detection etc) and if they see a spike from someone hitting a window hard, video is saved. Well you'll certainly get a spike of motion if someone hits your car too!
Who wants to test it out?


----------



## JustTheTip

Nothing Tesla can do will prevent someone from breaking into your car. But what they can do is make it more trouble than its worth to the point a thief will look for another car that won’t send alerts to the owner’s phone, record you on video, and blare the stereo full blast.


----------



## TrevP

Sentry mode video clips are separated into right, left, front camera folders. They’re not combined so it’s a bit messy if you want to review footage. Uses the same USB key as dashcam

Thanks to @tesla_raj for the info


----------



## Skione65

Exactly what is the battery drain with Sentry Mode running over time. That’s is the question. Love it so far from what I’m reading and will be great for those grocery store runs, and I’d love to use it for long park events. However it’s looking like it might not be something I can use when parking my car at the airport for 4 or 5 day business trips if the drain is too much.

Ski


----------



## japhule

Someone did a battery drain test on reddit. Car was at 48% when sentry mode activated at 930am. It was 45% when owner came back at 6:45pm.


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/aqm8wr


----------



## Skione65

japhule said:


> Someone did a battery drain test on reddit. Car was at 48% when sentry mode activated at 930am. It was 45% when owner came back at 6:45pm.
> 
> 
> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/aqm8wr


So 3% in 9 hours. If one extrapolates then just shy of 9% in 24 hours or 30-35% on a 4 day business trip? Ouch. That doesn't even include standard vampire drain which runs on average about 3 miles per day above 50 degrees and up to 9 or 10 miles a day in the 20-40s due to cold.

Ski


----------



## BigBri

Based on the drain I probably won't be getting rid of my Blackvue to just use the Sentry Mode.


----------



## viperd

Skione65 said:


> So 3% in 9 hours. If one extrapolates then just shy of 9% in 24 hours or 30-35% on a 4 day business trip? Ouch. That doesn't even include standard vampire drain which runs on average about 3 miles per day above 50 degrees and up to 9 or 10 miles a day in the 20-40s due to cold.
> 
> Ski


It seems to me that the data mentioned in japhule's post includes 3% battery drain (vampire drain and Sentry mode) over the 9.25 hours.


----------



## Bokonon

Skione65 said:


> So 3% in 9 hours. If one extrapolates then just shy of 9% in 24 hours or 30-35% on a 4 day business trip? Ouch. That doesn't even include standard vampire drain which runs on average about 3 miles per day above 50 degrees and up to 9 or 10 miles a day in the 20-40s due to cold.


I wouldn't necessarily assume that Sentry Mode adds that much more vampire drain on top of what the car experiences when it is forced to stay awake for a prolonged period of time for other reasons, including cold weather. Put another way: I would expect that vampire drain due to running Sentry Mode running 24/7 *would* include the "standard" vampire drain that the car would have experienced otherwise over the same 24-hour period.

With that said, I don't think that you're wrong that running Sentry Mode 24/7 over a week-long business trip will cause a significant discharge. More specifically, I'd expect running Sentry Mode 24/7 to produce a similar amount of drain as @JWardell experienced last fall when his car became an insomniac for weeks, and lost about 8% per day on average.

Before drawing any conclusions, though, I'd definitely want to see some real-world examples of using Sentry Mode around the clock for several days. Maybe Sentry Mode has some optimizations to reduce drain when it's left in use for a longer period of time.


----------



## japhule

Also forgot to mention Sentry mode is turned off and can't be turned on if you're below 20% battery. It was mentioned in the release notes.


----------



## Skione65

BigBri said:


> Based on the drain I probably won't be getting rid of my Blackvue to just use the Sentry Mode.


@BigBri,

Agreed. Same here.

Ski


----------



## Skione65

Bokonon said:


> I wouldn't necessarily assume that Sentry Mode adds that much more vampire drain on top of what the car experiences when it is forced to stay awake for a prolonged period of time for other reasons, including cold weather. Put another way: I would expect that vampire drain due to running Sentry Mode running 24/7 *would* include the "standard" vampire drain that the car would have experienced otherwise over the same 24-hour period.
> 
> With that said, I don't think that you're wrong that running Sentry Mode 24/7 over a week-long business trip will cause a significant discharge. More specifically, I'd expect running Sentry Mode 24/7 to produce a similar amount of drain as @JWardell experienced last fall when his car became an insomniac for weeks, and lost about 8% per day on average.
> 
> Before drawing any conclusions, though, I'd definitely want to see some real-world examples of using Sentry Mode around the clock for several days. Maybe Sentry Mode has some optimizations to reduce drain when it's left in use for a longer period of time.


@Bokonon,

Love your posts! Well said and I agree with everything you've added/deduced. Not drawing any concrete conclusions yet and I agree I want to see real world examples around the clock for several days. It's all very exciting! Optimization Modes would be great and I'm sure just as this update entails....better improvements and things will be coming in future updates!

Ski


----------



## MachV

Do you think people will break the windows just to hear the car play music? ...Hey y'all, watch this...


----------



## Nautilus

MachV said:


> Do you think people will break the windows just to hear the car play music? ...Hey y'all, watch this...


Only if they have a beer for someone to hold....


----------



## webdriverguy

Nautilus said:


> Only if they have a beer for someone to hold....


Looks like there are no rollouts todayZ they are also some bugs which Teslaraj reported in his video. Hope they can iron those out and then roll this out


----------



## Dan Detweiler

Question regarding Sentry mode.

I have watched the demo videos posted on YouTube and they are very informative. What I am unclear on is how you record to your data stick. Assuming you have the system armed and a data stick inserted does the video get stored automatically once an attempt to break in occurs and the music goes off? Does the owner have to tell the car to record from the app? I don't get it.

Dan


----------



## MelindaV

Dan Detweiler said:


> Question regarding Sentry mode.
> 
> I have watched the demo videos posted on YouTube and they are very informative. What I am unclear on is how you record to your data stick. Assuming you have the system armed and a data stick inserted does the video get stored automatically once an attempt to break in occurs and the music goes off? Does the owner have to tell the car to record from the app? I don't get it.
> 
> Dan


I expect every time something steps into the path of the cameras and it goes on alert, 10 minutes backwards and until it times out again automatically get recorded. 
Would be interested to see if from the app alert, you can also immediately download that footage OTA.


----------



## GDN

Dan Detweiler said:


> Question regarding Sentry mode.
> 
> I have watched the demo videos posted on YouTube and they are very informative. What I am unclear on is how you record to your data stick. Assuming you have the system armed and a data stick inserted does the video get stored automatically once an attempt to break in occurs and the music goes off? Does the owner have to tell the car to record from the app? I don't get it.
> 
> Dan


I think the recording is automatic if it truly sets off the alarm. The pre-req here is that you must have the TeslaCam USB stick already inserted. As Melinda notes, it is likely recording all the time, but you only get the video save if the alarm truly goes off, similar to pushing the camera icon for the TeslaCam Dash Cam. A cloud option or push the video to the app would be a really nice feature. You know they have some room on one of the computer boards inside the car to also store this video. They are storing a ton as you drive. I think those all upload once you get home and connect to Wifi - they could store this video there as well if they would.


----------



## r-e-l

JWardell said:


> I bet it will work. The Model 3 does not have ultrasonic motion sensors inside (which was recently added as an option for S/X), so my guess is they are just watching the vehicle accelerometers typically used for traction control (yaw detection etc) and if they see a spike from someone hitting a window hard, video is saved. Well you'll certainly get a spike of motion if someone hits your car too!
> Who wants to test it out?


check out the video from this guy … 



 at the 6:45 mark .. - btw; is a great video to watch in full. He covers other issues with the feature.


----------



## Bernard

MelindaV said:


> I expect every time something steps into the path of the cameras and it goes on alert, 10 minutes backwards and until it times out again automatically get recorded.
> Would be interested to see if from the app alert, you can also immediately download that footage OTA.


According to the description from Tesla, the app alert does give you a way to download the footage OTA.


----------



## harrison987

One thing the guy who did the video above dislikes, is having to turn it on every time you leave. 

I think Tesla did this correctly.

If not, every time someone walks by your car (parked in a parking lot, car pulling in next to you), it will set of the sentry, lights will flash, screen will pop up.

Sentry should just be used for the extended times you are away from your car...not automatically enabled every time you leave.

I also don't think it needs to be active if you have a dog in your car...no burglar would even attempt to break into a car with a dog inside...and the dog mode screen pretty much warns them anyway. So I think he is wrong in wanting to have sentry mode AND dog mode active at the same time. Does not really make sense to do so.

Most people are not going to leave their dog for hours on end in their car...know what I mean?

Sound like camera are recording anyway, even if sentry mode is not active (?)...or did I see that incorrectly?

Mike


----------



## ig0p0g0

Unless, of course, it's the dog that they want 

I'm voting for an option to have it always on. I'm a creature of habit, and I have a hard enough time remembering to check whether it really walk-away locked.


----------



## harrison987

ig0p0g0 said:


> Unless, of course, it's the dog that they want
> 
> I'm voting for an option to have it always on. I'm a creature of habit, and I have a hard enough time remembering to check whether it really walk-away locked.


I've never had the car not lock... And we're notified with the horn honking when it does. you can also quickly check your phone to double check if it's locked...And make sure that all notifications are on to let you know.

having sentry mode constantly active means every time I walk by my car in the garage it's going to get activated. It also means if I leave it parked for an extended period of time means it will go off every single time somebody pulls up next to the car or simply walks by it themselves... Causing a major battery drain.

I suspect the reason you need at least a 20% battery to have it working is because of the drain on resources.


----------



## ig0p0g0

harrison987 said:


> I've never had the car not lock... And we're notified with the horn honking when it does. you can also quickly check your phone to double check if it's locked...And make sure that all notifications are on to let you know.
> 
> having sentry mode constantly active means every time I walk by my car in the garage it's going to get activated. It also means if I leave it parked for an extended period of time means it will go off every single time somebody pulls up next to the car or simply walks by it themselves... Causing a major battery drain.
> 
> I suspect the reason you need at least a 20% battery to have it working is because of the drain on resources.


I get that, I wouldn't force it on you  I'm just saying I would prefer it as an option for those in a different situation. I don't have a garage that can actually fit a car, and our cars stay out all night. Nice folks regularly come by to check what's inside.

I envy your reliable phone-as-key.


----------



## aronth5

harrison987 said:


> I've never had the car not lock... And we're notified with the horn honking when it does. you can also quickly check your phone to double check if it's locked...And make sure that all notifications are on to let you know.
> 
> having sentry mode constantly active means every time I walk by my car in the garage it's going to get activated. It also means if I leave it parked for an extended period of time means it will go off every single time somebody pulls up next to the car or simply walks by it themselves... Causing a major battery drain.
> 
> I suspect the reason you need at least a 20% battery to have it working is because of the drain on resources.


Although you may be right this is mostly speculation so I'm going to wait until there are more users that can clarify battery drain and what actually activates Sentry.
To assume that every time somebody pulls up next to the car Sentry will be activated may not be true at all. Same for just simply walking by.


----------



## webdriverguy

I might have missed this but the footage will now be sent to tesla for backup purposes. Now if tesla can enable custom sounds through the external speaker that they will be retrofitting that would be awesome.

“Sentry Mode will send recorded footage to Tesla for temporary backup and feature improvement. You can enable or disable this collection any time via the DATA SHARING video clip setting in Controls > Settings > Safety & Security. Please refer to your Owner’s Manual for more information.”


----------



## BluestarE3

webdriverguy said:


> I might have missed this but the footage will now be sent to tesla for backup purposes.


Note to self: When doing laundry in the garage from now on, don't take off what I'm wearing just to top off the load in the washer.


----------



## webdriverguy

BluestarE3 said:


> Note to self: When doing laundry in the garage from now on, don't take off what I'm wearing just to top off the load in the washer.


😂


----------



## NYer

USB drive getting hot:

With the release of Sentry Mode, I went ahead and bought a USB hub and a USB flash drive. Hadn't used the dashcam feature before, so I'm new to the video recording features.

Here are the items I am using:
i) Sandisk CZ48 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Memory Drive - SDCZ48-128G-U46
ii) Sabrent Premium 3-Port Aluminum Mini USB 3.0 [90°/180° Degree Rotatable] (HB-R3MC)

I installed the drive into the USB hub and the hub into the right front USB and left it there. I then read that I had to format it to FAT32, so went back into the car to retrieve it. It had only been in the car for 5-10 minutes, but the drive was hot when I pulled it out. Wondering if anyone knows why it would be hot given that it wasn't formatted properly and so shouldn't have had any reading/writing going on. I checked my Jeda wireless plug that was plugged into another USB port on the hub and it was not hot, so this was only the USB flash drive that had gotten hot.

I'm also wondering:
i) how useful Sentry mode will be for me if I have to turn it on every time I leave the car. There is no way that will be on my mind when I get to where I'm going, and
ii) if Tesla will make it so that we can watch videos via our phone app instead of having to retrieve the USB.


----------



## BluestarE3

NYer said:


> i) how useful Sentry mode will be for me if I have to turn it on every time I leave the car. There is no way that will be on my mind when I get to where I'm going


If I park in a place where I tell myself it would be prudent to fold down the rear seats, I would also enable Sentry Mode there. The rest of the time, I won't bother with the seat backs nor with Sentry Mode.


----------



## MelindaV

NYer said:


> ii) if Tesla will make it so that we can watch videos via our phone app instead of having to retrieve the USB.


in the last couple days, there has been hits Tesla will have some amount of Cloud data, so likely will at least be able to grab the latest incident over the app. (at least that is the speculation)


----------



## BluestarE3

Cookie Monster demonstrates Sentry Mode:


----------



## NYer

This morning, as I was getting ready to leave, I activated "Alarm Mode" when I opened my trunk to put my briefcase in. I had my phone in my pocket, but apparently my Model 3 didn't know that it was me... Wasn't too too loud from the outside with the windows up. I could hear it, of course, but it wouldn't draw attention in public. I would have expected it to not just be loud inside, but outside as well, and perhaps with blinking lights. It's a pretty subtle alarm (although I was a bit surprised.)


----------



## rxlawdude

NYer said:


> This morning, as I was getting ready to leave, I activated "Alarm Mode" when I opened my trunk to put my briefcase in. I had my phone in my pocket, but apparently my Model 3 didn't know that it was me... Wasn't too too loud from the outside with the windows up. I could hear it, of course, but it wouldn't draw attention in public. I would have expected it to not just be loud inside, but outside as well, and perhaps with blinking lights. It's a pretty subtle alarm (although I was a bit surprised.)


What software version are you on? 2019.4.2 doesn't seem to have the feature.


----------



## NYer

rxlawdude said:


> What software version are you on? 2019.4.2 doesn't seem to have the feature.


2019.5.3


----------



## NJturtlePower

BluestarE3 said:


> Cookie Monster demonstrates Sentry Mode:


Only Tesla could get sued by Sesame Street...


----------



## MelindaV

I blame Oscar


----------



## BluestarE3

Damn, I should have downloaded it. My granddaughter loved it and wanted me to play it over and over.


----------



## BluestarE3

Woohoo! Forget Cookie Monster. Just installed 2019.5.4 and I can now do it myself. Walking close to my locked car brings up the "HAL" screen and pounding vigorously on the rear quarter window turns the screen white, sounds the alarm/horn and plays Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.


----------



## NYer

They are just angry because CM couldn't get access to the plate of cookies...


----------



## MelindaV

BluestarE3 said:


> Damn, I should have downloaded it. My granddaughter loved it and wanted me to play it over and over.


(it is still on twitter, don't tell the puppets...)


----------



## NJturtlePower

MelindaV said:


> (it is still on twitter, don't tell the puppets...)


Yeah there are a few reposts on YouTube as well if you search "Guard your Cookies Tesla".

Not gunna guarantee "guard your cookies" Google search gives the same results with Adult filtering turned off.


----------



## Bokonon

GDN said:


> I think enabling each time or remotely by the phone app would be nice.


Per @chutieu, you can activate it from the Controls menu in the app:


----------



## John

Showed Sentry Mode to my son on the way to dinner tonight.
Me: "Watch this, I'll put my phone back in the house, and we'll bang on it and hear some Phantom of the Opera-ish music."
[me and him banging]
[no music, but horn honking wildly]
Me: "Uh..."
[runs into house to get phone as neighbors come into street like the Whos in Whoville]


----------



## MelindaV

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1098259812909903878


----------



## BluestarE3

Bokonon said:


> Per @chutieu, you can activate it from the Controls menu in the app:


Thanks for the heads up. I just updated my mobile app to 3.8.2 and it now has the setting for Sentry Mode.


----------



## BluestarE3

John said:


> Showed Sentry Mode to my son on the way to dinner tonight.
> Me: "Watch this, I'll put my phone back in the house, and we'll bang on it and hear some Phantom of the Opera-ish music."
> [me and him banging]
> [no music, but horn honking wildly]
> Me: "Uh..."
> [runs into house to get phone as neighbors come into street like the Whos in Whoville]


I had my key card with me when I conducted my test to avoid this embarrassing situation.


----------



## Nautilus

John said:


> Showed Sentry Mode to my son on the way to dinner tonight.
> Me: "Watch this, I'll put my phone back in the house, and we'll bang on it and hear some Phantom of the Opera-ish music."
> [me and him banging]
> [no music, but horn honking wildly]
> Me: "Uh..."
> [runs into house to get phone as neighbors come into street like the Whos in Whoville]


Did you ask him to hold your beer too?


----------



## John

Nautilus said:


> Did you ask him to hold your beer too?


If you drink and drive-drive carefully.


----------



## chutieu

[mod note: post copied from the Android app thread]

With the latest app update, there is a alarm notification option. Sentry mode will notify you when in the alarm state (motion is detected) and also notify once the alarm is triggered.


----------



## suprteck

Anyone else notice that the 12v cigarette outlet stays on all the time with software version 2019.5.4 with sentry mode on or off. Now my dashcam stays on all the time and worried it will drain the 12v battery.


----------



## PaulK

John said:


> Showed Sentry Mode to my son on the way to dinner tonight.
> Me: "Watch this, I'll put my phone back in the house, and we'll bang on it and hear some Phantom of the Opera-ish music."
> [me and him banging]
> [no music, but horn honking wildly]
> Me: "Uh..."
> [runs into house to get phone as neighbors come into street like the Whos in Whoville]


This is exactly what happened to me.

What's the trick to get the Bach started?


----------



## John

PaulK said:


> This is exactly what happened to me.
> 
> What's the trick to get the Bach started?


In the last software release, I got just the music. This time, just the horn.
Right now, I'm giving the neighbors a little break before I experiment more.
Someone else?


----------



## Nautilus

[MOD EDIT - duplicated from FW 2019.5.4 thread]
I'm on 2019.5.4, and decided to test the Sentry Mode when I went out to the parking garage after work. From my desk, I started preconditioning the car (as usual), and then I also turned on Sentry Mode.

I got out to the car, and turned off the bluetooth on my phone, so the car didn't know I was there. Walking in close proximity to the car, nothing happened (at least on the screen - the cameras were recording, however). I then gave the car a push on the passenger side window, and the screen lit up with the red dot saying "Sentry Mode, recording in progress" or words to that effect. I walked around the back of the car and gave the left rear quarter panel a couple of thumps (firm, but nothing that was ever going to break any glass). On Thump #5, the alarm went off.

By alarm, I mean the screen went bright white, and then a second later the car horn started blaring and lights flashing. If the car audio was playing, I couldn't hear it over the horn. I flipped the Bluetooth back on and opened the front door to shut the alarm off about 7 seconds after it started (according to the left camera).

I'll also mention that the video auto-saved once the alarm had been shut off. A total of 30 files (one for each of the three cameras for each of the 10 minutes preceding the alarm shut-off). They were saved to a folder named with a date-time stamp (2019-02-25_17-24-18), and that folder was saved in a folder called SavedClips within the TeslaCam folder. I think 5:24pm and 18 seconds is when the alarm was shut off.


----------



## Nautilus

[MOD EDIT - duplicated from FW 2019.5.4 thread]
A couple other things to add:

None of the car's exterior lights (e.g. headlights) turned on when I gave the car a push and got the control screen to come up with the sentry mode warning.
The phone app received a warning (I believe when the Sentry mode warning came up) that stated "Sentry Mode has triggered the alarm state".
The phone app received another warning (I believe when the car alarm went off) that stated "Car alarm has been triggered".
Since the two events happened so closely together, the warnings came to the phone in the same minute so I"m guessing which preceded the other. I wasn't watching the phone when I was tinkering. I was more focused on how the car behaved.


----------



## Kizzy

chutieu said:


> [mod note: post copied from the Android app thread]
> 
> With the latest app update, there is a alarm notification option. Sentry mode will notify you when in the alarm state (motion is detected) and also notify once the alarm is triggered.
> View attachment 22392
> 
> 
> View attachment 22393


Oh, this is helpful. Okay, so it sends notifications both when motion is detected (alarm state) and when it's likely someone has hit/broken into your car (car alarm). I'm now relieved that my car alarm was _not_ set off in a parking garage by a train.


----------



## Long Ranger

Kizzy said:


> Oh, this is helpful. Okay, so it sends notifications both when motion is detected (alarm state) and when it's likely someone has hit/broken into your car (car alarm). I'm now relieved that my car alarm was _not_ set off in a parking garage by a train.


I'm not seeing a notification just due to motion being detected. I have the alarm notification enabled. I've triggered the sentry motion recording multiple times, but haven't set off the alarm yet. I could be wrong, but I think the notification is only sent if the alarm goes off.

There may be two different alarm notification messages, but has anyone actually triggered only one without the other?


----------



## Joaquin

[MOD EDIT - duplicated from FW 2019.5.4 thread]


Nautilus said:


> and gave the left rear quarter panel a couple of thumps (firm, but nothing that was ever going to break any glass). On Thump #5, the alarm went off.


Man I still can't get my alarm go off with my "thumps"... I already had my quarter panel replaced once, and maybe I'm too afraid to hit it too hard... my poor baby...

But this is something that I definitely want to check first hand!


----------



## Joaquin

So I got my whining marked as duplicated... fair enough. But please let me re-phrase it in a form of question:

Can somebody please make a video on how to trigger the sentry mode alarm (the glass "thumps") or point me to one already published somewhere?

It can't be that hard, so either I'm missing something here, or my sentry mode does not work as expected... thanks.


----------



## BluestarE3

Joaquin said:


> So I got my whining marked as duplicated... fair enough. But please let me re-phrase it in a form of question:
> 
> Can somebody please make a video on how to trigger the sentry mode alarm (the glass "thumps") or point me to one already published somewhere?
> 
> It can't be that hard, so either I'm missing something here, or my sentry mode does not work as expected... thanks.


