# how many people forego sentry?



## lance.bailey

I can't help myself. Whenever I see another Tesla parked near me, I cannot help but do a sideways jig along the car to leave an easter egg for sentry cam. Now that Tesla's in the BC lower mainland are more prevalent than rain, I've noticed that rarely do they have sentry cam on.

are people not buying sentry cam (can't remember which option includes sentry cam)
are people not arming sentry cam? 

one of the reasons I bought Tesla was added software functionality and when sentry cam arrived I was instantly on it. My friend however just can't seem to get around to buying a USB stick for it so it is never armed. Another friend didn't bother getting it. Both of those people park at home out in the drive, exactly where I would want sentry.

I don't get it.


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## garsh

I bet the majority of people don't even know that their Tesla has such a feature.


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## lance.bailey

majority of people in general or majority of Tesla owner people?


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## JasonF

I live in one of those strange areas where people regularly parked their car outside with the doors unlocked overnight, even though the HOA and Ring Community have been warning for ages that there are thieves who walk around and tug on doorhandles overnight. There are also people who leave packages on their porch not just until they get home for the day, but for _several days_. Even with that Ring Doorbell, sooner or later someone will take the chance.

There are 7 Teslas in this neighborhood. As I posted in a thread before, I'm one of only two of them that charge at home _at all_. And the other charger-at-home only plugs in once a week. The others drive to a Supercharger or a 3rd party charger to top up. One of them is particularly funny, because they own a Model S and an X, and charge neither one at home - they're just parked in the driveway, in front of a 3-car garage.

I know where some of them charge for certain because I stopped to talk to them, and they asked me where I charge the car. I told them in the garage. Two of them were interested in that prospect, as they'd never heard of that before. The other two I talked to said it wasn't worth the trouble and they would keep using Superchargers.

So when you say that people aren't using Sentry Mode, I can totally believe it.


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## garsh

lance.bailey said:


> majority of people in general or majority of Tesla owner people?


The latter. There are very few of us Tesla owners who treat this as anything more than "just another car". Tesla ownership is starting to become more mainstream.



JasonF said:


> ...they asked me where I charge the car. I told them in the garage. Two of them were interested in that prospect, *as they'd never heard of that before.*


Exactly (emphasis mine).
Think about that for a minute.
What kind of people would buy an electric car, and then continue to think that they must regularly go to a filling station of some sort to "fill it up" when it gets low?

I mean, it's great that EVs are becoming more mainstream, but it's also sad that there are people who don't even understand that their usual car-driving habits can change for the better.


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## lance.bailey

well on our street of 15 houses, only 5 park inside. some have vehicles that are too tall/wide/long/butch to fit in the garage and some just have too much stuff in the garage. Two have fully decked out home gyms with weights and medeival machines. the other tesla on the street pokes the cable under the garage door to charge, but at least they charge.

but for people to not even think about home charging? sweet lord of mercy - my home charge costs only a slice of SC rates. why would I do that? I'd rather plug and forget overnight. Outside of the plug install, it's pretty much free compared to petrol and pretty much pennies compared to SC rates.


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## lance.bailey

garsh said:


> What kind of people would buy an electric car, and then continue to think that they must regularly go to a filling station of some sort to "fill it up" when it gets low?
> 
> I mean, it's great that EVs are becoming more mainstream, but it's also sad that there are people who don't even understand that their usual car-driving habits can change for the better.


we need a "GAK!" emoticon.


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## FRC

lance.bailey said:


> Outside of the plug install, it's pretty much free


I'd venture a guess that nearly 90% of owners don't even need a plug install. A regular 110 outlet will serve for the vast majority.

Now, back on point; I never use sentry mode because of the excessive power draw. And I park in the garage at home, and don't spend much time in crowded parking lots. I know about sentry, I'm all set up for sentry, I have used sentry in the past, I just don't need sentry(I have $0 deductible comprehensive for any non-moving incidents).


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## SoFlaModel3

I agree with @garsh, I bet most people don't even realize the feature exists. Frankly it points to a major weakness with Tesla, the delivery experience, and what is covered. I know my father in law who just took delivery had no clue about Sentry Mode until I enabled it for him and showed him how to use it.

Additionally, throw into the mix people who know about it but choose not to use it ... probably people who don't have access to home charging. Those same people probably don't use cabin overheat protection.


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## Needsdecaf

FRC said:


> I'd venture a guess that nearly 90% of owners don't even need a plug install. A regular 110 outlet will serve for the vast majority.
> 
> Now, back on point; I never use sentry mode because of the excessive power draw. And I park in the garage at home, and don't spend much time in crowded parking lots. I know about sentry, I'm all set up for sentry, I have used sentry in the past, I just don't need sentry(I have $0 deductible comprehensive for any non-moving incidents).


My situation exactly.