You can do what Cookie Monster did to trigger the alarm, but jumping on the hood and pounding the windshield seems a bit excessive. 
I got it to work by whacking the rear quarter window vigorously and repeatedly with the heel of my hand. The first time I tried, nothing happened. I also tried rocking the car, still nothing. Finally worked up the courage to smack the quarter window really hard until I saw the screen turn white and then the horn and music sounded.



Joaquin said:


> [MOD EDIT - duplicated from FW 2019.5.4 thread]
> Man I still can't get my alarm go off with my "thumps"... I already had my quarter panel replaced once, and maybe I'm too afraid to hit it too hard... my poor baby...


I can appreciate your reluctance to getting too aggressive with your recently replaced rear quarter window, but you can test this on any window. I only chose the quarter window because that's been the specific target of the smash-and-grab thieves.


----------



## Towerman

While parked in UCLA Medical Center this week, I saw another M3 the same color as mine with some very nice add-ons (tinted windows, black trims, white handles etc), anyway, my son and I went over to get a closer look and suddenly the Sentry Mode was activated. With the screen flashing Red we backed off and had a good laugh - it works! BTW, we never touched it.


----------



## 2Kap

Joaquin said:


> So I got my whining marked as duplicated... fair enough. But please let me re-phrase it in a form of question:
> 
> Can somebody please make a video on how to trigger the sentry mode alarm (the glass "thumps") or point me to one already published somewhere?
> 
> It can't be that hard, so either I'm missing something here, or my sentry mode does not work as expected... thanks.


----------



## Long Ranger

In my limited testing so far, it seems like the Sentry warning screen comes on a little too easily (2019.5.4). I haven't yet been able to walk up to the car without triggering it. Even with phone in hand and Bluetooth enabled it triggers before I open the door. It's also triggered a couple times where the only thing I see in the videos is a tiny bit of distant motion caught in the reflection off the door of the car next to me. 

To be clear, I'm just talking about the "Hal" warning screen and related video capture. My alarm has never triggered.


----------



## BluestarE3

Long Ranger said:


> In my limited testing so far, it seems like the Sentry warning screen comes on a little too easily (2019.5.4). I haven't yet been able to walk up to the car without triggering it. Even with phone in hand and Bluetooth enabled it triggers before I open the door. It's also triggered a couple times where the only thing I see in the videos is a tiny bit of distant motion caught in the reflection off the door of the car next to me.
> 
> To be clear, I'm just talking about the "Hal" warning screen and related video capture. My alarm has never triggered.


I guess I'd rather have it err on the side of caution and give me a bunch of extraneous videos now than to have Tesla hold off releasing this function until they've perfected it. There's opportunity to tweak it as more real world data is gathered.


----------



## Long Ranger

BluestarE3 said:


> I guess I'd rather have it err on the side of caution and give me a bunch of extraneous videos now than to have Tesla hold off releasing this function until they've perfected it. There's opportunity to tweak it as more real world data is gathered.


I totally agree. The frequent captures just have me realizing that I'm going to have to proactively manage the flash storage. I'll start shutting off Sentry when I turn on climate to prevent the captures of myself. I'm also thinking I'll go to WiFi enabled flash to manage the files without constantly pulling the drive. Looking into a solution with combination of WiFi and high endurance SD card, but haven't found what I'm looking for yet.


----------



## ChristianZ

I haven't been able to set my alarm off, even rocking my car with great force. I wish there were a sensitivity setting where we could require less force to set it off.


----------



## Kizzy

Long Ranger said:


> I'm not seeing a notification just due to motion being detected. I have the alarm notification enabled. I've triggered the sentry motion recording multiple times, but haven't set off the alarm yet. I could be wrong, but I think the notification is only sent if the alarm goes off.
> 
> There may be two different alarm notification messages, but has anyone actually triggered only one without the other?


I only had the "triggered the alarm state" message, so I assumed there was differentiation. I could be wrong. It was the only notification I received on my iOS-based phone, but the screenshot is from Android.


ChristianZ said:


> I haven't been able to set my alarm off, even rocking my car with great force. I wish there were a sensitivity setting where we could require less force to set it off.


I believe it's either sound or sudden acceleration based. Breaking a window (or hitting the car hard enough) will set it off.


----------



## BluestarE3

ChristianZ said:


> I haven't been able to set my alarm off, even rocking my car with great force. I wish there were a sensitivity setting where we could require less force to set it off.


Rocking didn't work for me. Had to bang the window pretty hard to set it off. I assume it's trying to detect something akin to the sound of a smashed window?


----------



## Nautilus

I've been playing with Sentry Mode a bit and have a couple observations:

You can activate Sentry Mode even if you don't have a thumb drive in the USB. I did this today (remotely from my phone), and was also able to get the "Hal" red eye and "Sentry Mode"/"Recording" display on the screen by then going out to the driveway and rocking the car (after turning my phone's Bluetooth off), even though there was nowhere for the video to record to (other than maybe being uploaded to Tesla's cloud for cloud learning). I didn't test whether the alarm would go off if I thumped the window (I have been successful with this before). I'm assuming it would have.
I've been setting Sentry mode in parking lots (the gym, a Target store, etc.) over the last couple days just to see how it behaves. On at least two occasions, a saving of the past 10 minutes to the USB drive was triggered simply by a car arriving in the space adjacent to mine, or people returning to their car parked adjacent and opening the doors of their car to get in. No touching of my car involved. The "Hal" eye may or may not have come on. I received no alert on my phone.
Each time I have returned to my car when it was in Sentry Mode, the act of me returning to the car has triggered the saving of 10 minutes of video as well. In some cases (as reported elsewhere in this thread, I think), I have been stuck with the "Hal" eye on my screen when I open the door, and it won't go away without a reboot. This seems to happen when I enter the car quickly. If I return to the car, pause a second or two before opening the door, then enter the car, I don't seem to have this problem. Tesla will need to work this bug out, and I'll do a bug report the next times it happens.


----------



## BluestarE3

Nautilus said:


> I received no alert on my phone.


I only got a notification when I actually triggered the alarm/fugue and not merely by triggering the "HAL" screen.


----------



## MelindaV

Joaquin said:


> So I got my whining marked as duplicated... fair enough.


We (ok me) made a copy to include here too for it to be included in both conversations, not saying you were adding the duplicate post multiple places 😣


----------



## Mistersandman

It would be nice if when returning back to the car it gave you some alert on the screen letting you know that Hal came up and how many times. This way something like a bad door ding/someone keying your car would at least draw your attention to the car so you can investigate and review/save the videos before they get erased or buried. Otherwise it could be weeks before you notice any damage. By that time it might be too late to do anything about it.

It would also be nice if we could review the videos on the screen directly. The car can read audio files off the usb so video files shouldn’t be a problem.


----------



## Joaquin

Mistersandman said:


> It would also be nice if we could review the videos on the screen directly. The car can read audio files off the usb so video files shouldn't be a problem.


That's why I got the SanDisk iXpand: you can connect it directly to your iphone and review the footage. No need to use a laptop.

So far I'm very happy with the performance. I get random issues, thought (camera icon not showing in the car), but unplugging and re-plugging it again works always.

Link to the one I got:


----------



## HappyDad

Got this 'combo' console (sentry mode + normal display) UI right after entering my car. Anyone seen this UI bug before? I wasn't able to engage to 'D'. Car stayed in 'P'. Had to reboot. I am on 2019.5.4.


----------



## Bokonon

HappyDad said:


> Got this 'combo' console (sentry mode + normal display) UI right after entering my car. Anyone seen this UI bug before? I wasn't able to engage to 'D'. Car stayed in 'P'. Had to reboot. I am on 2019.5.4.


A few people have reported this happening (example). In the post I just linked to there, @Nautilus notes the following about this bug:



> This seems to happen when I enter the car quickly. If I return to the car, pause a second or two before opening the door, then enter the car, I don't seem to have this problem.


----------



## 3V Pilot

HappyDad said:


> Got this 'combo' console (sentry mode + normal display) UI right after entering my car. Anyone seen this UI bug before? I wasn't able to engage to 'D'. Car stayed in 'P'. Had to reboot. I am on 2019.5.4.


Have not seen that, did it come with a voice saying "sorry, I can't open the pod bay doors?". Maybe the AI takeover has begun!...LOL


----------



## Nautilus

So I continue to experiment with Sentry mode , yesterday leaving it on in the company parking garage (badge required for access so just about zero chance of theft).

I plugged the USB thumb drive into my PC last night, and sure enough there were a couple recordings. That didn't surprise me. Based on previous experience, I expected a recording each time a car parked next to me or across from me. The garage has a "fishbone" angled parking space pattern. I didn't get recordings for cars parking on either side of me (and I'm sure some did, since this particular lot always fills up completely), but did get a recording for the person in the car that parked nose to nose with me (at an angle). The morning arrival recording of the other car had nothing noteworthy. The driver walked past my car in close proximity to get to the elevators behind my car. That set off the sentry mode.

Her evening departure was more entertaining. Again the driver walked by my car in close proximity to get to her car. This time, I suspect, she brushed the car with sufficient force that the M3 headlights came on as she was opening the door of her car. I haven't noted the headlights coming on before, although I know they're supposed to. Anyway, she looked up with WIDE-EYED surprise on her face as my car had magically come to life due to her presence!

I showed the video to my wife and of course she said "Aren't there privacy issues with what Sentry mode is doing"? Good question, but also one of the reasons I'll not be posting the video online.


----------



## Puns

How long will Sentry mode alarm for? 
Ops checked it with light pounding on window - Bluetooth key off. Sure is loud. Didn’t know how long it would continue so turned it off using keycard.


----------



## lairdb

Nautilus said:


> I showed the video to my wife and of course she said "Aren't there privacy issues with what Sentry mode is doing"? Good question, but also one of the reasons I'll not be posting the video online.


I know just enough about this to be dangerous, therefore I am a Qualified Internet Expert. Generally in most of the U.S. there is no expectation of privacy outside in public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law#Public_property

(Whether a private parking lot is public is... interesting and gets into boundaries and demesnes and permission-to-pass.)


----------



## TMK26

I am reading elsewhere that the 12V (cigar lighter) remains on while Sentry Mode is on. So my radar detector (plugged into the 12V) stays on all day... I'm going to have to remember to unplug my radar detector when I get to work. And more importantly, remember to turn it back on when I leave for home.


----------



## Skione65

So finally received Sentry Mode in the latest software update. After testing I am ONLY able to get the ‘flashing lights and blaring horn’ NOT fugue loud music. Has this been a change in software or are there different Sentry Mode versions floating around? Thought I read a post with the same issue?

Ski


----------



## Skione65

TMK26 said:


> I am reading elsewhere that the 12V (cigar lighter) remains on while Sentry Mode is on. So my radar detector (plugged into the 12V) stays on all day... I'm going to have to remember to unplug my radar detector when I get to work. And more importantly, remember to turn it back on when I leave for home.


@TMK26,

Thought I read where the 12V (cigar lighter) Times out after 5 minutes or so with Sentry Mode on and still turns off anyway. Maybe someone can chime in on this to confirm.

Found it: https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/12v-now-always-on.11738/

Hope this helps!

Ski


----------



## SimonMatthews

Is there any way to turn off Sentry Mode, other than through the app?


----------



## RichEV

SimonMatthews said:


> Is there any way to turn off Sentry Mode, other than through the app?


There is a sentry on/off toggle on the Safety & Security screen.


----------



## Scubastevo80

Did anyone have USB issues after updating to 2019.5.15 with Sentry? I'm getting the X as soon as I get in the car in the morning.


----------



## iChris93

Scubastevo80 said:


> Did anyone have USB issues after updating to 2019.5.15 with Sentry? I'm getting the X as soon as I get in the car in the morning.


What size is your drive? May need a larger one.


----------



## Scubastevo80

iChris93 said:


> What size is your drive? May need a bigger one.


I forget but I think it's a 16gb Sandisk Cruzer. I will look into a newer drive.


----------



## Skione65

Again...anyone just getting flashing lights and blaring horn and NOT getting the loud fugue music on setting off Sentry?

Ski


----------



## Long Ranger

Skione65 said:


> Again...anyone just getting flashing lights and blaring horn and NOT getting the loud fugue music on setting off Sentry?
> 
> Ski


I recall one or two reports of that a couple weeks ago under 5.4, either in the 5.4 thread or this thread. I haven't tested it out, as I'm not too excited to go pound on my car and disturb the neighbors.


----------



## BluestarE3

Skione65 said:


> Again...anyone just getting flashing lights and blaring horn and NOT getting the loud fugue music on setting off Sentry?
> 
> Ski


I only triggered the Sentry Mode alarm once under 5.4 and the fugue played. I just retested under 5.15 and the first time, the fugue did not play. Tested three more times and the fugue did play each of those times. So, yeah, inconsistent. However, the lights did flash and the horn did blare every time, so that's more important to me as far as drawing undesired attention to the car being molested. While the fugue did play loudly on the sound system, with the windows closed, it was muffled and drowned out by the horn. I suppose if any of windows were broken, the fugue would be more noticeable.


----------



## Skione65

BluestarE3 said:


> I only triggered the Sentry Mode alarm once under 5.4 and the fugue played. I just retested under 5.15 and the first time, the fugue did not play. Tested three more times and the fugue did play each of those times. So, yeah, inconsistent. However, the lights did flash and the horn did blare every time, so that's more important to me as far as drawing undesired attention to the car being molested. While the fugue did play loudly on the sound system, with the windows closed, it was muffled and drowned out by the horn. I suppose if any of windows were broken, the fugue would be more noticeable.


@BluestarE3,

Agreed....I'd actually rather have the exterior alarm indicators i.e. flashing lights and horn in lieu of just the music as an attention grabber to possible 'break and enter' attempt.

Ski


----------



## BluestarE3

Skione65 said:


> @BluestarE3,
> 
> Agreed....I'd actually rather have the exterior alarm indicators i.e. flashing lights and horn in lieu of just the music as an attention grabber to possible 'break and enter' attempt.
> 
> Ski


Exactly. Just to be clear for anyone reading: It never just plays the fugue in lieu of the horn/lights. Indeed, when I read Elon's tweet announcing Sentry Mode, I was concerned that that might be the case and I would have been disappointed. People would think it's just some a$$hole blasting music instead of a car break-in. I suspect the music was just an Elon idea. A car thief may be surprised by it, but it's not really necessary.


----------



## Nautilus

Scubastevo80 said:


> Did anyone have USB issues after updating to 2019.5.15 with Sentry? I'm getting the X as soon as I get in the car in the morning.


It is highly likely your drive is full. You'll want a drive bigger than 8GB, that fills up in no time (it's what I used before Sentry mode & 3 camera Autopilot became available. I made a post here that I think reasonably estimates USB drive space requirements.


----------



## SimonMatthews

Are other people seeing this behaviour (not sleeping after Sentry mode has been used, but has been turned off):
https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/sentry-mode-power-draw-test.11440/page-3#post-214947


----------



## Mike

SimonMatthews said:


> Are other people seeing this behaviour (not sleeping after Sentry mode has been used, but has been turned off):
> https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/sentry-mode-power-draw-test.11440/page-3#post-214947


I second this question.

Tried Sentry Mode once 36 hours ago.

Since that time my car will not go to sleep and USB has latest hour worth of footage (static surroundings of my son in laws neighborhood).

Bug report has been sent.


----------



## kpedraja

Update; [Emily Litella voice] Never mind. [/Emily Litella voice] I didn't realize it was enabled through the app. Doh.

Sorry if this was answered earlier, but what is the earliest software build with Sentry mode included? I was recently updated to 2019.5.15 and got dog mode but not Sentry mode.


----------



## Vin

kpedraja said:


> Sorry if this was answered earlier, but what is the earliest software build with Sentry mode included? I was recently updated to 2019.5.15 and got dog mode but not Sentry mode.


That's ok. 5.15 has Sentry. It's in your App (Controls) and in your Security setting in car.


----------



## Long Ranger

Mike said:


> I second this question.
> 
> Tried Sentry Mode once 36 hours ago.
> 
> Since that time my car will not go to sleep and USB has latest hour worth of footage (static surroundings of my son in laws neighborhood).
> 
> Bug report has been sent.


I think the recording whenever the car is awake is normal behavior in 5.15, but my car sleeps just fine. I use Sentry every night and my car has slept normally during the day with Sentry off every day this week.

You didn't happen to start using a third party app/service that constantly polls your car, did you?


----------



## BluestarE3

kpedraja said:


> Update; [Emily Litella voice] Never mind. [/Emily Litella voice] I didn't realize it was enabled through the app. Doh.


It can also be enabled/disabled under the "Safety & Security" option on the touchscreen.


> Sorry if this was answered earlier, but what is the earliest software build with Sentry mode included? I was recently updated to 2019.5.15 and got dog mode but not Sentry mode.


I first received Sentry Mode (and Dog Mode) in 5.4 and it was described in the release notes. I think some people's cars bypassed this version and went straight to 5.15. For some reason, the release notes for 5.15 don't mention Sentry Mode even though the feature is actually available. Even though I had installed 5.4 previously, after updating to 5.15, the release notes for current and previous versions no longer include any mention of Sentry Mode.


----------



## Mike

Long Ranger said:


> I think the recording whenever the car is awake is normal behavior in 5.15, but my car sleeps just fine. I use Sentry every night and my car has slept normally during the day with Sentry off every day this week.
> 
> You didn't happen to start using a third party app/service that constantly polls your car, did you?


No third party apps being used, nothing has changed with my modus operandi except used Sentry Mode once last Wednesday evening/Thursday morning (just to see how it worked).

And since my car no longer sleeps, it keeps recording dash cam video of the latest hour.....


----------



## MelindaV

Skione65 said:


> Again...anyone just getting flashing lights and blaring horn and NOT getting the loud fugue music on setting off Sentry?
> 
> Ski


I just added a post in the Sentry Mode power draw thread, but here's my comments after looking thru the recordings.

In a day and a half parked in a quiet part of the airport parking lot, I had 6 triggers. in each, the video with the actual trigger was the 2nd set from the end. At the time of the actual trigger (like someone walking by) the headlights would flash for a second (presumably turn on the screen with the 🔴 at that time too. (so if you want a quick way to scrub thru and see what it was catching, go to that 2nd from the end front shot and look for the lights to flash)
One was the lady getting into the car on my passenger side. One was a guy parking facing my car (in an ADA space) crawling thru his car, changing his clothes, moving suitcases from one side of the car to the other, crawling from the front seat to the back seat over about 10 minutes, before walking between our two cars (the actual trigger). One was a car driving past and the rest were people passing by. it did not get the car that parked next to me after the one left though.


----------



## PiperPaul

Just got 2019.5.15 as an update to 2018.50.6. The release notes only indicated it included Dog Mode and Auto Folding Mirrors.
Thanks to @Vin I've discovered Sentry Mode hiding in the Controls switches in the App! 
I'll never accuse the Tesla Developers of bombarding me with too much information. I've had no notifications of anything in the App or in my web Account page since getting the car. They are certainly much more shy than their boss. 

And if you used to get firmware updates via LTE (my home "WiFi" is cellular data LTE) don't hold your breath for any updates. My Service Centre 1100 Km away tells me they don't do that anymore. I got a lucky break from a local cafe when my car actually connected to their WiFi long enough to yell at the servers in Freemont. 
If it wasn't for this Forum I wouldn't know there were any software updates, or what features were hiding in them. So thanks everyone!! :hearteyes:


----------



## eXntrc

Vin said:


> That's ok. 5.15 has Sentry. It's in your App (Controls) and in your Security setting in car.


*Public Service Announcement:*

I just wanted to share that I noticed Sentry Mode in my CAR _two days_ before it ever showed up in the app. After seeing Vin's message above I went hunting for it in the app and couldn't find it. The odd thing was, when I finally looked at the Tesla app in Google Play it showed that the app was pending an update. My Google Play is set to automatically update apps whenever on Wifi and I know for sure the phone has been on wifi over the last two days. So, for whatever reason, the Tesla app was not automatically updating for me.


----------



## PiperPaul

eXntrc said:


> *Public Service Announcement:*
> 
> I just wanted to share that I noticed Sentry Mode in my CAR _two days_ before it ever showed up in the app. After seeing Vin's message above I went hunting for it in the app and couldn't find it. The odd thing was, when I finally looked at the Tesla app in Google Play it showed that the app was pending an update. My Google Play is set to automatically update apps whenever on Wifi and I know for sure the phone has been on wifi over the last two days. So, for whatever reason, the Tesla app was not automatically updating for me.


I've had the same issue in the past for my iPhone: There was an app update available, but no indication from the Apple App Store of an update pending as usually appears with all other apps. I thought at the time it was just a timing fluke, but now I am wondering. 
I currently have version 3.8.2 which is the version showing in the App Store. (Just sayin' 'cause we're out in the boonies and sometimes the electrons and couriers get lost.)


----------



## mci6d3

I just reported this toTesla. I know they're still working on Sentry mode, but I was wondering if this happened to anyone else?
I turned on Sentry mode in my car and when I came back to my car, this was on my touchscreen. I turned Sentry mode off in my phone app, but the image did not go away. I had to do a hard reboot to get rid of the image, so I could put in the access code to drive my car.


----------



## Bokonon

mci6d3 said:


> I just reported this toTesla. I know they're still working on Sentry mode, but I was wondering if this happened to anyone else?
> I turned on Sentry mode in my car and when I came back to my car, this was on my touchscreen. I turned Sentry mode off in my phone app, but the image did not go away. I had to do a hard reboot to get rid of the image, so I could put in the access code to drive my car.


There have been a few reports of this happening to others up-thread... though by my recollection you're the first one lucky enough to have PIN-to-drive enabled as well. 

@Nautilus made the following observation:



> In some cases (as reported elsewhere in this thread, I think), I have been stuck with the "Hal" eye on my screen when I open the door, and it won't go away without a reboot. This seems to happen when I enter the car quickly. If I return to the car, pause a second or two before opening the door, then enter the car, I don't seem to have this problem. Tesla will need to work this bug out, and I'll do a bug report the next times it happens.


Filing a bug report every time it happens is a good idea as well.


----------



## teslafun

It is very cool to see how car manufacture listen to their customer and enhance the feature. 

Elon got ask to add more option on the Sentry mode - now he replied with the feature set

Sentry Mode options will be: 
Always 
Exclude Home 
Exclude Work 
Exclude saved locations 
Ask 
Off


----------



## JWardell

TeslaFi has now enabled lots of great sentry mode activation features:
https://support.teslafi.com/communities/1/topics/8-changelog#

_Sentry Mode:_


_A sentry mode icon will be displayed in the header when sentry mode is active._
_TeslaFI API command added to enable and disable sentry mode._
_Website controls added to enable and disable sentry mode._
_Idle sessions with sentry mode active will display a sentry mode park icon._
_Sentry mode status added to raw data fields._
_Added sentry mode enable/disable to schedules._
_Added sentry mode automatic activation upon location arrival at selected tagged locations._
_Added default sentry mode activation time in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
_Added sentry mode activation emails option in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
_Added ability to enable sentry mode automatically when arriving at any untagged location in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
_Sleep mode attempts will not occur when sentry mode is enabled._


----------



## Bokonon

JWardell said:


> TeslaFi has now enabled lots of great sentry mode activation features:
> https://support.teslafi.com/communities/1/topics/8-changelog#
> 
> _Sentry Mode:_
> 
> _TeslaFI API command added to enable and disable sentry mode._


Sweet!

This adds a few semi-interesting automation scenarios... e.g., activate Sentry Mode after I arrive at work every day, activate Sentry Mode only if I had to to park in Cramped/Sketchy Lot X (but not Spacious/Gilded Lot Y).

The real win would be if you could define TeslaFi schedules to trigger based on location... that way, you could automatically activate Sentry Mode anytime you visited a particular area.


----------



## Darrenf

Bokonon said:


> Sweet!
> 
> This adds a few semi-interesting automation scenarios... e.g., activate Sentry Mode after I arrive at work every day, activate Sentry Mode only if I had to to park in Cramped/Sketchy Lot X (but not Spacious/Gilded Lot Y).
> 
> The real win would be if you could define TeslaFi schedules to trigger based on location... that way, you could automatically activate Sentry Mode anytime you visited a particular area.


You can already set timed triggers to activate only at tagged locations.

Edit.. I think I see what you mean, define a time, and then set locations that would use that time, instead of setting a timed trigger that only fires if at a specified location.


----------



## Bokonon

Darrenf said:


> Edit.. I think I see what you mean, define a time, and then set locations that would use that time, instead of setting a timed trigger that only fires if at a specified location.


Basically, yeah... the location is the trigger, and the date/time are additional criteria, rather than the other way around.

"Anytime I park here on a Friday or Saturday between 6pm and 11:30pm, activate Sentry Mode."


----------



## mt09

Does anyone have thoughts on the increased mechanical wear introduced by keeping sentry mode enabled for extended periods of time long term? My main concern would be coolant pumps required to run while the car is awake. I'm sure Tesla originally did some analysis of average drive time/distance, charge time, etc. and calculated average duty cycle of the mechanical parts. The possible concern now is the case of enabling sentry mode for extended periods of time when the car would normally sleep (like 8 hours at work 5 days a week) would be adding significant run time to these parts. For me, enabling it when I go out for errands or anything else is negligible and a non-issue.


----------



## Mike

teslafun said:


> It is very cool to see how car manufacture listen to their customer and enhance the feature.
> 
> Elon got ask to add more option on the Sentry mode - now he replied with the feature set
> 
> Sentry Mode options will be:
> Always
> Exclude Home
> Exclude Work
> Exclude saved locations
> Ask
> Off


When they can do this with walk away lock, I'll be overjoyed.


----------



## BluestarE3

Mike said:


> When they can do this with walk away lock, I'll be overjoyed.


Doesn't "Always" cover that?


----------



## Mike

BluestarE3 said:


> Doesn't "Always" cover that?


Nope.

I want to use walk away lock everywhere EXCEPT in my garage at my home.


----------



## Alighieri256

I have a couple of 16GB USB thumb drives that I use for dashcam/sentry, and I'm noticing that the cards fill up and stop recording after a day or two of use. Anyone else seeing this? It seems to save every time someone walks by the car, and never overwrite. Unfortunately, it also disables the dashcam when the card is full. It's a little bit annoying having to swap out the memory card pretty much every day.

Also, smaller note, the car won't update software while sentry mode is active. Found that out going from 5.15 to 8.2.


----------



## garsh

Alighieri256 said:


> I have a couple of 16GB USB thumb drives that I use for dashcam/sentry, and I'm noticing that the cards fill up and stop recording after a day or two of use. Anyone else seeing this?


When sentry mode is active, yes.


----------



## MelindaV

I've been using a 32GB card, and so far have not had it max out, but have been pulling it and clearing the old data off of it every few days too.


----------



## Kizzy

Alighieri256 said:


> I have a couple of 16GB USB thumb drives that I use for dashcam/sentry, and I'm noticing that the cards fill up and stop recording after a day or two of use. Anyone else seeing this? It seems to save every time someone walks by the car, and never overwrite. Unfortunately, it also disables the dashcam when the card is full. It's a little bit annoying having to swap out the memory card pretty much every day.
> 
> Also, smaller note, the car won't update software while sentry mode is active. Found that out going from 5.15 to 8.2.


16 GB is not enough. Each saved recording will take up 0.9 GB. If you're using Sentry Mode at all times (when parked in a busy area), that's a lot of potential recordings-and you want to have those recordings saved in case one of them includes damage happening to your car (even if it doesn't set off the alarm).


----------



## Alighieri256

Kizzy said:


> 16 GB is not enough. Each saved recording will take up 0.9 GB. If you're using Sentry Mode at all times (when parked in a busy area), that's a lot of potential recordings-and you want to have those recordings saved in case one of them includes damage happening to your car (even if it doesn't set off the alarm).


Finally realizing that. One of my cards is 128GB, but I had partitioned it so I could save dashcam on a 16GB partition and music on the balance, but canned that for now.


----------



## undergrove

JWardell said:


> TeslaFi has now enabled lots of great sentry mode activation features:
> https://support.teslafi.com/communities/1/topics/8-changelog#
> 
> _Sentry Mode:_
> 
> 
> _A sentry mode icon will be displayed in the header when sentry mode is active._
> _TeslaFI API command added to enable and disable sentry mode._
> _Website controls added to enable and disable sentry mode._
> _Idle sessions with sentry mode active will display a sentry mode park icon._
> _Sentry mode status added to raw data fields._
> _Added sentry mode enable/disable to schedules._
> _Added sentry mode automatic activation upon location arrival at selected tagged locations._
> _Added default sentry mode activation time in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
> _Added sentry mode activation emails option in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
> _Added ability to enable sentry mode automatically when arriving at any untagged location in settings->preferences->sentry mode._
> _Sleep mode attempts will not occur when sentry mode is enabled._


The latest version of the Stats app can enable Sentry Mode automatically except when parked at locations designated as "safe"--simple but useful.


----------



## francoisp

Not sure if this has been asked already but here it goes: Is Sentry mode always on by default when locking the car or does it need to be manually turned on each time?


----------



## garsh

FrancoisP said:


> Not sure if this has been asked already but here it goes: Is Sentry mode always on by default when locking the car or does it need to be manually turned on each time?


You need to turn it on every time you park.

Elon has tweeted that a future version of software will include configuration options to have it automatically activate.


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1108965358998712321


----------



## MelindaV

@FrancoisP - in the meantime, you can also use 3rd party services like Teslafi to automatically engage Sentry mode at specific locations. Since they added this, i've been using this for my work parking lot, and has worked perfectly every day


----------



## francoisp

MelindaV said:


> @FrancoisP - in the meantime, you can also use 3rd party services like Teslafi to automatically engage Sentry mode at specific locations. Since they added this, i've been using this for my work parking lot, and has worked perfectly every day
> View attachment 24034


Excellent idea @MelindaV . I already use "Tasker" on my Android phone to turn the heater on at preset times but I never thought off using it to turn on Sentry. I have now created a profile that turns on Sentry when the car is locked and not in the vicinity of my home WIFI SSID. Thanks again for the tip.


----------



## GDN

Went out tonight and parked in a pretty crowded lot, never thought about Sentry mode until I was away from the car. Pulled out the app and tried to turn it on, but it failed, twice. It never would activate. After unlocking and getting in the car later it activated just fine and the dash cam was still working just fine.

Edit - I forgot about the Teslafi implementation @MelindaV mentioned a few post back. Just found it and updated my work and home locations and now set Sentry up to enable at any location other than home and work.


----------



## PaulK

I as surprised to find that Sentry mode cannot be turned on when the battery is below 20% EVEN WHILE PLUGGED IN. 

I arrived at a public charger with about a 15% SOC and as I walked away, I tried to turn Sentry mode on. I had to wait a while until the battery charged to over 20% before it would let me activate it. I’m thinking this is an oversight, as there’s no reason to restrict it in this case. It was a 30A charger, so it would just slow from 25 mi/hr to 24...

So, I’m going to file a “bug report” when I get back in the car. 5.15 FW, iOS 3.8.2


----------



## JWardell

I swear, is sentry mode ATTRACTING people to my car?

Almost every time I turn it on, someone has hit my mirror or come within millimeters with a shopping cart. 

I try to turn it on in parking lots, and review footage a few days later with the dash cam script.
It's amazingly frustrating to witness what people do. 
I really need to start parking far away!


----------



## BluestarE3

PaulK said:


> I as surprised to find that Sentry mode cannot be turned on when the battery is below 20% EVEN WHILE PLUGGED IN.
> 
> I arrived at a public charger with about a 15% SOC and as I walked away, I tried to turn Sentry mode on. I had to wait a while until the battery charged to over 20% before it would let me activate it. I'm thinking this is an oversight, as there's no reason to restrict it in this case. It was a 30A charger, so it would just slow from 25 mi/hr to 24...
> 
> So, I'm going to file a "bug report" when I get back in the car. 5.15 FW, iOS 3.8.2


It's by design:


> To enable Sentry Mode battery level must be greater than 20%


You can suggest a design change, but it's not a bug.


----------



## BluestarE3

JWardell said:


> I swear, is sentry mode ATTRACTING people to my car?


I think the term "ignorance is bliss" applies here. Prior to Sentry Mode, you're just not aware of people getting too cozy with your car.


----------



## JWardell

BluestarE3 said:


> I think the term "ignorance is bliss" applies here. Prior to Sentry Mode, you're just not aware of people getting too cozy with your car.


It's just making me regret not getting a full body PPF wrap even more. Next time!


----------



## iChris93

JWardell said:


> It's just making me regret getting a full body PPF wrap even more. Next time!


Not getting one, you mean?


----------



## Niki-and-I

JWardell said:


> I swear, is sentry mode ATTRACTING people to my car?
> 
> Almost every time I turn it on, someone has hit my mirror or come within millimeters with a shopping cart.
> 
> I try to turn it on in parking lots, and review footage a few days later with the dash cam script.
> It's amazingly frustrating to witness what people do.
> I really need to start parking far away!


Same thing here. I do love it when people are crazy about the car, like one school kid the other day who was pointing his mom to the red eye on the screen, she then pulled him away, as if afraid of the car!!


----------



## eric_in_co

garsh said:


> You need to turn it on every time you park.
> 
> Elon has tweeted that a future version of software will include configuration options to have it automatically activate.
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1108965358998712321


I did not understand that I need to turn on the mode every time I park. Based on the feature description, and my own assumption that this was like other on/off selections in the menu, I thought when I set the toggle to on it would stay on until I disabled it. Of course, it wasn't on when someone who must have been in a white car scratched up the front bumper of my red model 3.


----------



## TMK26

WOW! Tesla Model 3 break-in recorded with Sentry Mode.

Not mine, I saw this on Reddit.


----------



## iChris93

TMK26 said:


> WOW! Tesla Model 3 break-in recorded with Sentry Mode.
> 
> Not mine, I saw this on Reddit.


Wow. Did not deter them one bit and got a license plate.


----------



## BluestarE3

iChris93 said:


> Wow. Did not deter them one bit and got a license plate.


It may not deter them from hitting any particular vehicle, but hopefully over time as these types of videos make their rounds within the fraternities of miscreants, they may decide to shun Tesla vehicles to avoid being captured on candid camera. It's not so much that they're afraid of actual apprehension and the consequences, it's just better to keep a low profile while doing what you do (note the perp crouching beside the Tesla and the getaway driver dutifully using the turn signal while pulling out of the parking space). Being captured on video draws undesirable attention to yourself. There are plenty of other cars out there to target without the potential embarrassment.


----------



## Kizzy

TMK26 said:


> WOW! Tesla Model 3 break-in recorded with Sentry Mode.
> 
> Not mine, I saw this on Reddit.


In broad daylight on a busy street. Wow. Okay.


----------



## Mike

Kizzy said:


> In broad daylight on a busy street. Wow. Okay.


Why didn't the loud alarm go off?


----------



## iChris93

Mike said:


> Why didn't the loud alarm go off?


I would guess it did if they broke the window.


----------



## Mike

iChris93 said:


> I would guess it did if they broke the window.


So the windows wasn't busted? I just assumed........

In other news......I reviewed some sentry mode files on my USB today, and every so often the left front fender feed had "0" data (currently running 8.4)


----------



## iChris93

Mike said:


> So the windows wasn't busted? I just assumed........
> 
> In other news......I reviewed some sentry mode files on my USB today, and every so often the left front fender feed had "0" data (currently running 8.4)


I assume it was too and I also assumed the alarm went off.

Sorry if I miscommunicated.


----------



## Nautilus

I think we witnessed a seasoned criminal who is accustomed to triggering car alarms when conducting snatch and grabs. Therefore no flinch when the car alarm triggers (silent video clip). It did appear that he broke the window with his elbow (ouch...), reached in briefly to unlatch and lower the seat back, and then looked in to see if there was anything worth snatching in the trunk. Nothing of interest, alarm sounding, back he trotted to his accomplice's car and calmly drove away. I suspect there will be an arrest made, given the license plate (assuming that car wasn't stolen...), and a clear view of the perp's face. Just like the keying incident earlier in this thread.

And the bigger point is that word will get out into the criminal community that Model 3s may not be the best target, given the camera coverage. Or they just start covering their face and wearing hoodies.


----------



## PaulK

GOod reminder, I must remember to leave my trunk empty when going to The City, and leave the seats down when parking.


----------



## lance.bailey

whipped up this card for the dash, just need it to be laminated. I'll put it beside my "Nothing to steal in the car but this sign, please don't steal the sign" card.


----------



## Kizzy

I’ve been noticing that Sentry Mode is disabled when I come back to the car. TIL that Valet Mode is not compatible with Sentry Mode (turning on Valet Mode then Sentry Mode results in an error, but turning on Sentry Mode then Valet Mode, Sentry Mode seems to be quietly disabled—my hypothesis at this point).

I started trying to pair the two to keep folks out of my frunk/glovebox in case of a break-in.


----------



## drobin59

Mike said:


> When they can do this with walk away lock, I'll be overjoyed.


When will these options be available?What software update?


----------



## GDN

TMK26 said:


> WOW! Tesla Model 3 break-in recorded with Sentry Mode.
> 
> Not mine, I saw this on Reddit.


And the cool follow up to this break in -https://abc7news.com/5238815/


----------



## ODub

First case of sentry mode actually working?

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Tesla-records-its-own-break-in-helps-SF-police-13753594.php

Hopefully, this will get out and idiots and will stop smashing windows. One can only hope

I have sentry mode and the drop lock so I'm secure with anything in the trunk, I just don't want to have to fix another window!


----------



## BluestarE3

ODub said:


> First case of sentry mode actually working?
> 
> https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Tesla-records-its-own-break-in-helps-SF-police-13753594.php
> 
> Hopefully, this will get out and idiots and will stop smashing windows. One can only hope


If the owner of that car had flipped down his seats, there's a good chance the video would have just shown the thief sneaking up to his car and, seeing there's nothing visible in the trunk, simply walk away without breaking the window.


> I have sentry mode and the drop lock so I'm secure with anything in the trunk, I just don't want to have to fix another window!


That assumes the thief notices the drop lock and is aware its purpose. Otherwise, he'll still smash the window and only afterwards discover the seats can't be flipped down. If you simply can't keep the trunk empty (e.g., traveling with luggage), the drop lock may help protect its contents, but you still run the risk of having the window broken.


----------



## hydrofied714

Is there any way to remotely turn off the Sentry Mode alarm once it goes off? From what I understand, the only way you can turn off the alarm is to unlock and open the door via the door handles? How long will the alarm/music go on for once it's been triggered? I live in an apartment complex with a parking structure and loud cars will sometimes trigger a false alarm.


----------



## tivoboy

Kizzy said:


> In broad daylight on a busy street. Wow. Okay.


that looks like it's right on the Embarcadero on the san francisco waterfront


----------



## BluestarE3

hydrofied714 said:


> Is there any way to remotely turn off the Sentry Mode alarm once it goes off? From what I understand, the only way you can turn off the alarm is to unlock and open the door via the door handles? How long will the alarm/music go on for once it's been triggered? I live in an apartment complex with a parking structure and loud cars will sometimes trigger a false alarm.


It was reported in the other forum that the alarm turns off after 30 seconds and rearms itself.


----------



## JasonF

I tried out Sentry Mode two days ago with the 8.6 firmware, just installed on Tuesday, and since then, it's like the car isn't sleeping at all. It makes about 20 mph worth of range disappear while parked at work, and the "last trip" card never resets. The display goes dark and the A/C turns off, though. When I come back to the car, Bluetooth audio is off (but the key works), and I'm unable to select Phone devices until I reboot.

That Sentry Mode activation started out strangely anyway - it turned off LTE entirely so I couldn't control the car, and had no LTE service even when I returned. Even a reboot didn't bring it back - I almost called service to ask if there was an outage, and it came back just before I did.

So something is definitely messed up with Sentry Mode and 8.6. Watch out!


----------



## Bokonon

Weird... Out of curiosity, have you pulled the USB drive to see whether it's recording anything?


----------



## mswlogo

JasonF said:


> I tried out Sentry Mode two days ago with the 8.6 firmware, just installed on Tuesday, and since then, it's like the car isn't sleeping at all. It makes about 20 mph worth of range disappear while parked at work, and the "last trip" card never resets. The display goes dark and the A/C turns off, though. When I come back to the car, Bluetooth audio is off (but the key works), and I'm unable to select Phone devices until I reboot.
> 
> That Sentry Mode activation started out strangely anyway - it turned off LTE entirely so I couldn't control the car, and had no LTE service even when I returned. Even a reboot didn't bring it back - I almost called service to ask if there was an outage, and it came back just before I did.
> 
> So something is definitely messed up with Sentry Mode and 8.6. Watch out!


Mine with 8.5 and Sentry Mode turned OFF is just awful lately. It's well known with Sentry mode ON it will eat battery.


----------



## undergrove

I had the Sentry alarm triggered twice in the last 2 days.

The first time was in the parking lot at my college, where I teach. By the time I got out to the car there was no one there. Review of the video at the time of the alarm showed two students in the left rear camera drive in and get out and spend a fair amount of time forward of the camera field. They seemed to be getting a couple of large backpacks out of the right side of their car. I can't see what might have triggered it. They must have bumped the car. There were no marks or other indications on the car.

Based on my experience pounding on the window to do a test trigger, as well others reports, I had thought that it would take a pretty substantial blow to trigger the alarm. However our second experience suggests otherwise.

Today my wife parallel parked on the street, and after she went inside an art museum right on the street, the alarm was triggered. She came right out. The video shows two young men park in front of our car. They start unloading from their trunk some rather large paper bags. Out of one of the bags fell a loaf of what looked like nice crusty sourdough bread. It bounced off the hood of our model 3 and triggered the alarm. Again, there were no marks in the paint other than some flour that shook off from the bread. I don't know if it was the movement or the impact that triggered the alarm, but clearly in some circumstances it doesn't take much.

How about that?


----------



## JWardell

undergrove said:


> I had the Sentry alarm triggered twice in the last 2 days.
> 
> The first time was in the parking lot at my college, where I teach. By the time I got out to the car there was no one there. Review of the video at the time of the alarm showed two students in the left rear camera drive in and get out and spend a fair amount of time forward of the camera field. They seemed to be getting a couple of large backpacks out of the right side of their car. I can't see what might have triggered it. They must have bumped the car. There were no marks or other indications on the car.
> 
> Based on my experience pounding on the window to do a test trigger, as well others reports, I had thought that it would take a pretty substantial blow to trigger the alarm. However our second experience suggests otherwise.
> 
> Today my wife parallel parked on the street, and after she went inside an art museum right on the street, the alarm was triggered. She came right out. The video shows two young men park in front of our car. They start unloading from their trunk some rather large paper bags. Out of one of the bags fell a loaf of what looked like nice crusty sourdough bread. It bounced off the hood of our model 3 and triggered the alarm. Again, there were no marks in the paint other than some flour that shook off from the bread. I don't know if it was the movement or the impact that triggered the alarm, but clearly in some circumstances it doesn't take much.
> 
> How about that?


I'm sure the car was just trying to let them know they dropped their bread...but without the pedestrian warning speaker all it could do was honk at them!


----------



## JasonF

Bokonon said:


> Weird... Out of curiosity, have you pulled the USB drive to see whether it's recording anything?


No, but it was at work, so it's unlikely it recorded much besides wild turkeys walking all over the cars.


----------



## hydrofied714

undergrove said:


> I had the Sentry alarm triggered twice in the last 2 days.
> 
> The first time was in the parking lot at my college, where I teach. By the time I got out to the car there was no one there. Review of the video at the time of the alarm showed two students in the left rear camera drive in and get out and spend a fair amount of time forward of the camera field. They seemed to be getting a couple of large backpacks out of the right side of their car. I can't see what might have triggered it. They must have bumped the car. There were no marks or other indications on the car.
> 
> Based on my experience pounding on the window to do a test trigger, as well others reports, I had thought that it would take a pretty substantial blow to trigger the alarm. However our second experience suggests otherwise.
> 
> Today my wife parallel parked on the street, and after she went inside an art museum right on the street, the alarm was triggered. She came right out. The video shows two young men park in front of our car. They start unloading from their trunk some rather large paper bags. Out of one of the bags fell a loaf of what looked like nice crusty sourdough bread. It bounced off the hood of our model 3 and triggered the alarm. Again, there were no marks in the paint other than some flour that shook off from the bread. I don't know if it was the movement or the impact that triggered the alarm, but clearly in some circumstances it doesn't take much.
> 
> How about that?


Your Model 3 HATES carbohydrates!


----------



## hydrofied714

BluestarE3 said:


> It was reported in the other forum that the alarm turns off after 30 seconds and rearms itself.


Thanks! 30 seconds is not bad I guess.