I park in garage at home, and at work I park in an open lot well away from other vehicles, and also in sight of my office window. When I'm out running around I often forget to turn it on. Wish we could have "sentry on except at" exclusions like we do for walk away lock. That would be nice.


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## SoFlaModel3

Needsdecaf said:


> Wish we could have "sentry on except at" exclusions like we do for walk away lock. That would be nice.


They do have this


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## Needsdecaf

SoFlaModel3 said:


> They do have this
> 
> View attachment 37948


Dope! Missed when that got added. Hahah.


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## NR4P

I am very confident that most Tesla drivers don't use Sentry. They don't know about the need to plug in a USB drive. I asked some S and X owners at Supermarket not too long ago and they said they didn't really understand it. My Bro In Law didn't use it on his S as no one explained it to him.

Just last week I chatted with two new Y and 3 owners at a SuperCharger. The touchless delivery service is terrible. Yeah I get the reason for it but almost nothing is explained at delivery. In fact, both owners needed me to show them how to use keycards. They had the cards but no one told them how use them!


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## Klaus-rf

When Sentry Mode first same available (whatever software update that was), I played (experimented?) with it a wee bit. Left it on in my garafge with no door or foot frraffic overnight (~10 hours). It captured 8+ hours of my mothionless garage and compressor (turned off at the time) via the front-facing camera and sucked 72 miles of range from the battery (before I changed to percent display).

Have never used it since.


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## lance.bailey

I used to keep it on at all times, even in the garage (got to delay watch myself take out the garbage - wild times indeed) but it only recorded when I wandered into the garage.

as soon as the "not at these locations" option came along i turned off sentry for home by default and only turn it on when I have to park in the driveway.

but I never saw a drain like that. You might want to try it again.


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## Bigriver

I only use sentry when away from home. It is a bit of an energy drain (6%/24 hours for several days recently while my model 3 was unused and sitting outside) but is worth the peace of mind.

I know there is no IQ test before you buy a Tesla, but I had thought that Tesla owners tended towards the more inquisitive type. I'll probably lay awake tonight wondering how someone wouldn't know about sentry mode or home charging options.....or I might have nightmares of @lance.bailey dancing jigs or his neighbors' gyms....😀 Sometimes a thread contains more thought-provoking chatter than you expected.


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## FRC

NR4P said:


> The touchless delivery service is terrible.


Hate to say it, but pre-touchless delivery wasn't much different.


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## SoFlaModel3

Klaus-rf said:


> When Sentry Mode first same available (whatever software update that was), I played (experimented?) with it a wee bit. Left it on in my garafge with no door or foot frraffic overnight (~10 hours). It captured 8+ hours of my mothionless garage and compressor (turned off at the time) via the front-facing camera and sucked 72 miles of range from the battery (before I changed to percent display).
> 
> Have never used it since.


It is definitely worth trying again. The feature has improved greatly. It's cheap insurance at this point.


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## FRC

The annual increase in premium from reducing the comprehensive deductible to zero is approximately equal to the cost of a USB stick. And it covers all glass damage. I get a new windshield annually at a total premium cost of $30/year.


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## Nom

I know all about it. Never use it.


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## GDN

NR4P said:


> I am very confident that most Tesla drivers don't use Sentry. They don't know about the need to plug in a USB drive. I asked some S and X owners at Supermarket not too long ago and they said they didn't really understand it. My Bro In Law didn't use it on his S as no one explained it to him.
> 
> Just last week I chatted with two new Y and 3 owners at a SuperCharger. The touchless delivery service is terrible. Yeah I get the reason for it but almost nothing is explained at delivery. In fact, both owners needed me to show them how to use keycards. They had the cards but no one told them how use them!


Have S and X had access to Sentry before this upgrade that is coming in a few weeks? I'm not sure they have had the option until now. Maybe one of the MCU updates, but I was thinking they did not.


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## Bigriver

GDN said:


> Have S and X had access to Sentry before this upgrade that is coming in a few weeks? I'm not sure they have had the option until now. Maybe one of the MCU updates, but I was thinking they did not.


Yes, current model S/X's have sentry mode. I have it in my 2017 model X. I think it is there for all AP2.0 and beyond. I believe the OTA update was a bit after it came in the model 3, but it's been there for a long time now. It takes MCU2 or the infotainment upgrade to be able to review sentry mode or dash cam clips in the car.


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## slacker775

I could understand folks that don’t have home charging and are parked in an open parking lot (like an apartment complex) may begrudgingly disable Sentry due to the extra drain on the battery. When I park at the airport for a weeklong trip, I tend to need to disable sentry after a few days to ensure I’ll have enough juice to get home. Otherwise, it’s always in just in case there is any kind of incident when I’m out and about.

I still can’t believe that people would have bought not just one, but two or more EVs and not charge at home! They might as well just be pumping gas into the frunk and remove another advantage of the EV.