----------



## kuzzy

Are you using the Tesla stats app. I saw comments that there is an issue with the stats app not allowing cars to sleep. Some have shut it down, changed Tesla password and found that the car slept properly again. I do not know if that would affect anything else or cause any of these other symptoms but with all the concerns about cars not sleeping with recent software updates it is worth checking if you have that app


----------



## hydrofied714

I bought a Sandisk iXpand 256GB drive to use for Sentry mode but I can't get it to work. I put it in the front USB port and the camera icon comes up with a grey X on it. I've tried formating it twice using a program called FAT32 Format but both times failed. Any suggestions?


----------



## JasonF

kuzzy said:


> Are you using the Tesla stats app. I saw comments that there is an issue with the stats app not allowing cars to sleep. Some have shut it down, changed Tesla password and found that the car slept properly again. I do not know if that would affect anything else or cause any of these other symptoms but with all the concerns about cars not sleeping with recent software updates it is worth checking if you have that app


Zero third party apps.


----------



## garsh

hydrofied714 said:


> I bought a Sandisk iXpand 256GB drive to use for Sentry mode but I can't get it to work. I put it in the front USB port and the camera icon comes up with a grey X on it. I've tried formating it twice using a program called FAT32 Format but both times failed. Any suggestions?



Where did you get this formatting program? Need to confirm that it's doing the right thing, despite the name.
Don't forget to create a directory at the top level called TeslaCam. Again, a directory (file folder), not the volume name for the drive.


----------



## MelindaV

Have you done a MCU (2button) restart?


----------



## jdcollins5

I have found that DashCam records one hour after parking even with Sentry Mode off. I was losing more range miles than before. I turned off DashCam and so far my losses seem to be back to normal.

I tried rebooting with no help.


----------



## JasonF

MelindaV said:


> Have you done a MCU (2button) restart?


Sometimes twice a day, to get bluetooth and LTE back.


----------



## hydrofied714

garsh said:


> Where did you get this formatting program? Need to confirm that it's doing the right thing, despite the name.
> Don't forget to create a directory at the top level called TeslaCam. Again, a directory (file folder), not the volume name for the drive.


I got the program from here: http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm

I did create the TeslaCam folder.

I'm gonna try another USB drive later today when I get home. I did some research and it seems others are having issues with the same drive after the latest update.


----------



## SalisburySam

JasonF said:


> No, but it was at work, so it's unlikely it recorded much besides wild turkeys walking all over the cars.


So you work for a distillery? Nice!


----------



## JWardell

I'm just going through some Sentry mode video from yesterday, where it was parked in a lot facing a sidewalk. Sentry mode activated EVERY SINGLE TIME someone walked by on the sidewalk, flashing them with the headlights. You may not want to activate it in this situation if you don't want hundreds of videos to go through!


----------



## slasher016

I've had two USB drives corrupted by Sentry Mode since I got 8.5. Anyone else having this issue? They're not expensive but they're not free either.


----------



## garsh

slasher016 said:


> I've had two USB drives corrupted by Sentry Mode


Do you mean filesystem corruption? That doesn't hurt the drive itself.


----------



## japhule

slasher016 said:


> I've had two USB drives corrupted by Sentry Mode since I got 8.5. Anyone else having this issue? They're not expensive but they're not free either.


Quite a few posts from people who've had their small usb drives died. My Samsung FIT 32GB also died (can no longer be formatted, deleted or written to). Try switching to SSD or dash friendly micro sd cards with usb adapters instead.


----------



## slasher016

garsh said:


> Do you mean filesystem corruption? That doesn't hurt the drive itself.


No, I mean completely dead unusable.


----------



## slasher016

japhule said:


> Quite a few posts from people who've had their small usb drives died. My Samsung FIT 32GB also died (can no longer be formatted, deleted or written to). Try switching to SSD or dash friendly micro sd cards with usb adapters instead.


Yep, that's my exact problem. Something in Tesla's software is doing something vastly wrong. Aren't all flash drives SSD?


----------



## GDN

I'm sure there are varying levels of quality of USB drives, I had one burn up in November with just the dash cam, many reports since then, especially since Sentry introduction of them burning completely up and becoming unusable.

I went a bit on the upgrade and moved to a 256 GB SSD (Adata 49.99 on Amazon). I had it in for a week, then pulled it last week to partition and add music to it to see how well music played. The music is OK although I need to do some file clean up and the Camera had recorded 19 instances of Sentry being activated (mostly just people walking by in the work parking lot, two occasions of people checking out and admiring the car) and one recording while driving.

They drive has yet to ever even feel warm, each of those 20 instances had full recordings. I zipped through a good deal of the recordings and only one has much drop out, but when motion was detected again that one cleared up. So far I've been very pleased with it.


----------



## japhule

slasher016 said:


> Yep, that's my exact problem. Something in Tesla's software is doing something vastly wrong. Aren't all flash drives SSD?


I don't think that Tesla is doing something wrong. It's just that going from the original dashcam to sentry mode, the car is now going from writing 1 file at a time per minute constantly to 3 files at a time and repeating. When you look at people using security cameras and dash cams, there's a lot of complaints about this happening to their sd cards since the memory on regular cards aren't ideal for that amount constant writing/recording of video. High endurance sd cards are now available that are ideal for these situations. I think general usb flash drives are using similar flash to regular sd cards and hence we see these failures. SSDs use higher quality flash memory with better memory management and work better in these dash cam situations.


----------



## garsh

slasher016 said:


> Aren't all flash drives SSD?


Yes, but the controller chip on your cheap, garden-variety USB thumb drive is crap, and can't hold up under the heat generated from constantly writing.


----------



## SimonMatthews

japhule said:


> Quite a few posts from people who've had their small usb drives died. My Samsung FIT 32GB also died (can no longer be formatted, deleted or written to). Try switching to SSD or dash friendly micro sd cards with usb adapters instead.


I worry about knocking the usb drive and damaging the socket, which is why I use something like these


----------



## hydrofied714

japhule said:


> Quite a few posts from people who've had their small usb drives died. My Samsung FIT 32GB also died (can no longer be formatted, deleted or written to). Try switching to SSD or dash friendly micro sd cards with usb adapters instead.


I know some the really compact 3.0 usb drives tend to get really hot. I used to have a Samsung FIT I used for my laptop and it got hot to the point where I was not comfortable using it. I can imagine Sentry Mode toasting these drives with the constant video recording it has to do.


----------



## slasher016

SimonMatthews said:


> I worry about knocking the usb drive and damaging the socket, which is why I use something like these
> View attachment 24776


Can you provide a link? Or a model number? Trying to find one that doesn't explode the first time I use it. Thanks!


----------



## Skione65

JasonF said:


> I tried out Sentry Mode two days ago with the 8.6 firmware, just installed on Tuesday, and since then, it's like the car isn't sleeping at all. It makes about 20 mph worth of range disappear while parked at work, and the "last trip" card never resets. The display goes dark and the A/C turns off, though. When I come back to the car, Bluetooth audio is off (but the key works), and I'm unable to select Phone devices until I reboot.
> 
> That Sentry Mode activation started out strangely anyway - it turned off LTE entirely so I couldn't control the car, and had no LTE service even when I returned. Even a reboot didn't bring it back - I almost called service to ask if there was an outage, and it came back just before I did.
> 
> So something is definitely messed up with Sentry Mode and 8.6. Watch out!


@JasonF,

Just had this exact issue. Out of town on business for 4 days. Left the 3 at the airport WITH Sentry Mode armed the entire time....figuring if I didn't like the drain at any point I could disarm it via the app. Not so fast grasshopper. Worked fine for 24 hours....after that I had NO connection to the car via the app. NONE. Kept getting "vehicle connection error". (I did charge to 90% as this was my first try with Sentry while on business and wasn't sure of the drain other than the assumed 1 mph drain daily and I wanted plenty of pad).
No contact with the car or any way to check it or change settings at all for the next 3 days of my trip. Yes I uninstalled the app...reinstalled, relogged in and still "Vehicle connection Error". Quite frustrating. So I called Tesla on day 3 and after 45 minutes on the phone no joy. It was showing offline to them as well. Not only that THEY couldn't connect to it. She just chalked it up to weak cell coverage which I disagree with. So no assistance at all.

I get back to the airport after four days and my phone wouldn't work as a key.....glad i had my card. Tap and I'm in, cars totally dead....no screen....nothing.....steering wheel won't turn no power....car won't drive..I was able to open the trunk to put my luggage in and ALL I had inside was ambient lighting. I knew I should have plenty of power as it should be about 60% or about 160 miles from about 210.
Two finger salute with brake....I wait...and wait...finally the t shows up....what a godsend at 2 am after a delayed flight. I have a screen.....time to diagnose. Battery at 206 from 261 after 81 hours with Sentry armed.
First thing I notice....NO LTE...it's greyed out with a slash through it (which is probably why neither I nor Tesla could connect to the car at all and it showed 'offlne')...try to drive and get all kinds of warnings..."blind spot detection limited", "no NOA"...no lane change while driving either. Could not get it to Change lanes without disengaging AP entirely. I WAS able to tap the LTE icon and at least get that back.
Cameras were clean matter of fact I took it through the car wash at 2:30 am just to check. Still all the alarms and notes.
So in retrospect I think there is something to this Sentry on 8.6 AND it knocking out the LTE and showing the car offline, not being able to connect via the app, and Tesla not being able to access the vehicle to troubleshoot or check logs.
I may have side repeaters issue with the blind spot thing that some have had to get replace but today it all seemed fine. So who knows.
This morning I did a full hard reboot/reset....took it for a drive and all seems well again. Weird....can't explain it and neither can tesla. I haven't called them back to see if they can check the logs yet since i got the LTE working and it should show online to them.
So just adding these as info and data points to the whole issue. Don't know if I have a bad LTE Card...antenna issue....or Sentry is in fact knocking off or not playing nice with LTE or it's a compatibility issue with 8.6?

Ski


----------



## SR22pilot

Skione65 said:


> @JasonF,
> 
> Just had this exact issue. Out of town on business for 4 days. Left the 3 at the airport WITH Sentry Mode armed the entire time....figuring if I didn't like the drain at any point I could disarm it via the app. Not so fast grasshopper. Worked fine for 24 hours....after that I had NO connection to the car via the app. NONE. Kept getting "vehicle connection error". (I did charge to 90% as this was my first try with Sentry while on business and wasn't sure of the drain other than the assumed 1 mph drain daily and I wanted plenty of pad).
> No contact with the car or any way to check it or change settings at all for the next 3 days of my trip. Yes I uninstalled the app...reinstalled, relogged in and still "Vehicle connection Error". Quite frustrating. So I called Tesla on day 3 and after 45 minutes on the phone no joy. It was showing offline to them as well. Not only that THEY couldn't connect to it. She just chalked it up to weak cell coverage which I disagree with. So no assistance at all.
> 
> I get back to the airport after four days and my phone wouldn't work as a key.....glad i had my card. Tap and I'm in, cars totally dead....no screen....nothing.....steering wheel won't turn no power....car won't drive..I was able to open the trunk to put my luggage in and ALL I had inside was ambient lighting. I knew I should have plenty of power as it should be about 60% or about 160 miles from about 210.
> Two finger salute with brake....I wait...and wait...finally the t shows up....what a godsend at 2 am after a delayed flight. I have a screen.....time to diagnose. Battery at 206 from 261 after 81 hours with Sentry armed.
> First thing I notice....NO LTE...it's greyed out with a slash through it (which is probably why neither I nor Tesla could connect to the car at all and it showed 'offlne')...try to drive and get all kinds of warnings..."blind spot detection limited", "no NOA"...no lane change while driving either. Could not get it to Change lanes without disengaging AP entirely. I WAS able to tap the LTE icon and at least get that back.
> Cameras were clean matter of fact I took it through the car wash at 2:30 am just to check. Still all the alarms and notes.
> So in retrospect I think there is something to this Sentry on 8.6 AND it knocking out the LTE and showing the car offline, not being able to connect via the app, and Tesla not being able to access the vehicle to troubleshoot or check logs.
> I may have side repeaters issue with the blind spot thing that some have had to get replace but today it all seemed fine. So who knows.
> This morning I did a full hard reboot/reset....took it for a drive and all seems well again. Weird....can't explain it and neither can tesla. I haven't called them back to see if they can check the logs yet since i got the LTE working and it should show online to them.
> So just adding these as info and data points to the whole issue. Don't know if I have a bad LTE Card...antenna issue....or Sentry is in fact knocking off or not playing nice with LTE or it's a compatibility issue with 8.6?
> 
> Ski


After a reboot I have had it take a long time to connect to LTE. This is on several software version.


----------



## ODub

BluestarE3 said:


> If the owner of that car had flipped down his seats, there's a good chance the video would have just shown the thief sneaking up to his car and, seeing there's nothing visible in the trunk, simply walk away without breaking the window.


This assumes that the thief cares enough to scope out the situation before breaking the window. You should be aware that when I did have my quarter window broken, my back seats were down so that assumption is incorrect. As is the assumption that the thief would take the time to assess the situation before breaking the window.



BluestarE3 said:


> That assumes the thief notices the drop lock and is aware its purpose. Otherwise, he'll still smash the window and only afterwards discover the seats can't be flipped down. If you simply can't keep the trunk empty (e.g., traveling with luggage), the drop lock may help protect its contents, but you still run the risk of having the window broken.


Again, a false assumption. As in your previous statement, the drop lock also comes with a sticker on the window that states SEATS LOCKED. Not to mention the seat locks are bright red, so as you state, if a thief would take the time to look into the car first to see if the seats were down, he would probably also see the red seat locks, as well as the sticker plastered on the window, assuming the owner puts the sticker on. But to believe that the thief would actually look inside first before smashing a window is to give a thief way too much credit. Case in point...on this forum, there is a story of a window break in while his wife was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. And the thief, unknowing of this or not, still broke the window.

Although I do agree that unless the thief notices either of these things, it is of no use if they break the window and realize after the fact. Sadly, this may be the case most of the time, but as I said, one can only hope these things are more of a deterrent that protects my window rather than the contents of my trunk. Not much more I can do to stop stupidity!


----------



## BluestarE3

ODub said:


> This assumes that the thief cares enough to scope out the situation before breaking the window. You should be aware that when I did have my quarter window broken, my back seats were down so that assumption is incorrect. As is the assumption that the thief would take the time to assess the situation before breaking the window.
> 
> Again, a false assumption. As in your previous statement, the drop lock also comes with a sticker on the window that states SEATS LOCKED. Not to mention the seat locks are bright red, so as you state, if a thief would take the time to look into the car first to see if the seats were down, he would probably also see the red seat locks, as well as the sticker plastered on the window, assuming the owner puts the sticker on. But to believe that the thief would actually look inside first before smashing a window is to give a thief way too much credit. Case in point...on this forum, there is a story of a window break in while his wife was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. And the thief, unknowing of this or not, still broke the window.
> 
> Although I do agree that unless the thief notices either of these things, it is of no use if they break the window and realize after the fact. Sadly, this may be the case most of the time, but as I said, one can only hope these things are more of a deterrent that protects my window rather than the contents of my trunk. Not much more I can do to stop stupidity!


So, what do you suggest instead? Do nothing because nothing is 100% effective? There are no 100% guarantees. You can only take steps to improve your chances of not having your window smashed. My point is that having folded seats provides a better deterrent than a small piece of plastic and decal because the former is more obvious and noticeable. And as for the car in the Sentry Mode video, I never said folding the seats down would have prevented the window smashing, but that there's a "good chance" it could have been avoided. Again, improving one's odds.

I empathize with your sense of resignation and I would feel violated too if someone had broken into my car. However, you shouldn't just give up and say there's nothing you can do. Because if you sink to that level of hopelessness, you might as well get rid of your car. Continue taking common sense approaches to improving your odds by using Sentry Mode (trying to keep this somewhat on-topic), folding down the rear seats and avoid parking in higher-risk areas. If nothing else, it may make you feel better knowing you're at least taking some pro-active measures to protect your property.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program...


----------



## cybertron

Has anyone found a way to access video without unplugging the flash drive. I used the wifi enable drive from san disk and can't use disk access and wifi at the same time.


----------



## tivoboy

My dash cam showed the grey X today. I pulled it and the drive was full.. 52MB free of 64GB. I had some saved videos and most recent ones. Doesn’t the car know to flush FIFO of recordings? Does one have to actually remove and delete file? That would be pretty stupid. 

Also, many vids don’t have the side cams and many vids are just green. What does THAT mean.


----------



## garsh

tivoboy said:


> My dash cam showed the grey X today. I pulled it and the drive was full.. 52MB free of 64GB. I had some saved videos and most recent ones. Doesn't the car know to flush FIFO of recordings? Does one have to actually remove and delete file? That would be pretty stupid.


If you tell the car to save videos, then it's not going to overwrite them.

Other than that, you need to make sure that there's enough free space to store an hour's worth of rotating videos. If there's not, then no, it doesn't try to do anything additional to fit what it can.


----------



## BluestarE3

Also, if you're using Sentry Mode often and your parking locations have a lot of activity, you will have a lot of videos that are automatically saved. You will have to review and delete these manually. There's no way for the car to know which of these recordings are important to you or not.


----------



## tivoboy

garsh said:


> If you tell the car to save videos, then it's not going to overwrite them.
> 
> Other than that, you need to make sure that there's enough free space to store an hour's worth of rotating videos. If there's not, then no, it doesn't try to do anything additional to fit what it can.


But should it over right the NON saved videos and just the regular recordings from Sentry mode and or regular driving? Why should it fail for that.


----------



## MelindaV

tivoboy said:


> But should it over right the NON saved videos and just the regular recordings from Sentry mode and or regular driving? Why should it fail for that.


All sentry recordings are "saved".


----------



## garsh

tivoboy said:


> But should it over right the NON saved videos and just the regular recordings from Sentry mode and or regular driving? Why should it fail for that.


Ok, Sentry mode is a little different.

It's early days for the feature, but currently it keeps recordings for every time a person walks by your car, which can lead to a LOT of saved videos. Hopefully, Tesla will come up with a better way of handling this feature. It does result in a ton of saved videos to review & delete.


----------



## tivoboy

MelindaV said:


> All sentry recordings are "saved".


Ah, interesting. Did not know that. So, to further that point. If one uses Sentry mode frequently, it would seem that one will have to fairly often delete recordings in order for regular dash cam function (and additional Sentry function) to continue to work. Somehow, that doesn't seem like the best option. I wonder why they wouldn't have some level of FIFO even on the older Sentry "saved" items, so that further sentry recordings could continue. That would be the worst thing. Not knowing one has a full USB drive, engaging sentry mode AND not getting recordings.


----------



## japhule

tivoboy said:


> Ah, interesting. Did not know that. So, to further that point. If one uses Sentry mode frequently, it would seem that one will have to fairly often delete recordings in order for regular dash cam function (and additional Sentry function) to continue to work. Somehow, that doesn't seem like the best option. I wonder why they wouldn't have some level of FIFO even on the older Sentry "saved" items, so that further sentry recordings could continue. That would be the worst thing. Not knowing one has a full USB drive, engaging sentry mode AND not getting recordings.


I think it's current function is fine. If someone breaks into your car it sentry mode records it. Then it records several other incidents, you don't want it to delete footage of the break-in, and there's no way to tell the car that one is most important. With Sentry Mode, these are all saved and is working as designed for you to review those clips.


----------



## japhule

cybertron said:


> Has anyone found a way to access video without unplugging the flash drive. I used the wifi enable drive from san disk and can't use disk access and wifi at the same time.


The raspberry pi solution will automatically upload saved clips to a NAS or cloud drive when connected to wifi and then delete the saved clips from the drive.


----------



## ODub

BluestarE3 said:


> So, what do you suggest instead? Do nothing because nothing is 100% effective? There are no 100% guarantees. You can only take steps to improve your chances of not having your window smashed. My point is that having folded seats provides a better deterrent than a small piece of plastic and decal because the former is more obvious and noticeable. And as for the car in the Sentry Mode video, I never said folding the seats down would have prevented the window smashing, but that there's a "good chance" it could have been avoided. Again, improving one's odds.
> 
> I empathize with your sense of resignation and I would feel violated too if someone had broken into my car. However, you shouldn't just give up and say there's nothing you can do. Because if you sink to that level of hopelessness, you might as well get rid of your car. Continue taking common sense approaches to improving your odds by using Sentry Mode (trying to keep this somewhat on-topic), folding down the rear seats and avoid parking in higher-risk areas. If nothing else, it may make you feel better knowing you're at least taking some pro-active measures to protect your property.
> 
> Now, back to the regularly scheduled program...


I think you misunderstood my initial post and we will agree to disagree. Your initial response implied that if we were to lower our back seats, the odds of us not getting our windows smashed would be better. And I respectfully disagree, since I have had that already happen, so I know it didn't work in my case. Which is why I stated that my hope is that having Sentry mode and drop lock will improve my odds of not having a window smashed. Not everyone may agree, but it's what I feel will improve my odds.

You went on to state that the thief may not notice the drop lock and still smash the window, which may be true, but again, we disagree. You think it would be better to leave the seats down and I think it would be better to have drop lock, my sticker on the window, and sentry mode. And I already have evidence that one doesn't work. So now we'll see if the other way works.


----------



## tivoboy

japhule said:


> I think it's current function is fine. If someone breaks into your car it sentry mode records it. Then it records several other incidents, you don't want it to delete footage of the break-in, and there's no way to tell the car that one is most important. With Sentry Mode, these are all saved and is working as designed for you to review those clips.


Well, in all honestly I don't really think it works too well as designee if it fills up all on it's own and then stops working. As I noted in my first post, this all started as the grey X indicated it wasn't working anymore. It required a purge of SAVED and cached (sentry mode I guess) files to start to work again. So, saving Sentry videos till it's full and then ceasing to work any further and not doing any FIFO delete in order to continue to be able to stored Sentry videos seems to be like there is some work to be done.


----------



## BluestarE3

ODub said:


> You went on to state that the thief may not notice the drop lock and still smash the window, which may be true, but again, we disagree. You think it would be better to leave the seats down and I think it would be better to have drop lock, my sticker on the window, and sentry mode. And I already have evidence that one doesn't work. So now we'll see if the other way works.


As I had responded to your similar post on the other forum, there was an owner there who had applied the Drop Lock and sticker and his window was smashed anyway. So, I'd say it's a toss-up if the sample size is limited to these two instances.  When dealing with averages and odds, you need to consider a larger sample size. As an analogy: Just because a person who had received the flu shot got the flu anyway does not necessarily mean the flu vaccine is ineffective for the majority of the people and that they shouldn't bother getting it.


----------



## BluestarE3

I'd recommend, in the meantime, to get a larger capacity storage device so it won't max out as quickly and you won't have to review/erase the files as frequently.


----------



## tivoboy

I think the sentry mode is a good addition, but sadly it has to be used in combination with pulling one of the rear seats forward when leaving the car in any concerning area. Even here in Palo Alto / Menlo Park I had a break in in a high trafficed parking lot in early lit evening. The locks on the seats and signage might provide some delay but frankly if some thief thinks there is something they want in the trunk, they are going to continue to try and get in till they know there's nothing of value there. The locks can certainly be removed, maybe not too easily THROUGH the window, but I don't see them keeping an interested thief out.


----------



## Anesthesia Adam

So I'm sipping coffe, waiting to roll back to the OR with the first case of the day when my phone alerts *"Car Alarm has been triggered." *

I sprinted through the hospital to the garage like a bat out of hell. When I arrive to my car there was no sentry notification on the screen and no music blasting. There is a car parked next to me with someone sitting in it on his phone. I do a quick walk around inspection but didn't notice any damage or sign of attempted entry.

I'll review the footage when I get home, but it has me wondering what happened. Anyone ever get a false alarm? If it actually triggered, how long does the music alert play before simply resetting?

Would love input! Thanks


----------



## garsh

Let us know what you find when you review the footage.

I believe the alarm does shut off after a while.


----------



## Anesthesia Adam

When I saw alert on phone it said 7min ago. I had to of made it out within about 3-4 minutes. Gotta be 10 minute or less


----------



## Skione65

Anesthesia Adam said:


> So I'm sipping coffe, waiting to roll back to the OR with the first case of the day when my phone alerts *"Car Alarm has been triggered." *
> 
> I sprinted through the hospital to the garage like a bat out of hell. When I arrive to my car there was no sentry notification on the screen and no music blasting. There is a car parked next to me with someone sitting in it on his phone. I do a quick walk around inspection but didn't notice any damage or sign of attempted entry.
> 
> I'll review the footage when I get home, but it has me wondering what happened. Anyone ever get a false alarm? If it actually triggered, how long does the music alert play before simply resetting?
> 
> Would love input! Thanks


 My understanding is Sentry resets/rearms after 30 seconds. Others can chime in with additional/more info.

Ski


----------



## BluestarE3

Skione65 said:


> My understanding is Sentry resets/rearms after 30 seconds. Others can chime in with additional/more info.
> 
> Ski


That's my understanding as well. A noisy passing vehicle could have set off the alarm.


----------



## Anesthesia Adam

Alright, so here is the scenario. 
1. Parked on down ramp in parking garage directly over two floor slabs meeting
2. Tons of car leaving, passing directly behind me without issue
3. A Dodge Charger drives by triggering a flicker from my exterior lights
4. Another vehicle passes by within a second or two triggering a thirty second alarm

I wonder if it was noise, vibration or both that set it off. It feels incomplete watching video without audio. It seemed to go into alert mode with the Charger before being triggered by the second car


----------



## Juza

Alighieri256 said:


> I have a couple of 16GB USB thumb drives that I use for dashcam/sentry, and I'm noticing that the cards fill up and stop recording after a day or two of use. Anyone else seeing this? It seems to save every time someone walks by the car, and never overwrite. Unfortunately, it also disables the dashcam when the card is full. It's a little bit annoying having to swap out the memory card pretty much every day.
> 
> Also, smaller note, the car won't update software while sentry mode is active. Found that out going from 5.15 to 8.2.


I noticed the same thing - I thought that Sentry would save recordings only when the alarm is triggered, instead it saves recordings continuously, quickly filling up the USB drive.


----------



## Kizzy

Anesthesia Adam said:


> So I'm sipping coffe, waiting to roll back to the OR with the first case of the day when my phone alerts *"Car Alarm has been triggered." *
> 
> I sprinted through the hospital to the garage like a bat out of hell. When I arrive to my car there was no sentry notification on the screen and no music blasting. There is a car parked next to me with someone sitting in it on his phone. I do a quick walk around inspection but didn't notice any damage or sign of attempted entry.
> 
> I'll review the footage when I get home, but it has me wondering what happened. Anyone ever get a false alarm? If it actually triggered, how long does the music alert play before simply resetting?
> 
> Would love input! Thanks


Sentry Mode has triggered the alarm twice on my car. I'm neither case had any windows been broken nor even any contact made with the car.

I suspect very loud noises trigger it.


----------



## garsh

Juza said:


> I noticed the same thing - I thought that Sentry would save recordings only when the alarm is triggered, instead it saves recordings continuously, quickly filling up the USB drive.


It doesn't actually save recordings continuously. It does, however, save recordings whenever it senses a person walking nearby. So if people are continuously walking by your parking spot, then you will see continuous recordings being saved.


----------



## garsh

garsh said:


> It doesn't actually save recordings continuously. It does, however, save recordings whenever it senses a person walking nearby. So if people are continuously walking by your parking spot, then you will see continuous recordings being saved.


A recent example of Sentry Mode actually preventing a vehicle break-in.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-sentry-mode-potential-break-in-video/


----------



## Madmolecule

Left sentry mode on at the airport last week. It was plugged in so I was not worried about phantom drain. I could communicate to the car for about 6 hrs and then I lost communication for the next four days. I could not wake it up remotely. When I arrived back at the airport my car did unlock with the phone, thankfully because my keycard was in the car. The screen was black and would not respond. It took three or four hard and soft reboots and about five minutes to bring it back to life.


----------



## wackojacko

Madmolecule said:


> Left sentry mode on at the airport last week. It was plugged in so I was not worried about phantom drain. I could communicate to the car for about 6 hrs and then I lost communication for the next four days. I could not wake it up remotely. When I arrived back at the airport my car did unlock with the phone, thankfully because my keycard was in the car. The screen was black and would not respond. It took three or four hard and soft reboots and about five minutes to bring it back to life.


Wife had a similar thing happen, although only parked for the day. I remotely turned on sentry via the app after she got to work (she forgets). We could then not connect/wake up the car via the app all day (10 hours). After work she went to the car and it opened but screen did not turn on. She did a 2 wheel reset, then a 2 and brake pedal reboot. Still no screen. She then put it in park and moved it forward a few feet and the screen booted.

she thinks the lights might have turned on the first time in the car but did nor realize because the screen was off.

So maybe try putting in drive and moving a few feet is the solution!


----------



## MelindaV

Madmolecule said:


> When I arrived back at the airport my car did unlock with the phone, thankfully because my keycard was in the car.


why would you leave it parked with the spare key inside?


----------



## wackojacko

MelindaV said:


> why would you leave it parked with the spare key inside?


I suspect in case it was lost while traveling (stolen wallet) would just need roadside (possibly Tesla remotely) to open car door when you got back to the airport. I used to leave the 2nd key in the car when on road trips for this same reason, but stopped doing that when I got proximity keys LOL


----------



## Madmolecule

MelindaV said:


> why would you leave it parked with the spare key inside?


Because I only use it for valet (I have it in a plastic case with keyring, so its too big for wallet). I have the 2nd key at home and the virtually useless key fob. Also, I believed your earlier post on trusting the phone and how reliable it is.


----------



## TheHairyOne

First time I got an alert on my phone since using sentry mode. Any way to tell which video file has the "interesting" footage? Skimmed through them all, there's a lot to look through, but didn't see anything except for a guy getting out of his car next to my car but he never touched mine.

Would be nice if video file was called *-oh-shizzle*.*


----------



## MJJ

The video file names are a hard-to-read time stamp, right? Can compare to time stamp on text?

I didn’t know you could get a sentry notification. Is there a switch for that?


----------



## Bokonon

TheHairyOne said:


> First time I got an alert on my phone since using sentry mode. Any way to tell which video file has the "interesting" footage?


Sentry Mode puts its video files in a timestamped subfolder within the "Saved" folder. A couple of people have noted that the video clip showing the triggering incident tends to be the second-to-most-recent clip within that subfolder. (In my limited experience with Sentry Mode, I've found this to be the case as well.)


----------



## Gabzqc

TheHairyOne said:


> First time I got an alert on my phone since using sentry mode. Any way to tell which video file has the "interesting" footage? Skimmed through them all, there's a lot to look through, but didn't see anything except for a guy getting out of his car next to my car but he never touched mine.
> 
> Would be nice if video file was called *-oh-shizzle*.*


Out of interest, what does the alert look like and say on the phone? I have not had it yet...


----------



## Anesthesia Adam

Interesting new Sentry alert in 2019.12.1


----------



## Anesthesia Adam

Gabzqc said:


> Out of interest, what does the alert look like and say on the phone? I have not had it yet...


It looks like any other alert (e.g. Charging interrupted, Update available)

Also sorry for the giant post above


----------



## undergrove

Anesthesia Adam said:


> Interesting new Sentry alert in 2019.12.1
> 
> View attachment 25266


I just drove after the 12.1 update and got one of these reports indicating 2 events. There were actually 5 on the usb drive, but 3 were me leaving or coming back to the car. So the report seems to ignore events triggered by the driver, even though they are recorded on the drive.

These were all simple events triggered by motion in the field of the cameras, not alerts that triggered the alarm. It's very nice to have a report like this. It disappears once you activate the car. It would be nice to have it retain the report in a log somewhere at least for a short time.

There were no zero byte files or artifacts in any of the videos, including the right side camera, which in the past has almost always had some banding across the bottom or MPEG pixilation in at least some of the videos. This may be an improvement in the Sentry software. It's too soon to tell.


----------



## TheHairyOne

Bokonon said:


> Sentry Mode puts its video files in a timestamped subfolder within the "Saved" folder. A couple of people have noted that the video clip showing the triggering incident tends to be the second-to-most-recent clip within that subfolder. (In my limited experience with Sentry Mode, I've found this to be the case as well.)


My saved folder has a lot of videos since I often use sentry mode.
I went to the time period of interest and watched about 25 videos and the only one that could remotely have been interesting was a guy getting out of his car after parking next to me. He didn't touch the car though.
I ran over but didn't hear any music, just saw the sentry red eye on the screen.
Is the alert based on the sentry warning, proximity, or is it based on intrusion/touch?
Here's what my car saw:


----------



## BluestarE3

That guy would have had to bang on your car pretty vigorously before the horn and music sound off. Proximity to your car only triggers the HAL screen, light flash and recording.


----------



## Nautilus

TheHairyOne said:


> Here's what my car saw:
> View attachment 25323
> View attachment 25323


Holy Cr*p! If my car saw a red-horned monster like that emerge, I'd be freakin' out too!

Seriously, sentry mode is quite sensitive to alert (not alarm), which I think is fine. TeslaFi had my car set Sentry mode automatically this afternoon after we spent some time in a shop today at a place I hadn't tagged as a known destination (nice feature that TeslaFi has added, btw, and the time to set Sentry mode in an untagged location is adjustable). I walked out of the shop and past the front of the car to get something from the passenger seat. That was all it took for the headlights to flash and "Hal" to come on the screen. Later, when the whole family came out, I demonstrated it to them (as kid with a new toy would...). To my amazement, my teenage son said, "Hey, that's Hal from Space Odyssey on the screen". He has more culture than I give him credit for.

I should also mention all this worked without a USB drive installed, since I had forgotten to reinstall it after viewing previous files on the laptop at home.


----------



## garsh




----------



## JWardell

Some Sentry Mode improvements are coming in 2019.16:


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/blnlun


----------



## Alighieri256

Anyone else finding massive gaps of time between Sentry clips? I'm finding that a person walking near the car at the end of one clip is already completely gone by the beginning of the next clip. I had initially estimated it to be maybe 2-3 seconds, but I've got a couple today that have to be 15 seconds or more. On 8.5 the gaps were far shorter. Just want to get an idea of whether anyone else is seeing this. Thankfully nothing has actually happened to the car, but if it did, that's a pretty big gap of time that wouldn't get caught on video.


----------



## Bokonon

Alighieri256 said:


> I'm finding that a person walking near the car at the end of one clip is already completely gone by the beginning of the next clip. I had initially estimated it to be maybe 2-3 seconds, but I've got a couple today that have to be 15 seconds or more. On 8.5 the gaps were far shorter. Just want to get an idea of whether anyone else is seeing this.


Huh. Are there similar-length gaps between non-Sentry clips (i.e. when just driving around)? Was there a "triggering" incident around the time clips with the 15-second gaps were saved?


----------



## Zimmra

I haven't compared non-Sentry clips to regular 'recent' clips but I did notice a considerable gap in an Sentry event today. Left repeater see woman pulling into spot to the right of me in the second to most recent clip, then in most recent clip right repeater she has already parked, exited vehicle, and was near my trunk by the time the clip started recording. on 12.1.2


----------



## Alighieri256

Bokonon said:


> Huh. Are there similar-length gaps between non-Sentry clips (i.e. when just driving around)? Was there a "triggering" incident around the time clips with the 15-second gaps were saved?


I searched through the Recent folder and didn't find any gaps. Maybe it's just between the 2nd to last and last. Also, just eyeballing the folders for time stamp, one would expect that if there were a delay of 10-15 seconds, one number would be skipped every 4-6 minutes, and I haven't found any missing numbers. Interesting that it's in that most critical moment. Yes, there was a triggering event. Two people and their dog were approaching the car from the driver's rear. They were just making it up to the bumper when the 2nd to last clip ended. So one would expect that in the next set of clips, I'd catch them continuing up past the mirror, then transitioning from that camera to the front camera. But I go through that set of clips and they're not in ANY of them. I should note that this was not on an old country road on the anniversary of the death of a couple and their dog.


----------



## turnem

I noticed this as well. It always records me coming up to the car and shuts off right as I pull the door handle. On Sunday evening I was reviewing the footage (wife and I went out to dinner and I got two alerts when getting back into the car). On the event where it recorded me there was probably a 30-45 second gap (maybe even a minute) between two video clips. It went from an all clear view (nothing moving, no one in sight) to me being right by the driver side front wheel (I was approaching the car from the front with no cars in front of my M3). Ordinarily it would catch me entire walk to the vehicle because once it senses an event it saves the prior 10 minutes.


----------



## simpsonhomer

I'm having this problem, too (currently on 2019.12.1.2...I formerly had 2019.8.5 which didn't have this issue). All my Sentry Mode saved folders have a big gap between the latest clip and the next one. The remaining clips have no gaps (okay).

A typical case: I'll see someone approaching their car and then in the next clip they're already inside buckling up. I miss the key part—where they swing their door open toward my car. And yet the file names are still sequentially numbered.


----------



## crmatson

Just discovered this same issue reviewing clips tonight. Must be a bug in 2019.12.1.2.


----------



## Scubastevo80

What are you all seeing for phantom drain using Sentry mode on 12.1.2? I usually never put mine on at home, but have done the last two nights and I'm losing about 1 to 1.5 miles/hr of range. I haven't pulled the hard drive, but over the course of 2 nights, there was only 1 incident (me walking up in the morning with my phone linked to my wife's car and not mine).


----------



## MelindaV

Scubastevo80 said:


> What are you all seeing for phantom drain using Sentry mode on 12.1.2? I usually never put mine on at home, but have done the last two nights and I'm losing about 1 to 1.5 miles/hr of range. I haven't pulled the hard drive, but over the course of 2 nights, there was only 1 incident (me walking up in the morning with my phone linked to my wife's car and not mine).


at work, where parked at the end of a parking lot along an urban sidewalk with tons of foot traffic, Sentry uses about 1mile per hour of range. over a day, it typically has 5-10 sets of recordings - most all are from someone walking around the car to get to or return from the sidewalk - plus the occasional someone between the front bumper and adjacent wall doing something that shouldn't be seen 🙈


----------



## Alighieri256

Scubastevo80 said:


> What are you all seeing for phantom drain using Sentry mode on 12.1.2? I usually never put mine on at home, but have done the last two nights and I'm losing about 1 to 1.5 miles/hr of range. I haven't pulled the hard drive, but over the course of 2 nights, there was only 1 incident (me walking up in the morning with my phone linked to my wife's car and not mine).


1 mph seems to be the going rate. I couldn't specifically tell you what I get because my display is set for %. But keep in mind, sentry doesn't really use a lot more energy when an event occurs. The cameras are always on and writing to the USB drive whenever sentry is turned on. That's how it gets you the 10 minutes leading up to the event. So the only extra draw during an event is whatever it takes to turn the screen on for a minute, or in a serious case, blast music.


----------



## Nautilus

Bokonon said:


> Huh. Are there similar-length gaps between non-Sentry clips (i.e. when just driving around)? Was there a "triggering" incident around the time clips with the 15-second gaps were saved?


I have just reviewed my last two days' worth of saved clips, and have found gaps on both sentry events, and also one driving event that I saved during my commute home last night. The gap in the sentry event is very obvious since it is triggered by a pedestrian walking past the front of the car at the end of one file (last 2-3 seconds of footage), but she is nowhere to be seen in the next file where she should have been traversing the remaining 2/3 of my front camera's view angle.

The more concerning gap is the driving event I thought I had saved, since the 20 seconds or so that is missing is exactly what I was trying to save to the flash drive: An 18 wheeler almost crushing my trunk as both of us had to decelerate from ~50mph to 0 in a very short distance. I had to work hard not to rear-end the car in front of me, but the truck driver had to do some real acrobatics not to turn my car into a hood ornament on his truck. No harm done, but if we had collided, I would have had no footage of the event.


----------



## crmatson

Nautilus said:


> I have just reviewed my last two days' worth of saved clips, and have found gaps on both sentry events, and also one driving event that I saved during my commute home last night. The gap in the sentry event is very obvious since it is triggered by a pedestrian walking past the front of the car at the end of one file (last 2-3 seconds of footage), but she is nowhere to be seen in the next file where she should have been traversing the remaining 2/3 of my front camera's view angle.
> 
> The more concerning gap is the driving event I thought I had saved, since the 20 seconds or so that is missing is exactly what I was trying to save to the flash drive: An 18 wheeler almost crushing my trunk as both of us had to decelerate from ~50mph to 0 in a very short distance. I had to work hard not to rear-end the car in front of me, but the truck driver had to do some real acrobatics not to turn my car into a hood ornament on his truck. No harm done, but if we had collided, I would have had no footage of the event.


I was approaching a yellow light in the left lane and a vehicle in the right lane did not slow down at all and blew through the light a full 1-2 seconds after it turned red. I tapped the camera icon to watch it when I got home and the 10-15 seconds around the incident is missing.

For now, I would suggest waiting a minute or so before tapping the camera to save an incident while driving.


----------



## r-e-l

Saw it suggested somewhere else and thought it was a great idea ...

Sentry mode is great however, as everyone knows, its records lots of events. If you want to review them all (after getting the notification in the car as you walk right in), today you cant. You have to take the USB and connect it to device and view it typically away from the "sene" .

Ideally, we should never take the USB out to check what happened. Instead I would love to be able to view the video, in the car, on the screen and see if there is something that worth checking further for example. say I am in the parking, a car pulls in next to the car, opens the door and ding my car. 
Then the driver/passanger walks away.
I come back to the car ... if I see the alert and the video, I will take action to check the ding and check if I have the info I need to find the driver. Leave them a note, take a pic of the l.plate or something else.

Point is, I dont it right there, no need to take anything out. Maybe even delete some videos are reviewing ...

and from threre ... who knows myabe I can want a video in the parking lot


----------



## Nautilus

crmatson said:


> I was approaching a yellow light in the left lane and a vehicle in the right lane did not slow down at all and blew through the light a full 1-2 seconds after it turned red. I tapped the camera icon to watch it when I got home and the 10-15 seconds around the incident is missing.
> 
> For now, I would suggest waiting a minute or so before tapping the camera to save an incident while driving.


Yeah, I did that, based on the suggestions earlier in this thread on the same topic. I have a full minute of footage of everyone back up to speed and moving away from the incident. It's the crucial 20 seconds that are missing and I'm not sure why. Maybe next time I wait 2 minutes before clicking the camera icon to save. My problem is sometimes I have the attention span of a puppy and would most likely forget to save a couple minutes later.


----------



## TMK26

A Tesla getting keyed captured on Sentry Mode. The video quality of these clips are much better than the quality of mine (wonder if something is wrong with mine).

Not my video. Comments on reddit says it was done on 5/9 in Old Sacramento. I hope these guys are found!


----------



## MelindaV

TMK26 said:


> A Tesla getting keyed captured on Sentry Mode. The video quality of these clips are much better than the quality of mine (wonder if something is wrong with mine).
> 
> Not my video. Comments on reddit says it was done on 5/9 in Old Sacramento. I hope these guys are found!


looks like the forward video is from a separate dashcam, not the on-board camera.


----------



## Alighieri256

TMK26 said:


> A Tesla getting keyed captured on Sentry Mode. The video quality of these clips are much better than the quality of mine (wonder if something is wrong with mine).
> 
> Not my video. Comments on reddit says it was done on 5/9 in Old Sacramento. I hope these guys are found!


Homeboy keyed an American car, then drove off in his Mexican made pickup truck.


----------



## JWardell

Looks like we will soon be able to activate Sentry mode by saying "Keep Summer safe"


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1128759978519605255

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1128762234518298625


----------



## Bokonon

Alighieri256 said:


> I searched through the Recent folder and didn't find any gaps. Maybe it's just between the 2nd to last and last. Also, just eyeballing the folders for time stamp, one would expect that if there were a delay of 10-15 seconds, one number would be skipped every 4-6 minutes, and I haven't found any missing numbers. Interesting that it's in that most critical moment. Yes, there was a triggering event. Two people and their dog were approaching the car from the driver's rear. They were just making it up to the bumper when the 2nd to last clip ended. So one would expect that in the next set of clips, I'd catch them continuing up past the mirror, then transitioning from that camera to the front camera. But I go through that set of clips and they're not in ANY of them. I should note that this was not on an old country road on the anniversary of the death of a couple and their dog.


Following up on this... Under 2019.12.1.2, I'm seeing the same behavior with both Sentry Mode and manually-saved clips (i.e. tapping the dashcam icon to save the last 10 files). Recent clips appear to be unaffected, as you reported.

TL;DR -- I'm not 100% sure of what's going on, but it does seem like some kind of bug or race condition in how the video files are written to the SD card.

Example: yesterday, we came to a stop in traffic next to a turkey for about 10 seconds (much to the amusement of my 5-year-old son). I tapped the dashcam button about a minute after we drove away, just to make sure the segment with the turkey would be captured. Upon reviewing my saved clips tonight, I can see that the last set of video files are only 27 seconds long each, but much to my surprise, the missing footage is at the *beginning* of these clips, not at the end.

It's almost like this version of the firmware has a rolling 1-minute buffer that normally gets copied to a parallel buffer when the minute is up and it's time to write it to the USB stick... but when you press the dashcam button to save a set of clips (or when Sentry Mode effectively does this for you), that copy never happens, and the video keeps recording from the beginning of the buffer. So, by the time it's ready to write the last file to the USB stick, the front part of the buffer has been overwritten with new video, and it just writes the current buffer position forward to the USB drive for the final set of files.