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## gary in NY

I didn't use Sentry regularly until one day there was a hole punched in my front bumper cover. #$(*#!!! Now it's on continually. I charge at home, and have it set to exclude "home", so I really don't worry about excess power drain (the Stats app keeps track of that btw).

Delivery seems to not have changed much since the early days of M3. It was probably the low point of my entire Tesla experience (which has generally been amazing otherwise). For example, the person handing off the car to me in a remote parking lot a mile away from the showroom was way more interested in my sister-in-law's MB then showing me anything about my car. This was in October 2018. Fortunately, I had watched every YouTube video every produced (thanks Trev & Ken, et al) and knew more about it than she did. Your experience may have been different (hopefully).

So I would not be at all surprised that many owners are ignorant of many of the features of these cars.

EDIT: As a side note, early last year (pre-pandemic) I volunteered at a Tesla test drive event at the Albany NY supercharger (Crossgates Mall) where Tesla had several cars from the Mt. Kisco NY showroom available for test drives. Three members of the TOCNYS (myself included) were there with our cars and answered questions and gave rides to interested people, some of whom were waiting for their turn to test drive a Tesla. I was able to talk to the Tesla employees between drives, and was very happy to hear that the Mt. Kisco delivery process had been completely revamped for the better. My delivery happened during the fourth quarter 2018 crush, for which they were understaffed and had limited physical space at the showroom for deliveries. They admitted that at that time, the delivery experience was not optimal.


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## SalisburySam

So there are 3 topics going on here:

1- charging at home
2- using Sentry
3- delivery experience

1- For me, my 2012 Nissan LEAF was the catalyst for EV ownership and from that vehicle I learned many things including the wonder of always driving with whatever amount of charge I wanted every time I left the house thanks to home charging. For me it is the unsung hero of EV ownership. Also, Nissan was pretty adamant about having L2 charging at home almost as a condition of purchase. We went with their recommended AeroVironment EVSE, which I have and use for both our LEAF and Model 3 to this day.

2- I have Sentry disabled at home where my Model 3 is usually in a garage charging. When outside and the LEAF is inside charging, and everywhere else, Sentry is on and recording to my SSD that also holds the music I like. I’ve not parked anywhere unattended for many days or weeks, so battery consumption over time is not an issue and likely will never be for me. Fortunately, I’ve only recorded lots of boring stuff and no threats, but I’ll keep Sentry going nonetheless.

3- Our delivery experience in July 2018 was amazing, totally stellar, and apparently uncharacteristic. We were there about an hour, getting introduced to a vehicle that appeared to have been just detailed, charged to 90%, and glistening in the delivery bay next to a gorgeous Model S 100D, also going through delivery with another agent. Our keycards were explained to us and had already been set up, most of the common driving options already selected, and both my wife and I were run through an almost overwhelming amount of detail on operating the vehicle and its features, including the various adapters for charging. During that time, we were shown how to and did set up each of our iPhones (7 for me, 1st gen SE for her, both still in use), and they were tested and working before we drove off. Far and away the best and most comprehensive delivery experience we’ve ever had with a close runner up being the LEAF delivery. In both cases, LEAF and Model 3, our delivery agent actually knew the vehicle and knew it well, and at the time we were only the 2nd LEAF delivery to our part of the country. I guess things have changed since.


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## PiperPaul

I agree with @Bigriver and @SalisburySam: This thread is an eye opener and covers at least 3 topics.

I'll add a fourth: 
I'm clearly a weirdo because I read, and continue to look things up in, the *Owner's Manual*. I regularly read the manual for any new device, and often get a shocked look if I mention that to anyone.
Of course if I hadn't read the Manual before the car was delivered to my house it would still be sitting on the street because there certainly was no "delivery experience" - touchless (whatever that is) or otherwise.

As for charging: 
Charging at home overnight (in the manner the Manual suggests) is a huge reason for buying an EV. Lots of hours and $ saved. The one SuperCharger available to me is about 150 Km. away so doesn't rate a second thought.

Oh! Sentry mode (for @lance.bailey):
I do know it's there. Turned it on once for a minute to see it give me the HAL eyeball and that was that. If I ever start driving somewhere where I thought it might be useful I'll dig out a USB drive (or whatever the Manual says) and see what I get.

*Disclosure*: The world I live in here is quite different from most posts I read. Most people that I encounter that ask me about the car haven't heard the name Tesla. But if you ever drop your trailer in the ditch, there will be an army assembled in 5 minutes to bodily lift it out, wipe it off, and re-connect it for you.


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## lance.bailey

ah yes, the friendliness of the maritimes is legendary.


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## PiperPaul

lance.bailey said:


> ah yes, the friendliness of the maritimes is legendary.


Indeed Sir. And that was a personal true story.


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