That said, this theory that doesn't quite match reality with the one Sentry Mode incident I've had under 2019.12.1.2 (which it turned out was just me returning to my car). With the recordings from that incident, the missing footage (~7 seconds) is at the *end* of the *second-to-last* left-repeater clip (similar to what you reported), but the front camera contains the full minute. The right repeater files are all 0 bytes except for the first one. The final set of video files goes all the way up to the moment I pull on the door handle and disable Sentry Mode, so that set seems to be continuous with the previous set (except for the left repeater).


----------



## Stats App

garsh said:


> IIRC, Tesla's long-term plan is to have the videos uploaded to Tesla's servers so that they can be viewed on a phone.


Can you elaborate on this? Has Tesla actually indicated this?


----------



## MelindaV

Stats App said:


> Can you elaborate on this? Has Tesla actually indicated this?


in the past they did indicate video may be uploaded to Tesla's servers. Green that has access to what files are uploaded/downloaded has confirmed though that under the current FW, no Sentry/Dashcam videos are being uploaded to Tesla. This may be something that changes in the future, but not currently being done.


----------



## Stats App

MelindaV said:


> in the past they did indicate video may be uploaded to Tesla's servers. Green that has access to what files are uploaded/downloaded has confirmed though that under the current FW, no Sentry/Dashcam videos are being uploaded to Tesla. This may be something that changes in the future, but not currently being done.


That would be great. I think it's more likely that they make the clips accessible through the car browser. Uploading all that data to Tesla server will be costly.


----------



## garsh

Stats App said:


> Can you elaborate on this? Has Tesla actually indicated this?


Tesla refines Sentry Mode with mobile app activation, automatic video backups


----------



## ATechGuy

garsh said:


> Tesla refines Sentry Mode with mobile app activation, automatic video backups


Tesla might want the video if you're buying insurance from them.

[mod note: post partially moved from the Vampire Drain Reference thread, along with the four posts above]


----------



## JWardell

A nice Android app was mentioned on TMC that browses your USB drive for Sentry and Dashcam videos right on your phone:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.snailboat.teslacamreviewer


----------



## Misanthropic Mike

Can't wait for Tesla to offer sentry mode to newer cars... I've had my car keyed before and there is no recourse without this type of evidence.


----------



## garsh

Misanthropic Mike said:


> Can't wait for Tesla to offer sentry mode to newer cars...


What do you mean? Sentry mode is already available.


----------



## Bokonon

Misanthropic Mike said:


> Can't wait for Tesla to offer sentry mode to newer cars... I've had my car keyed before and there is no recourse without this type of evidence.


By "newer cars" I assume you mean cars with the FSD computer (aka AP hardware version 3)? What firmware version are you currently on?


----------



## Gordon87

I have been out of town for a week. My Model 3 is plugged in, automatically set the charge up to 80% every morning at 7:30 am. I have a large USB drive installed and have Sentry Mode enabled. 

I just checked my car from the app and surprisingly it shows a charge of 47%, and notes that the car will start charging at 7:30 am. I tried to start charging immediately through the app. It attempts to and then just reverts to the note that it will start charging at 7:30 am. Odd?

I tried to turn off Sentry Mode through the app, but it won’t turn it off. I feel that it hasn’t been charging daily and Sentry Mode is running the battery down. 

When the battery gets to 20% (if it doesn’t start recharging), will it automatically turn off Sentry Mode? I am not sure what to do since I’m still out of town for another week and a half. 

I had someone check power to the outlet and the charger. He said: There is power to the charger and it was plugged into the car. I jiggled it and hit the little button on top and the blue light came on.

I was able to unlock the car remotely and asked him to go turn off Sentry Mode. Will he be able to go in and turn off Sentry Mode?

When he went to the car it had re-locked. Now I’m confused. I unlock the car with the app and. Few seconds later, it re-locks. Uggh. I am going to try to unlock the car when he is standing by the car and see if that works. I hop it won’t set off the Sentry Mode alarm. 

Not sure what else to do. I don’t want to keep checking the car through the app and use up more battery charge.


----------



## MelindaV

Gordon87 said:


> I have been out of town for a week. My Model 3 is plugged in, automatically set the charge up to 80% every morning at 7:30 am. I have a large USB drive installed and have Sentry Mode enabled.
> 
> I just checked my car from the app and surprisingly it shows a charge of 47%, and notes that the car will start charging at 7:30 am. I tried to start charging immediately through the app. It attempts to and then just reverts to the note that it will start charging at 7:30 am. Odd?
> 
> I tried to turn off Sentry Mode through the app, but it won't turn it off. I feel that it hasn't been charging daily and Sentry Mode is running the battery down.
> 
> When the battery gets to 20% (if it doesn't start recharging), will it automatically turn off Sentry Mode? I am not sure what to do since I'm still out of town for another week and a half.
> 
> I had someone check power to the outlet and the charger. He said: There is power to the charger and it was plugged into the car. I jiggled it and hit the little button on top and the blue light came on.
> 
> I was able to unlock the car remotely and asked him to go turn off Sentry Mode. Will he be able to go in and turn off Sentry Mode?
> 
> When he went to the car it had re-locked. Now I'm confused. I unlock the car with the app and. Few seconds later, it re-locks. Uggh. I am going to try to unlock the car when he is standing by the car and see if that works. I hop it won't set off the Sentry Mode alarm.
> 
> Not sure what else to do. I don't want to keep checking the car through the app and use up more battery charge.


try logging out and closing your app and restarting it.
Does the app show the car is plugged in?


----------



## Alighieri256

Any reports the 16.2 fixes the time gaps in Sentry Mode clips?


----------



## MelindaV

Alighieri256 said:


> Any reports the 16.2 fixes the time gaps in Sentry Mode clips?


I did a trial last night and the overall quality seemed way improved - no static, or green, or short clips. Will see how it did today at work (where I typically have 5-10 triggers).


----------



## Gordon87

MelindaV said:


> try logging out and closing your app and restarting it.
> Does the app show the car is plugged in?


When you say log out, you mean sign out of the app? It says I will lose all my settings and stored data if I do that.

The app shows the car is plugged in and says it will commence charging at 7:30 am (which is what I have it automatically set to do every morning).


----------



## Gordon87

Gordon87 said:


> When you say log out, you mean sign out of the app? It says I will lose all my settings and stored data if I do that.


Also, when my charge drops to 20%, will the car turn off Sentry Mode automatically?


----------



## Long Ranger

Gordon87 said:


> When you say log out, you mean sign out of the app? It says I will lose all my settings and stored data if I do that.


I don't think there's a lot to lose. Just go to settings in the app and remember how you have the notifications set.

Sentry should shut off when battery reaches 20% but I've never tested that.


----------



## Long Ranger

Gordon87 said:


> I don't want to keep checking the car through the app and use up more battery charge.


I don't think that's an issue if Sentry is enabled. My understanding is that the app checking battery drain is due to waking the car from the energy saving sleep state. With Sentry enabled, the car doesn't sleep at all.


----------



## GDN

When you hit 20% battery the car will turn off Sentry mode and Cabin Overheat if you have it on. 

When you remotely unlock the car for someone, the amount of time they have to enter the car is limited, I think to 2 minutes. It is something small, it will not stay unlocked for hours. 

Also logging out of the app is a bit crazy. They tell you that you'll lose your data, but basically you'll lose your faceID setup on an iPhone. Nothing from the car or settings are lost. If you log back in you'll have full access to the car again.


----------



## MelindaV

Gordon87 said:


> When you say log out, you mean sign out of the app? It says I will lose all my settings and stored data if I do that.


are you using the official Tesla app? mine doesn't say anything about loosing any info/data (and not sure what that would be from within the app anyway)


----------



## GDN

MelindaV said:


> are you using the official Tesla app? mine doesn't say anything about loosing any info/data (and not sure what that would be from within the app anyway)


The iPhone app will tell you that and warn you. I've logged out a few times. If I remember correctly Face ID is the main thing you have to set up again. Nothing else and definitely not car settings.


----------



## JMON

I'm pretty sure my Performance Model 3 knew I was talking about it - so it couldn't help itself but turn on Sentry mode to spy on me !


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1131715238469001216


----------



## Gordon87

Long Ranger said:


> I don't think there's a lot to lose. Just go to settings in the app and remember how you have the notifications set.
> 
> Sentry should shut off when battery reaches 20% but I've never tested that.


Thanks. Well, I logged out and back in. I got back into the app, but it still wouldn't let me turn off Sentry Mode. I may just have to wait for the car to shut it off when it drops to 20%.

Also, since my friend checked the power plug, he noted that it turned blue, so the car is connected to the charger. So I'm hoping that it will start charging at the time previously set.


----------



## Long Ranger

Gordon87 said:


> Thanks. Well, I logged out and back in. I got back into the app, but it still wouldn't let me turn off Sentry Mode. I may just have to wait for the car to shut it off when it drops to 20%.
> 
> Also, since my friend checked the power plug, he noted that it turned blue, so the car is connected to the charger. So I'm hoping that it will start charging at the time previously set.


Strange that it won't let you turn off Sentry Mode. How about Valet Mode, can you turn that on? (Valet Mode should automatically disable Sentry Mode for you). I suspect no commands are working, especially if the unlock showed it locking again after just a few seconds. Perhaps the app isn't even reporting the battery level correctly? Have you seen the battery level slowly drop throughout the day today?


----------



## Gordon87

I need to show someone how to turn off sentry mode from the screen in the Model 3. Can someone post pics of the switch on and off? Thanks.


----------



## MelindaV

Gordon87 said:


> I need to show someone how to turn off sentry mode from the screen in the Model 3. Can someone post pics of the switch on and off? Thanks.


just to the left of the dashcam icon is a circle. If off, it is an outline. if on, it is the Sentry Mode red circle.


----------



## MelindaV




----------



## Gordon87

MelindaV said:


> just to the left of the dashcam icon is a circle. If off, it is an outline. if on, it is the Sentry Mode red circle.


I don't believe I yet have the software update which shows the button on the top of the screen. And while I described to my friend how to turn it off - going from one screen to the next - I thought it might be easier to show him a picture of the screen where i can mark the buttons to push, since I'm out of the country and he is not familiar with a Tesla.


----------



## Gordon87

What SW version has that button at the top? I’m on 2019.12.1.2.


----------



## MelindaV

Gordon87 said:


> I don't believe I yet have the software update which shows the button on the top of the screen. And while I described to my friend how to turn it off - going from one screen to the next - I thought it might be easier to show him a picture of the screen where i can mark the buttons to push, since I'm out of the country and he is not familiar with a Tesla.


if you don't yet have 2019.16.2, then your friend needs to hit the vehicle icon at the lower left of the screen to open the settings tabs, then the safety/security tab and the Sentry option is there.


----------



## Gordon87

MelindaV said:


> if you don't yet have 2019.16.2, then your friend needs to hit the vehicle icon at the lower left of the screen to open the settings tabs, then the safety/security tab and the Sentry option is there.


Thanks. I tried to find pictures of the screen with it off and with it on by searching Google, but couldn't find any. I believe pictures would help my friend.


----------



## MelindaV

Gordon87 said:


> Thanks. I tried to find pictures of the screen with it off and with it on by searching Google, but couldn't find any. I believe pictures would help my friend.


added one above - make sure you have not set Valet mode, as that takes options away.


----------



## Gordon87

MelindaV said:


> added one above - make sure you have not set Valet mode, as that takes options away.


Thank you. Perfect!


----------



## Toadmanor

I have just spent a considerable amount of time reading this ENTIRE thread. It has helped me better understand Sentry mode. But I do have one question @JWardell what is: dash cam script?


----------



## Kizzy

Here's a screenshot from a car running 2019.12.1.2 as the Sentry Mode control looks different.


----------



## JWardell

Toadmanor said:


> I have just spent a considerable amount of time reading this ENTIRE thread. It has helped me better understand Sentry mode. But I do have one question @JWardell what is: dash cam script?


Probably referring the the first script that was available to merge and view dash cam/sentry videos
https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/dashcam-video-script.11481/
Though there are now several utilities for doing the same on computers and phones, all community made


----------



## Toadmanor

JWardell said:


> Probably referring the the first script that was available to merge and view dash cam/sentry videos
> https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/dashcam-video-script.11481/
> Though there are now several utilities for doing the same on computers and phones, all community made


Can you recommend one that runs on a Mac?


----------



## Gordon87

Kizzy said:


> Here's a screenshot from a car running 2019.12.1.2 as the Sentry Mode control looks different.
> 
> View attachment 26254


Thanks.


----------



## JWardell

Toadmanor said:


> Can you recommend one that runs on a Mac?


Teslacam browser is my favorite
https://github.com/BobStrogg/teslacam-browser/releases


----------



## SoFlaModel3

I found a major flaw in Sentry Mode this morning...


__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1133338286653681664


----------



## DennisP

Just tried to use the Exclude Home feature but it still activates in my garage. Rebooted, same result... on 2019.16.2


----------



## garsh

DennisP said:


> Just tried to use the Exclude Home feature but it still activates in my garage. Rebooted, same result... on 2019.16.2


Probably a stupid question, but best to check the more obvious causes first. Did you actually save your home location to the car so that it knows where you live? Does it have any issues opening your garage door when you arrive home?


----------



## DennisP

garsh said:


> Probably a stupid question, but best to check the more obvious causes first. Did you actually save your home location to the car so that it knows where you live? Does it have any issues opening your garage door when you arrive home?


Yeah that was my first thought but yes, my home is saved, homelink works fine too.


----------



## MelindaV

DennisP said:


> Yeah that was my first thought but yes, my home is saved, homelink works fine too.


 homelink works off the proximity set within the homelink settings, not the "home" setting


----------



## garsh

MelindaV said:


> homelink works off the proximity set within the homelink settings, not the "home" setting


It's been so long since I set my Home that I can't remember - how do you set it?
Do you enter an address, or just tell the car "home is where we are right now"?


----------



## MelindaV

garsh said:


> It's been so long since I set my Home that I can't remember - how do you set it?
> Do you enter an address, or just tell the car "home is where we are right now"?


you set it while parked in front of whatever door/gate you want it to operate.


----------



## garsh

MelindaV said:


> you set it while parked in front of whatever door/gate you want it to operate.


That's homelink.
I'm asking about setting your Home location in navigation.


----------



## MelindaV

garsh said:


> That's homelink.
> I'm asking about setting your Home location in navigation.


sorry - thought that is what you were asking


----------



## DennisP

garsh said:


> It's been so long since I set my Home that I can't remember - how do you set it?
> Do you enter an address, or just tell the car "home is where we are right now"?


You put in an address. I tried turning sentry off and on, deleting my home address and re- entering it, and rebooting - still doesn't exclude "home". Not a huge deal as I can just turn it on manually when I want it but it still bugs me that it doesn't work properly.


----------



## Long Ranger

DennisP said:


> You put in an address. I tried turning sentry off and on, deleting my home address and re- entering it, and rebooting - still doesn't exclude "home". Not a huge deal as I can just turn it on manually when I want it but it still bugs me that it doesn't work properly.


Perhaps a GPS signal issue in your garage or a mapping problem with your address? When you view your car's location in the app does it show your home address?


----------



## DennisP

Long Ranger said:


> Perhaps a GPS signal issue in your garage or a mapping problem with your address? When you view your car's location in the app does it show your home address?


Good question and yes, the app shows the correction location for my car.


----------



## Greg Appelt

Just yesterday I installed TeslaCam / Sentry Review (Google Play Store). This app is amazing! Just plug the USB into an Android phone with a USB-USBC adapater (most phones come with one). Point the app to the TeslaCam folder and you've got a great 3-window synced timeline view of the events. Both the .5x, 1x,2x speed and the slider bar are very easy to use to find a particular 'incident'. It's also very quick at deleting the 10min segments that you no longer need.
Zack and Jesse did a great review of the app here:


----------



## Long Ranger

DennisP said:


> I tried turning sentry off and on, deleting my home address and re- entering it, and rebooting - still doesn't exclude "home".


Strange. How about "exclude work", does that work for you?


----------



## DennisP

Long Ranger said:


> Strange. How about "exclude work", does that work for you?


I'll try next time I take it to work - I usually drive my bulletproof Honda Fit back and forth to work...


----------



## Louis Umphenour

DennisP said:


> I'll try next time I take it to work - I usually drive my bulletproof Honda Fit back and forth to work...


I just got the update (16..2) yesterday that allows sentry mode to be on all the time and exclude home. It turned on sentry mode while parked in my garage. It knows that I'm home because my address shows up in the location and navigate to home sends me to my address. I'm just going to manually turn on sentry mode when I park outside of home.


----------



## DennisP

So it’s not just me!! Same scenario and same fix for me - I’ll just turn it on when away from home. Strange though... 🤔


----------



## GDN

Ran out for a quick dinner and a big thunderstorm rolled through, lightning was close and the thunder was loud. I could see the car from inside and the headlight flash caught my eye. We were in my partners car and he doesn't have a drive mounted, so no footage, but over 30 minutes the headlights flashed 4 times and Sentry noted 4 events, simply from the thunder. It wasn't enough to set off full alarm, but there is some in between mode. I thought only motion would set off a recording unless it was enough to set off the whole full fledge alarm, but that never went off, so it can trigger a recording just from thunder or similar loud noise.


----------



## MelindaV

GDN said:


> Ran out for a quick dinner and a big thunderstorm rolled through, lightning was close and the thunder was loud. I could see the car from inside and the headlight flash caught my eye. We were in my partners car and he doesn't have a drive mounted, so no footage, but over 30 minutes the headlights flashed 4 times and Sentry noted 4 events, simply from the thunder. It wasn't enough to set off full alarm, but there is some in between mode. I thought only motion would set off a recording unless it was enough to set off the whole full fledge alarm, but that never went off, so it can trigger a recording just from thunder or similar loud noise.


others in parking garages have mentioned motion from a large vehicle going by (presumably just the right amount of floor flex, vehicle size, etc for everything to come together for the alarm to trigger).
Wonder in your case, if you were parked next to another car, wall or something that would reflect the light, if the flickering light from the lightening reflecting off something nearby would read to the car as visible motion - combined with any shake from the thunder, if close enough to be in sync. (but as you know, we get like 2 thunderstorms a year here, so really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to thunder/lightening  )


----------



## GDN

I forgot about the parking garage reports. This was definitely during the thunder. There weren't any other cars real close by. The rain was so heavy it was crazy. The event and headlight flash definitely came with the loud clap of thunder. I believe there has to be some vibration or listening device which allowed this triggers. Maybe I need to reread part of this tread and look back at the Cookie Monster video to see what they triggered the headlight flash/ recording with.


----------



## MelindaV

maybe the ridiculous size of your Texas raindrops were enough to catch the proximity sensors


----------



## stlgrym3

What is this dot? When press it turns to red.


----------



## PaulT

Sentry mode


----------



## stlgrym3

PaulT said:


> Sentry mode


I see, thanks. So after I park my car I should activate it before I leave the car correct?


----------



## Hollywood7

I see, thanks. So after I park my car I should activate it before I leave the car correct? 

Yes, You can also set it to arm automatically through the settings under Security


----------



## StarModel3

What I don’t like about the new version is that I get warnings almost every time I get my car and they’re just people walking by not actual incidences. It would be really nice if you just warn you when something happened versus somebody walking by your car


----------



## DocScott

StarModel3 said:


> What I don't like about the new version is that I get warnings almost every time I get my car and they're just people walking by not actual incidences. It would be really nice if you just warn you when something happened versus somebody walking by your car


It does, kind of. There are alerts and alarms, with the alarms being more serious. But some stuff, like your car getting keyed, is not likely to set off the alarm, but you'd definitely want to have a video of it (thus the alerts for people walking by).


----------



## raptor

StarModel3 said:


> What I don't like about the new version is that I get warnings almost every time I get my car and they're just people walking by not actual incidences. It would be really nice if you just warn you when something happened versus somebody walking by your car


It also seems to catch you right before you get in the car, so you'll always see at least 1 new event. Hopefully they're working on a slideshow of stills which show the trigger action with the file/directory name in the caption.


----------



## John

Don't check teslacam footage every time you get an event. Wait until you see something wrong with your car (or suspect it), then check.


----------



## garsh

John said:


> Don't check teslacam footage every time you get an event. Wait until you see something wrong with your car (or suspect it), then check.


You also have to worry about your USB drive becoming full from all of the saved event footage.


----------



## stlgrym3

i turned it on for the first time this morning. does my Tesla phone app get alerts from Sentry Mode? also where do i see the video footage? where do they stored? am i able to delete them?


----------



## DocScott

stlgrym3 said:


> i turned it on for the first time this morning. does my Tesla phone app get alerts from Sentry Mode? also where do i see the video footage? where do they stored? am i able to delete them?


This thread should have all the information you need.

Mods: I suggest you merge the current thread with the sentry mode thread.


----------



## stlgrym3

turned on the Sentry Mode for the first time today and received 5 alerts. when i press the "i" next to the alert message, nothing pops up. how do i actually view those alerts? do i have to insert an USB drive in the glovebox before activating Sentry Mode?


----------



## Toadmanor

stlgrym3 said:


> turned on the Sentry Mode for the first time today and received 5 alerts. when i press the "i" next to the alert message, no thing pops up. how do i actually view those alerts? do i have to insert an USB drive in the glovebox before activating Sentry Mode?


You need to have a USB drive with ample room for saving video. I use a 256GB drive. At the root level a folder needs to be created named "TeslaCam" Plug the drive into one of the USB ports inside the center console. Then sentry activities will be saved in a folder within TeslaCam named "SavedClips". Plug in to a computer USB port and watch all the activities.

I only wish there was an elegant method to view the numerous files saved on my Mac platform.


----------



## stlgrym3

Toadmanor said:


> You need to have a USB drive with ample room for saving video. I use a 256GB drive. At the root level a folder needs to be created named "TeslaCam" Plug the drive into one of the USB ports inside the center console. Then sentry activities will be saved in a folder within TeslaCam named "SavedClips". Plug in to a computer USB port and watch all the activities.
> 
> I only wish there was an elegant method to view the numerous files saved on my Mac platform.


thank you, and where exactly do i supposed to stick this USB drive to?


----------



## Toadmanor

stlgrym3 said:


> thank you, and where exactly do i supposed to stick this USB drive to?


See here:


----------



## MelindaV

video from this afternoon


----------



## Toadmanor

@MelindaV

How do you get the video's to all show up at once like above?


----------



## MelindaV

Toadmanor said:


> @MelindaV
> 
> How do you get the video's to all show up at once like above?


I use the script @ehendrix23 has been developing. Info in this thread https://teslaownersonline.com/threads/dashcam-video-script.11481/


----------



## Toadmanor

I have tried this @ehendrix23 script and receive a message stating process complete. However I can not find the output files. What are they called and where are they? I looked in desktop but do not see them.


----------



## BluestarE3

Toadmanor said:


> I have tried this @ehendrix23 script and receive a message stating process complete. However I can not find the output files. What are they called and where are they? I looked in desktop but do not see them.


I believe it's explained in the README file.


----------



## Toadmanor

I did look in the read me file but i looked where it said and no files...("")


----------



## GDN

I was driving today headed to the SC for some juice. I'd been in the car about 15 minutes when I got this notification on my phone !! The key is that that Sentry Mode wasn't on and the car was driving/in use. I was at 63 miles SOC, but was very surprised to get these messages, not just 1, but 3 of them.


----------



## Craig Bennett

GDN said:


> I was driving today headed to the SC for some juice. I'd been in the car about 15 minutes when I got this notification on my phone !! The key is that that Sentry Mode wasn't on and the car was driving/in use. I was at 63 miles SOC, but was very surprised to get these messages, not just 1, but 3 of them.


You didn't indicate firmware version so I'm going to guess you have x.16.x which includes the ability to set SM to enabled once you are in Park - minus any geo exclusions. You would have the "empty" eye at the top of your screen until you park and the it goes red.

Assuming all this I would consider this a low sev defect where even though SM is not active, the SOC is still being monitored to turn it off below 20% SOC.


----------



## GDN

Craig Bennett said:


> You didn't indicate firmware version so I'm going to guess you have x.16.x which includes the ability to set SM to enabled once you are in Park - minus any geo exclusions. You would have the "empty" eye at the top of your screen until you park and the it goes red.
> 
> Assuming all this I would consider this a low sev defect where even though SM is not active, the SOC is still being monitored to turn it off below 20% SOC.


SW 16.2 and Sentry is enabled in the menu and geofenced to exclude home only. I was driving at the time of the messages, and sentry was not active. The 21% was close on the mark, I'd just hit 63 miles of range remaining.

It is definitely a low level defect, but a defect to say the least. Maybe a little bigger defect because it still sent the message 3 times. The flag just isn't set right to check to see whether sentry was enabled or not.


----------



## Gordon87

GDN said:


> SW 16.2 and Sentry is enabled in the menu and geofenced to exclude home only. I was driving at the time of the messages, and sentry was not active. The 21% was close on the mark, I'd just hit 63 miles of range remaining.
> 
> It is definitely a low level defect, but a defect to say the least. Maybe a little bigger defect because it still sent the message 3 times. The flag just isn't set right to check to see whether sentry was enabled or not.


I'm not sure it's a defect so much as operating in a way different than what you expected. If it didn't notify you that Sentry Mode was being disengaged at 20% SOC until you shifted into park, you might have missed it and not realize it was disengaged.

The question for the software is whether it should automatically reengage when you start charging and get over 20% SOC, if you otherwise have it set to always engage upon putting the car in park.


----------



## GDN

Gordon87 said:


> I'm not sure it's a defect so much as operating in a way different than what you expected. If it didn't notify you that Sentry Mode was being disengaged at 20% SOC until you shifted into park, you might have missed it and not realize it was disengaged.
> 
> The question for the software is whether it should automatically reengage when you start charging and get over 20% SOC, if you otherwise have it set to always engage upon putting the car in park.


I was in drive and driving at the time of the messages. I had been in the car about 15 minutes when the messages were sent to the phone.


----------



## Rick59

Our Model 3 is kept parked in our driveway. Sentry Mode is always on at home. When it rains, the front headlights go on briefly then turn off. This cycle continues all through the night while it’s raining. Since our bedroom window is just above the driveway, it lights up the room brightly enough to wake me up almost each time. Has anyone experienced this issue? Suggested fix?


----------



## cllc

Back it in the drive so it points at your neighbors house instead, and it won't wake you up!


----------



## tivoboy

GDN said:


> I was driving today headed to the SC for some juice. I'd been in the car about 15 minutes when I got this notification on my phone !! The key is that that Sentry Mode wasn't on and the car was driving/in use. I was at 63 miles SOC, but was very surprised to get these messages, not just 1, but 3 of them.
> 
> View attachment 26757


This is something to always keep in mind. Sentry will turn off at 20%, or won't activate below that. I was at a sketch place the other day, had 65 miles on the clock. Only needed 15 to get home and was comfortable with losing probably 1 MPH with Sentry mode on. And yet, I couldn't override it.


----------



## BluestarE3

Black out curtains for your bedroom window?


----------



## DennisP

GDN said:


> I was in drive and driving at the time of the messages. I had been in the car about 15 minutes when the messages were sent to the phone.


I had this same thing happen several times as I just competed at 2500 mile trip. Software 2019.6.2. One time I got 3 notices in a row just a few seconds apart.


----------



## lance.bailey

parking in the underground today and I saw three Model 3's (nearly) in a row. wandered past to admire them and got the sentry mode flash from two.

could not resist giving a big grin and a wave to the camera for posterity. On both of them. 

sigh. I really am just a big kid.


----------



## PaulK

Something that bugs me (but I haven’t checked on 20.1 yet) is that you cannot turn Sentry on when below 20% SOC even if you’re plugged in. 

Curious if anyone has tested this on 20.1.


----------



## garsh

lance.bailey said:


> could not resist giving a big grin and a wave to the camera for posterity. On both of them.


If you had also done a little dance, or a re-enactment of a Charlie Chaplin scene, you could have become Internet Famous.


----------



## sraatc17

Anyone else notice since this ...? Since SW update to 16.2 I have Sentry set to on except at home. Now I'm getting the grey x WAY more often than before, and each time i pull my thumb drive to find that it is full (0 free space at all). I copy over the files to my computer, re-format and it works great but a few days later its full again and i get the grey x. My guess is that the car does not delete old Sentry mode events like it does the dash cam and anytime a leaf blows by it starts recording and fills up the drive with videos of nothing.

So part of my problem is that I'm using a 32GB drive that is partitioned for use with music (leaving only 23 GB for TeslaCam), but I almost wish there was a way to tell the car that I'm not interested in the footage when the alert is on the screen and have it marked for deletion when the drive is becoming full. In the mean time i guess I'll get a larger thumb drive to test out my hypothesis.


----------



## Gordon87

My understanding is that Sentry Mode does not overwrite on the drive; you need to delete the old files. That is unlike the dashcam driving video. 

I have a 256 GB drive which doesn’t seem to get close to getting filled. One other suggestion - Get a 128 GB drive and use your 32 GB drive and just regularly swap them so you can clear one out.


----------



## Bokonon

sraatc17 said:


> Anyone else notice since this ...? Since SW update to 16.2 I have Sentry set to on except at home. Now I'm getting the grey x WAY more often than before, and each time i pull my thumb drive to find that it is full (0 free space at all). I copy over the files to my computer, re-format and it works great but a few days later its full again and i get the grey x. My guess is that the car does not delete old Sentry mode events like it does the dash cam and anytime a leaf blows by it starts recording and fills up the drive with videos of nothing.


Yeah, like @Gordon87 mentioned above, Sentry recordings land in the Saved Clips folder, which do not automatically get cleared out. And yes, Sentry can be rather sensitive. If you leave it on in, say, a parking garage, you're likely to get several "events" by virtue of people walking past your car, and each one of those events results in approximately 1 GB of video being saved. With a 23 GB Dashcam partition, and an 8 GB rolling buffer, it only takes 15 Sentry events to fill up the partition and give you the gray X.

I used to have a similar setup to you on a 32 GB SanDisk Cruzer drive, but recently I traded up to a 500 GB Samsung T5 portable SSD for additional breathing room. They're still only 88 bucks on Amazon:


I also keep a USB-C-to-C cable with me in the car, so anytime I want to review the footage (or delete saved clips I don't want), I can do so from inside the car by plugging it into my phone... No laptop required.


----------



## lance.bailey

garsh said:


> If you had also done a little dance, or a re-enactment of a Charlie Chaplin scene, you could have become Internet Famous.


To be honest I was kind of hoping to see a "look at the clown I spotted in my sentry mode camera" post in this forum, but it has been a couple of days so hope is fading.

should have worn my red nose.


----------



## sraatc17

Bokonon said:


> Yeah, like @Gordon87 mentioned above, Sentry recordings land in the Saved Clips folder, which do not automatically get cleared out. And yes, Sentry can be rather sensitive. If you leave it on in, say, a parking garage, you're likely to get several "events" by virtue of people walking past your car, and each one of those events results in approximately 1 GB of video being saved. With a 23 GB Dashcam partition, and an 8 GB rolling buffer, it only takes 15 Sentry events to fill up the partition and give you the gray X.
> 
> I used to have a similar setup to you on a 32 GB SanDisk Cruzer drive, but recently I traded up to a 500 GB Samsung T5 portable SSD for additional breathing room. They're still only 88 bucks on Amazon:
> 
> 
> I also keep a USB-C-to-C cable with me in the car, so anytime I want to review the footage (or delete saved clips I don't want), I can do so from inside the car by plugging it into my phone... No laptop required.


I ordered this from amazon but windows wont let me format it to fat32, I tried to format using the command prompt and I get an error saying it's to large for fat32. I can format to exfat but I'm not sure if that will work. Any tips?


----------



## BluestarE3

sraatc17 said:


> I ordered this from amazon but windows wont let me format it to fat32, I tried to format using the command prompt and I get an error saying it's to large for fat32. I can format to exfat but I'm not sure if that will work. Any tips?


Use Linux. 

(Or a Mac or a third-party app if you must use Windows)


----------



## Gordon87

sraatc17 said:


> I ordered this from amazon but windows wont let me format it to fat32, I tried to format using the command prompt and I get an error saying it's to large for fat32. I can format to exfat but I'm not sure if that will work. Any tips?


See https://www.howtogeek.com/316977/how-to-format-usb-drives-larger-than-32gb-with-fat32-on-windows/


----------



## sraatc17

BluestarE3 said:


> Use Linux.
> 
> (Or a Mac or a third-party app if you must use Windows)


Haha thanks, got it using guiformat


----------



## NR4P

Not only does Sentry fill up a drive fairly fast, it also seems to trigger when I am about to enter the car. No matter what, there is always 1 Sentry event when I return to the car when away from home. A way to minimize this is to not save the file if the owner/driver unlocks the car within say 10 seconds. In a given day, thats 2-6 extra events for me.


----------



## ehendrix23

Toadmanor said:


> I did look in the read me file but i looked where it said and no files...("")


Can you provide me how you execute it?


----------



## Mesprit87

35 events in an hour yesterday... it was raining.
I prefer to have more footage then not enough but the thing might be a little oversensitive for now.


----------



## DocScott

They should rejigger it so that there can't be more than one "event" per 10 minutes. Since 10 minutes is recorded anyway, just extend the end time for the first event. So if two things happen that trigger Hal 9 minutes apart, it should save one event that's roughly 19 minutes long.


----------



## Long Ranger

DocScott said:


> They should rejigger it so that there can't be more than one "event" per 10 minutes. Since 10 minutes is recorded anyway, just extend the end time for the first event. So if two things happen that trigger Hal 9 minutes apart, it should save one event that's roughly 19 minutes long.


I don't know, I think I like it better the way it is. If I had a single 19 minute recording, I wouldn't know if it was two things 9 minutes apart or three or more triggers in that 9 minute span, so I'd feel obligated to review the whole thing.

Currently, let's say there's a trigger, followed by another 3 minutes later, then another 6 minutes later. What I've seen is that the first event saves 10 minutes of video, the next saves 3-4 minutes, and the last saves 6-7 minutes. So you still have ~19 minutes of recording, but in 3 separate folders with timestamps of the triggers. I prefer that.


----------



## GDN

I discovered a Senty mode bug or low SOC bug today. Yesterday on the way to work I dropped below 20% SOC and received messages on my phone that "Sentry mode has been turned off due to battery charge reaching 20%". The car charged last night and I went out in the garage this morning and the lights flashed at me - surprise you're on cadnid camera. To say the least I looked at the app and it showed Sentry Mode was active.

So the bug as I see it, once it disables Sentry due to low SOC, when SOC is once again in a safe range, above 20% it doesn't check your GPS exclusions before reactivating Sentry mode. It reactivated at home, where I've got it excluded from enabling.

Here is the really interesting part - When I got in the car later to leave it said I have 37 events, yes 37. The ghosts or something/body must have been having a party in the garage last night. Or perhaps another bug and when it reactivated it showed a grand total number of sentry mode events. I haven't pulled the drive yet to see what is recorded.


----------



## garsh

I've noticed that same behavior @GDN . I posted about it here, but apparently in some other thread.


----------



## garsh

@GDN , found it!
Note, I'm talking about parking at work, where I have sentry mode disabled.



garsh said:


> I've had this happen when my battery was below 20%. It would say "Sentry mode deactivated due to battery under 20%". Then while charging, once the battery goes above 20%, sentry mode will activate. But if battery is above 20% to begin with, then sentry mode remains off for me. Strange bug.
> 
> EDIT - yep, just happened again this morning. Battery was at 19% when I arrived at work and plugged in. I noticed a notification on the Tesla app that Sentry mode was deactivated (even though it always should be at work). When I opened the app, it had charged to 21%, and showed Sentry Mode as being active.


----------



## GDN

We've got a few Sentry threads, I didn't remember reading it, but glad to know I'm not alone. I will say this was on the beta car too, so wasn't 100% surprised. I need to report the bug.

Have you ever noticed it giving you a really high number of Sentry mode events? I will go pull the drive before I forget and see what was happening on the recordings. I may not want to know however.


----------



## lance.bailey

you didn't get the party invite for your garage last night? @garsh - you said you were going to invite him. It is his own garage after all!!


----------



## SimonMatthews

GDN said:


> Here is the really interesting part - When I got in the car later to leave it said I have 37 events, yes 37. The ghosts or something/body must have been having a party in the garage last night. Or perhaps another bug and when it reactivated it showed a grand total number of sentry mode events. I haven't pulled the drive yet to see what is recorded.


Mice?


----------



## MelindaV

GDN said:


> Here is the really interesting part - When I got in the car later to leave it said I have 37 events, yes 37. The ghosts or something/body must have been having a party in the garage last night. Or perhaps another bug and when it reactivated it showed a grand total number of sentry mode events. I haven't pulled the drive yet to see what is recorded.


last time mine was below 20%, in a retail parking lot with lots of foot traffic, it also showed the events (even though not recorded), but that was directly following getting back in the car with the charge still under 20%.


----------



## Ev's EV

GDN said:


> I forgot about the parking garage reports. This was definitely during the thunder. There weren't any other cars real close by. The rain was so heavy it was crazy. The event and headlight flash definitely came with the loud clap of thunder. I believe there has to be some vibration or listening device which allowed this triggers. Maybe I need to reread part of this tread and look back at the Cookie Monster video to see what they triggered the headlight flash/ recording with.


Twice last night in a very large lightning storm, Sentry mode triggered the alarm. I had to turn Sentry mode off so I could get some sleep!


----------



## eXntrc

My Sentry Mode triggers events _all the time._ I think it triggers an event every single time there's motion. A car driving by. Someone walking by.

So far the only time I've had an alarm warning it was in a parking garage and from the video there was a car across from me starting and pulling out of the spot. That car had a big hemi in it. I'm assuming it also had a loud exhaust, so I would agree that the _alarm_ part of Sentry is also tied to vibration.


----------



## JasonF

eXntrc said:


> My Sentry Mode triggers events _all the time._ I think it triggers an event every single time there's motion. A car driving by. Someone walking by.


I had to stop using Sentry Mode at work, because the spot I park in most often has a 5' high plant in front of it. It triggers dozens of events, so by the time I go to get lunch, 64 events are recorded. Naturally, that drains the battery quite a bit, I lose about 20 miles of range from a whole day of that.

Then again that parking lot is strange. The spot I park is right next to an abandoned BMW with New Jersey plates that's been sitting there for 5 years (that's why I park there, it never moves and no one approaches it). And at the opposite end of the road, every day there is a man in a red Chevy SUV that drops his wife off at work, and then he stays in the car with the engine running for 8 hours waiting to drive her home. And there's a Brazilian Capoeira place next to there that doubles as a summer camp, so there are kids running by. No wonder Sentry Mode is so busy.


----------



## eXntrc

Wow @JasonF, sounds like you work in the Bermuda Triangle or something.


----------



## JasonF

eXntrc said:


> Wow @JasonF, sounds like you work in the Bermuda Triangle or something.


It's pretty tame by Florida standards.


----------



## JWardell

JasonF said:


> I had to stop using Sentry Mode at work, because the spot I park in most often has a 5' high plant in front of it. It triggers dozens of events, so by the time I go to get lunch, 64 events are recorded. Naturally, that drains the battery quite a bit, I lose about 20 miles of range from a whole day of that.
> 
> Then again that parking lot is strange. The spot I park is right next to an abandoned BMW with New Jersey plates that's been sitting there for 5 years (that's why I park there, it never moves and no one approaches it). And at the opposite end of the road, every day there is a man in a red Chevy SUV that drops his wife off at work, and then he stays in the car with the engine running for 8 hours waiting to drive her home. And there's a Brazilian Capoeira place next to there that doubles as a summer camp, so there are kids running by. No wonder Sentry Mode is so busy.


Think to my self, "what the heck kind of crazy place is this??" look over to profile... "ahhh... Florida. Of course."


----------



## MelindaV

JasonF said:


> I had to stop using Sentry Mode at work, because the spot I park in most often has a 5' high plant in front of it. It triggers dozens of events, so by the time I go to get lunch, 64 events are recorded. Naturally, that drains the battery quite a bit, I lose about 20 miles of range from a whole day of that.
> 
> Then again that parking lot is strange. The spot I park is right next to an abandoned BMW with New Jersey plates that's been sitting there for 5 years (that's why I park there, it never moves and no one approaches it). And at the opposite end of the road, every day there is a man in a red Chevy SUV that drops his wife off at work, and then he stays in the car with the engine running for 8 hours waiting to drive her home. And there's a Brazilian Capoeira place next to there that doubles as a summer camp, so there are kids running by. No wonder Sentry Mode is so busy.


my experience has been the battery drain is about the same if there is 1 triggered event or 50. 
my parking spot at work has a ton of foot traffic - last spot in the lot along a sidewalk. most days I get 8-15 triggers, some days only 2 or 3, and on some weird days over 50. They all seem to have the same amount of battery drain.


----------



## Nautilus

It used to be, like others have pointed out, that there was always at least one sentry event associated with returning to the car and opening the door. Lately I've noticed (over the last 2-3 firmware updates?) that if I approach the car from the rear or driver's side, I'm no longer generating a sentry event when I return to the car. It still always triggers if I walk past the front, even if I go directly to opening the driver's door.

Has anyone else noticed this? I'm wondering if it is an "unannounced" improvement in one of the recent firmware updates. My recent updates are: 2019.20.4.4, 24.4, 28.2, 28.3.1.


----------



## JWardell

MelindaV said:


> my experience has been the battery drain is about the same if there is 1 triggered event or 50.
> my parking spot at work has a ton of foot traffic - last spot in the lot along a sidewalk. most days I get 8-15 triggers, some days only 2 or 3, and on some weird days over 50. They all seem to have the same amount of battery drain.


At least according to Uncle Bjorn, recent firmware has significantly reduced power drain with Sentry Mode.


----------



## MelindaV

JWardell said:


> At least according to Uncle Bjorn, recent firmware has significantly reduced power drain with Sentry Mode.


after I looked at my overall vampire drain last month, and figured out what that costs me, I stopped worrying about it


----------



## iChris93

MelindaV said:


> after I looked at my overall vampire drain last month, and figured out what that costs me, I stopped worrying about it


How much did it cost you?


----------



## MelindaV

roughly a $1 per week.

parked at work for about 50 hours a week, uses roughly 1 mile per hour, so 50 'miles' of range used. 4 miles per kWh = 12.5kWh, 8cents per = $1.00 for the week.


----------



## NR4P

There was a Sentry mode problem where if you exclude work or home, although it didn't record, the car did not sleep. That was fixed in 2019.24
I confirmed that. Overnight excess drain in my garage has been gone. However with the fan running after PARK, it can take up to 30 mins for the car to sleep.

Whether or not there are actual events that cause saved recordings doesn't affect the drain when Sentry is in use. The use of power is because 3 cameras are recording full time. The SAVE events probably are barely measurable. The cameras have to be recording 100% of the time or when there is an event, you won't have pre-event to see what caused the sentry to save files. 

Today I had 2 full car alarms due to Sentry.
It was during a thunderstorm, pretty big one.
Both times I got the Sentry and Alarm events on cell phone.

I checked the car and nothing damaged. Pulled the files and nothing but heavy rain on the windshield.
I suspect with the numerous lightning strikes in and around the building, the ground shook the car enough.


----------



## aash73

Hello my Tesla friends,
have a simple question along with the background.

Background: I have bought the flash drive that is plugged into one of the front USB port. If I turn the dash cam on (that is, the "dash cam" icon has a "red" dot on it), I get recordings, for sure. 

Question: Since I don't like having the dash cam on while I am driving (for one reason or another), am I expecting to find recordings of "incidents" reported while my car is parked and sentry mode is on? Ideally, I'd like to get these recording, as that's the purpose of me buying the flash drive. 
Thanks
-Asim


----------



## MelindaV

aash73 said:


> Hello my Tesla friends,
> have a simple question along with the background.
> 
> Background: I have bought the flash drive that is plugged into one of the front USB port. If I turn the dash cam on (that is, the "dash cam" icon has a "red" dot on it), I get recordings, for sure.
> 
> Question: Since I don't like having the dash cam on while I am driving (for one reason or another), am I expecting to find recordings of "incidents" reported while my car is parked and sentry mode is on? Ideally, I'd like to get these recording, as that's the purpose of me buying the flash drive.
> Thanks
> -Asim


If you don't want it to record while you drive, but have sentry work, you would need to plug in the drive each time you park, then unplug it when you get in and drive.


----------



## aash73

MelindaV said:


> If you don't want it to record while you drive, but have sentry work, you would need to plug in the drive each time you park, then unplug it when you get in and drive.


Thanks Malinda, for the reply. You are right, in that I do not want the recording to happen while I am driving. 
What you are recommending is painful. Won't I get the same effect when I start the recording when I start sentry mode and then turn it back on when I turn off Sentry mode?
Thanks


----------



## garsh

MelindaV said:


> If you don't want it to record while you drive, but have sentry work, you would need to plug in the drive each time you park, then unplug it when you get in and drive.


@aash73, alternately you can manually turn off recording every time you start driving.

But honestly, whether or not you record the videos to a flash drive, the car itself is saving some frames from all of the cameras in internal memory. If the car is in an accident, those frames remain in memory and Tesla can access them. Realizing this, it's probably not worth worrying about - your Tesla is always watching.

Tesla cars keep more data than you think, including this video of a crash that totaled a Model 3


----------



## 350VDC

Even with the latest version I still have the problem that with Sentry mode ON, If I pre-cool the car, the pre-cooling will set the alarm off. It is Hot in Texas so the fan is blowing at high speed and the alarm is triggered.
This is not a very useful feature. Does anyone else see this problem?


----------



## MelindaV

350VDC said:


> Even with the latest version I still have the problem that with Sentry mode ON, If I pre-cool the car, the pre-cooling will set the alarm off. It is Hot in Texas so the fan is blowing at high speed and the alarm is triggered.
> This is not a very useful feature. Does anyone else see this problem?


I've never had that happen


----------



## aash73

aash73 said:


> Thanks Malinda, for the reply. You are right, in that I do not want the recording to happen while I am driving.
> What you are recommending is painful. Won't I get the same effect when I start the recording when I start sentry mode and then turn it back on when I turn off Sentry mode?
> Thanks


Thanks for the reply. That's what I am planning on doing then. That is, turning on the recording when I turn on the sentry mode and turn the recording off when I get back in the car and turn of sentry mode.


----------



## aash73

350VDC said:


> Even with the latest version I still have the problem that with Sentry mode ON, If I pre-cool the car, the pre-cooling will set the alarm off. It is Hot in Texas so the fan is blowing at high speed and the alarm is triggered.
> This is not a very useful feature. Does anyone else see this problem?


Hmmm. I have never seen this happen.


----------



## bwilson4web

About 4 AM Saturday morning, a car stopped on the street in front of our house. I was up early getting a cup of coffee but soon as they saw my outline in the kitchen light, they scampered off. There have been reports of car break-ins because so many igiots store pistols in their cars. Breaking into cars has become a pick-your-own, gun store.

Sunday afternoon, I got home and enabled sentry mode. A short term fix, I'll eventually work up a motion activated camera. In the meanwhile, here is the car charging activity after enabling sentry:








The earlier activity is associated with the car communicating with Tesla.

Bob Wilson


----------



## garsh

Sentry Mode false alarm due to a noisy truck driving by in a parking garage.


----------



## scamp333

Can anyone tell me why I am getting so many (about 40 to 50) sentry clips when no one is even close to the car? Here are the back, front, l&r sides of 4 of the clips. Can anyone tell me what extension I have to use to attach the videos.


----------



## MelindaV

scamp333 said:


> Can anyone tell me why I am getting so many (about 40 to 50) sentry clips when no one is even close to the car? Here are the back, front, l&r sides of 4 of the clips. Can anyone tell me what extension I have to use to attach the videos.


videos need to be hosted somewhere (like youtube). you can not attach a video directly here.


----------



## JWardell

scamp333 said:


> Can anyone tell me why I am getting so many (about 40 to 50) sentry clips when no one is even close to the car? Here are the back, front, l&r sides of 4 of the clips. Can anyone tell me what extension I have to use to attach the videos.


Watch the clips, if there is something in front of the car like a wall or bumper where you can see your headlights, then look for the lights flashing to show what triggered it. Usually in the last minute of each video directory.


----------



## garsh

scamp333 said:


> Can anyone tell me why I am getting so many (about 40 to 50) sentry clips when no one is even close to the car? Here are the back, front, l&r sides of 4 of the clips. Can anyone tell me what extension I have to use to attach the videos.


I posted an answer to your question in the other thread where you asked.



garsh said:


> It's also triggered by loud noises - things like fighter jets flying overhead, or loud trucks driving by.


----------



## scamp333

JWardell said:


> Watch the clips, if there is something in front of the car like a wall or bumper where you can see your headlights, then look for the lights flashing to show what triggered it. Usually in the last minute of each video directory.


I watched 2 of the clips and never saw the headlights come on. There was a wall about 20 yards in front of the car. Dash cam clips of me driving down the road show up in the file marked for Sentry clips. A file marked for saved clips has about 30 to 40 clips from the 4 cameras. I have only pushed the save button one time. I have erased all the files and am going to start over and see what happens.


----------



## garsh

scamp333 said:


> I watched 2 of the clips and never saw the headlights come on.


The headlights come on every time a recording is made. But it may be hard to notice in daylight.

IIRC, each timestamped directory contains 40 files total, consisting of 10 1-minute long clips from each of four cameras. As @JWardell said, the "event" that caused sentry mode to alert and save the clips is usually found within the last 2 clips, so make sure you're looking at the clips with the latest timestamp within a directory. Don't forget to check the side camera recordings as well, since the cause may not appear on the front camera.


----------



## MelindaV

garsh said:


> IIRC, each timestamped directory contains 40 files total, consisting of 10 1-minute long clips from each of four cameras.


unless directly after an earlier event, then it will go back to the minute following the prior set of videos. when there are multiple triggers close together, some folders could have just a few minutes (or 1 minute) instead of 10 minutes.


----------



## Long Ranger

scamp333 said:


> Dash cam clips of me driving down the road show up in the file marked for Sentry clips


That's normal. Let's say you're driving, park, enable Sentry, and then someone walks close to your car 5 minutes later. The car is going to save 10 minutes worth of clips. About 8 minutes of past clips that it already recorded, a 1 minute clip that includes the event, and then typically a 1 minute clip beyond the event. You'll have clips showing about 4 minutes of driving, 5 minutes of parking and the event, and then a 1 minute clip of whatever happened after the event.


----------



## JWardell

Yes, manually it's easiest to just watch the last two clips in each directory.
If you use a site like https://sentrycam.appspot.com then you can just click the Jump to Event button


----------



## EarlyBuyer

My car has been parked regularly in the same space within a private parking garage for more than a year with nothing remotely close to this before. Within a 14 hour period the car logged 770 sentry mode occurrences. Perhaps an all-night Cirque du Soleil performance was taking place behind the car? Has anyone else seen numbers like these?


----------



## gary in NY

....and you have to watch every single one of them......


----------



## garsh

I think you beat @MelindaV's record.


----------



## John

My new routine: walk around the car, look for giant dents and gashes, see none, ignore that number.


----------



## Nate Crawford

Coming back from vacation, left at home. I think the flicker from LED retrofit garage ceiling lights led to a weird state. After a few days of normal, it started triggering every minute until the USB stick filled. Then kept going.

I did not watch all of them.


----------



## EarlyBuyer

That's an insanely high number @Nate Crawford , incredible! The garage I park in also has retrofitted LED lights. Bingo.


----------



## potatoee

gary in NY said:


> ....and you have to watch every single one of them......


This brings up my big pet peeve with Sentry. I do wish Sentry would say *why* it got triggered, e.g. attempted entry, I saw a beautiful woman walking by, motion sensor, etc. It's just way too random for me and I wish I had a clue as to what might have happened. At the end of the day, I too walk around the car when I see the alerts. No damage seen, I ignore the warnings as well.

Perhaps I should get a dog to watch the recordings. Just to be sure. Seems like a good solution to me. I'll have to suggest it to my wife.


----------



## scamp333

Has anyone had sentry mode work correctly? When I look at my sentry mode videos there are about 50 or 60 entries that show nobody or anything near the car in any of the 4 cameras. Has anyone had the same problem, or is that just the way it is?


----------



## garsh

scamp333 said:


> Has anyone had sentry mode work correctly? When I look at my sentry mode videos there are about 50 or 60 entries that show nobody or anything near the car in any of the 4 cameras. Has anyone had the same problem, or is that just the way it is?


See if this helps explain things:


garsh said:


> IIRC, each timestamped directory contains 40 files total, consisting of 10 1-minute long clips from each of four cameras. As @JWardell said, the "event" that caused sentry mode to alert and save the clips is usually found within the last 2 clips, so make sure you're looking at the clips with the latest timestamp within a directory. Don't forget to check the side camera recordings as well, since the cause may not appear on the front camera.


So the "event" that caused those 40 files to be saved will probably only appear in one or two of the files. And usually it's just a car driving by, or a person driving by.

Eventually, it's hoped that Tesla will add a way to indicate exactly which file contains the event that triggered the saving of the files.


----------



## MelindaV

garsh said:


> And usually it's just a car driving by, or a person driving by.


isnt that pretty much the same thing (at least until 'feature complete' happens)


garsh said:


> Eventually, it's hoped that Tesla will add a way to indicate exactly which file contains the event that triggered the saving of the files.


mine always seem to be the 2nd video set from the end. So if there are 10 sets (40 total), the trigger will be in the 9th set.

My car is parked facing a wall with a ton of foot traffic, and I watch the front camera (2nd from the last) for when the lights flash - then note that timestamp and look at the other cameras.


----------



## gary in NY

I recently had someone/thing hit my car. There is a gash right in front of the driver side bumper cover about mid-way in hight. I thought it might be from a HD lumber cart, but it's a bit higher that that. Anyway, I had sentry on manual, and apparently did not turn it on when this incident occurred. (My brilliant deduction after watching endless video of parking lot intervehiclular activities)

Here's my question: I turned Sentry Mode on, except when at home or work, but it will not turn off at home. I did not drive for two days, and lost 50 miles of range while in the garage (with 2 incidents recorded - must have been mice). So what's the deal with this? Nikki knows where home is, so why didn't she turn off sentry mode? We are back on manual for now.

Now the fun start with my insurance and the bodywork repair... Checking with Tesla on Monday.


----------



## garsh

gary in NY said:


> Here's my question: I turned Sentry Mode on, except when at home or work, but it will not turn off at home. I did not drive for two days, and lost 50 miles of range while in the garage (with 2 incidents recorded - must have been mice). So what's the deal with this?


I don't know. It works for me.


> We are back on manual for now.


Alternately, you could leave Sentry Mode on, and then manually turn it off when you get home.


----------



## Mike

gary in NY said:


> I recently had someone/thing hit my car. There is a gash right in front of the driver side bumper cover about mid-way in hight. I thought it might be from a HD lumber cart, but it's a bit higher that that. Anyway, I had sentry on manual, and apparently did not turn it on when this incident occurred. (My brilliant deduction after watching endless video of parking lot intervehiclular activities)
> 
> Here's my question: I turned Sentry Mode on, except when at home or work, but it will not turn off at home. I did not drive for two days, and lost 50 miles of range while in the garage (with 2 incidents recorded - must have been mice). So what's the deal with this? Nikki knows where home is, so why didn't she turn off sentry mode? We are back on manual for now.
> 
> Now the fun start with my insurance and the bodywork repair... Checking with Tesla on Monday.


Did you try the two scroll wheel reboot as well as the full power down reboot?

Who knows, maybe worth a try.


----------



## Dan Burnett

Parked my car on the street last night, not taking particular notice of the leafy bush right beside the car....
I woke up about 1:30am, and while contemplating life, saw 2 light flashes from the car over a 10 minute time period. Found a full flash drive this morning.
Any little breeze that moved leaves on the tree activated Sentry.


----------



## JWardell

This week I bought a Roadie which is a ready-to-go little computer that you plug in instead of a USB stick to record all of your Sentry and DashCam video, then can easily watch, manage, and download from a phone app. It's similar to the DIY TeslaUSB though that doesn't work with a phone app and I never wanted to put in all the effort of setting that up Roadie was up and running in a minute. Check out my review:


----------



## batzman

JWardell said:


> This week I bought a Roadie which is a ready-to-go little computer that you plug in instead of a USB stick to record all of your Sentry and DashCam video, then can easily watch, manage, and download from a phone app. It's similar to the DIY TeslaUSB though that doesn't work with a phone app and I never wanted to put in all the effort of setting that up Roadie was up and running in a minute. Check out my review:


Love mine! Purchased another for the wife's car! It's a no brainer.


----------



## WonkoTheSane

JWardell said:


> This week I bought a Roadie which is a ready-to-go little computer that you plug in instead of a USB stick to record all of your Sentry and DashCam video, then can easily watch, manage, and download from a phone app. It's similar to the DIY TeslaUSB though that doesn't work with a phone app and I never wanted to put in all the effort of setting that up Roadie was up and running in a minute. Check out my review:


Can I just drop a bigger memory card into it? I assume Tesla still manages the deletion of old files to clear up space.


----------



## JWardell

WonkoTheSane said:


> Can I just drop a bigger memory card into it? I assume Tesla still manages the deletion of old files to clear up space.


No...the operating system resides on that card too, it is essentially the PC's hard drive.

Roadie commented on my video to say that they are keeping many more "recent" videos (ignoring the car's commands to delete them) so it operates more like a regular dash cam and might have video that you forgot to hit the camera save button for. [No documentation of this] I think it's causing sentry videos to get deleted though so I need to spend a few more days with it. The slow wifi transfer is a big damper on things though.


----------



## JMON

JWardell said:


> This week I bought a Roadie which is a ready-to-go little computer that you plug in instead of a USB stick to record all of your Sentry and DashCam video, then can easily watch, manage, and download from a phone app. It's similar to the DIY TeslaUSB though that doesn't work with a phone app and I never wanted to put in all the effort of setting that up Roadie was up and running in a minute. Check out my review:


Looks pretty slick !


----------



## cjmegatron81

This might be a dumb question, but how do you turn off Sentry Mode after it has been triggered?

I left my dad in my M3 with Sentry Mode on and I walked away from the car. Something he did triggered Sentry Mode. I tried to turn it off but it wasn't as simple as just hitting a button as far as I could tell. 

I don't remember what I did but it eventually turned off. I was sitting in the car for a few minutes scrambling to try to figure it out.


----------



## Dan Burnett

Ever since the first review of this on this site, their web site shows them out of stock, and no way to go on a wait list. If the manufacture reviews this, perhaps allow us to place a back order and give a time estimate for delivery?
It seems a waste of time having to continually go back to the web site and see if they available.


----------



## Ev's EV

Dan Burnett said:


> Ever since the first review of this on this site, their web site shows them out of stock, and no way to go on a wait list. If the manufacture reviews this, perhaps allow us to place a back order and give a time estimate for delivery?
> It seems a waste of time having to continually go back to the web site and see if they available.


Check it out now!


----------



## Frully

Clarify - By sentry mode do you mean the car alarm?

Activating sentry causes it to start recording, and flash the headlights.
Physically disturbing the car causes the alarm to go off, with lights, horn and full volume music.

To turn off the alarm I believe you can use the 'unlock' button in the app.


----------



## cjmegatron81

I meant alarm. Thanks.


----------



## SoFlaModel3

cjmegatron81 said:


> I meant alarm. Thanks.


Unlocking the doors should do it, no?


----------



## NJturtlePower

Looks useful to me...


----------



## harrison987

Hey everyone...

Since upgrading to Hardware 3, my dashcam will only work in Sentry mode. My USB stick is fairly new...but I got the warning that I needed to upgrade my USB to one that records at 4MB/sec (or something along those lines)...in order to record while driving. My USB records MUCH faster than that...so not sure what the issue is.

The moment I put the car into drive, the camera/Hal icon disappears from the screen. When I put in park...it comes back on.

Anyone else experience this? Maybe I should format the card again?


----------



## garsh

harrison987 said:


> I got the warning that I needed to upgrade my USB to one that records at 4MB/sec (or something along those lines)...in order to record while driving. My USB records MUCH faster than that...so not sure what the issue is.


The issue is that it can only record at those speeds for short bursts - not over an extended period of time.

I strongly suggest that you replace it with a MicroSD card made for dashcam usage & one of the recommended MicroSD USB readers. Or go even higher-end and get an SSD.


----------



## GDN

harrison987 said:


> Hey everyone...
> 
> Since upgrading to Hardware 3, my dashcam will only work in Sentry mode. My USB stick is fairly new...but I got the warning that I needed to upgrade my USB to one that records at 4MB/sec (or something along those lines)...in order to record while driving. My USB records MUCH faster than that...so not sure what the issue is.
> 
> The moment I put the car into drive, the camera/Hal icon disappears from the screen. When I put in park...it comes back on.
> 
> Anyone else experience this? Maybe I should format the card again?


This sounds like normal operation. The HAL icon/sentry mode is only on when parked and you have Sentry mode set. That icon does not stay on while driving. That recording is automatic an dhappens whether you have Sentry on or not.


----------



## Klaus-rf

My car has Sentry Mode set to Off (slider) and Valet Mode off also. Yet it still is filling my USB drive collecting videos of my garage. Which I do not need. Deleted 100 directories of saved garage videos yesterday. Grrr...

How do I make it to stop doing this??


----------



## BluestarE3

Klaus-rf said:


> My car has Sentry Mode set to Off (slider) and Valet Mode off also. Yet it still is filling my USB drive collecting videos of my garage. Which I do not need. Deleted 100 directories of saved garage videos yesterday. Grrr...
> 
> How do I make it to stop doing this??


Which folder were these videos saved in?


----------



## Klaus-rf

BluestarE3 said:


> Which folder were these videos saved in?


 IIRC (that was yesterday - a long time ago) they were in the same directory as all the captured file directories taken manually while driving - TeslaCam. All in date/time stamp subdirectories.


----------



## garsh

Klaus-rf said:


> IIRC (that was yesterday - a long time ago) they were in the same directory as all the captured file directories taken manually while driving - TeslaCam. All in date/time stamp subdirectories.


The original versions of the feature had dated subfolders directly in the TeslaCam directory. But all current versions have three subfolders within TeslaCam, and the timestamped subdirectories appear within one of these subfolders:

RecentClips - The last 1 hour of clips go here.
SavedClips - Clips saved in response to pressing the sentry icon or honking the horn go here.
SentryClips - Clips saved due to sentry mode being activated go here.
Are you sure they're not in one of these subdirectories?
What version of software does your car currently have?


----------



## Ev's EV

Klaus-rf said:


> My car has Sentry Mode set to Off (slider) and Valet Mode off also. Yet it still is filling my USB drive collecting videos of my garage. Which I do not need. Deleted 100 directories of saved garage videos yesterday. Grrr...
> 
> How do I make it to stop doing this??


Set your garage to home in your GPS, then you can select to not have sentry mode on at home. Or set the garage to work, and you can do the same.


----------



## JasonF

Ev's EV said:


> Set your garage to home in your GPS, then you can select to not have sentry mode on at home. Or set the garage to work, and you can do the same.


That feature has never worked for me. I have Home set properly in GPS (and Homelink works with it, because it offers me the garage opener when I get close) and the "except for home" option checked next to the Sentry Mode toggle, but it still stays activated in the garage. I just got used to turning sentry mode on manually when I need it.


----------



## Klaus-rf

Thanks for the above comments. I will check for those listed subdirectories next time I pull the SSD. I do recall a RecentClips and SavedClips directories, but don;t recall a SenrtyCLips folder (but my memory isn't the best).

In any case should any of the above even apply when Sentry is set to OFF??

Current FW ver is 2020.12.5.


----------



## SR22pilot

JasonF said:


> That feature has never worked for me. I have Home set properly in GPS (and Homelink works with it, because it offers me the garage opener when I get close) and the "except for home" option checked next to the Sentry Mode toggle, but it still stays activated in the garage. I just got used to turning sentry mode on manually when I need it.


It works perfectly for me. Be sure to distinguish between Sentry and Dashcam. The camera will start recording when you get into the car and it turns on ready to go somewhere. However, in my garage, the Sentry icon doesn't light up in the center. I can still get some Dashcam video at the end of a drive but it will stop once parked and the car powers down.


----------



## garsh

Klaus-rf said:


> In any case should any of the above even apply when Sentry is set to OFF??


Yes, all but the SentryClips folder will continue to receive clips.


----------



## BluestarE3

Klaus-rf said:


> Thanks for the above comments. I will check for those listed subdirectories next time I pull the SSD. I do recall a RecentClips and SavedClips directories, but don;t recall a SenrtyCLips folder (but my memory isn't the best).
> 
> In any case should any of the above even apply when Sentry is set to OFF??
> 
> Current FW ver is 2020.12.5.


The SentryClips folder came later. If those extraneous clips you're referring to are not in the SentryClips folder, then it's not Sentry Mode that had created them and the Sentry Mode ON/OFF setting is irrelevant in this regard.

By any chance, do you keep your phone near your garage or go in and out of your garage frequently with your phone on you?


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## Klaus-rf

BluestarE3 said:


> By any chance, do you keep your phone near your garage or go in and out of your garage frequently with your phone on you?


 My phone is not "usually" near the car - the car is in the far end of an ~40 foot wide garage from the entry door to the house (attached garage).

As a general rule the only time I go near the car (within 15 feet) with my phone is when I'm installing/removing the charging cable or entering/leaving the car - usually when taking it out into the world.


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## JasonF

SR22pilot said:


> It works perfectly for me. Be sure to distinguish between Sentry and Dashcam. The camera will start recording when you get into the car and it turns on ready to go somewhere. However, in my garage, the Sentry icon doesn't light up in the center. I can still get some Dashcam video at the end of a drive but it will stop once parked and the car powers down.


I meant I'll walk past the car in the garage, and it will flash its lights at me. So it's full Sentry Mode.


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## Resist

I'm so tired of my headlights flashing with Sentry Mode every single time someone walks near my car. There are places I park that the flashing just causes unnecessary attention to the car, where people would have just kept walking away but once flashed now they go over to take a look at the car. Elon said a while ago that we'd get an option to turn off the headlights flashing in Sentry Mode...so where is it?


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## r-e-l

Resist said:


> I'm so tired of my headlights flashing with Sentry Mode every single time someone walks near my car. There are places I park that the flashing just causes unnecessary attention to the car, where people would have just kept walking away but once flashed now they go over to take a look at the car. Elon said a while ago that we'd get an option to turn off the headlights flashing in Sentry Mode...so where is it?


anyone doing a tally comparing what Elon said vs what he delivered will be sorely disappointed.

the version 11, that was supposed to come end of last year ... might have it. They are not really doing much other than their next big version.


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## Resist

r-e-l said:


> anyone doing a tally comparing what Elon said vs what he delivered will be sorely disappointed.


No kidding! But this is something that really is needed for Sentry Mode. Tesla's get enough attention and we don't need it when it's parked and we aren't around. I'm hoping we can get a Sentry notification on our phones and the ability to see live camera footage, to know what's going on. And I'm really hoping for a camera resolution upgrade. A 1080P camera is very inexpensive now and all the cameras in a Tesla should have them. Yes, I know the computers don't need that resolution but Tesla had to know the cameras would end up being used for other software upgraded features too.


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