Anyone else leave Sentry Mode on 24/7?

[Marks321]

To me, this does not add up.

My lifetime average is 276 Wh/mile on 65K miles LR AWD 2018 M3 (19 month old), which while driving, actively have all cameras (essentially Sentry mode), radar/sonar sensors, and 2 motors, plus HVAC etc running.

How does it translate that active Sentry on a M3 in standstill consumes 300W, vs 276W on an M3 driving with all system go?

Ahh I see where you are coming from,
Per hour vs per mile
Power used per hour sitting parked with sentry enabled is a metric I want to learn more about. Ordered my long range awd Model 3 for my 190 mile round trip commute to NYC Monday to Friday. Wondering how many miles of range it will “cost” in terms of range lost for the 8 hours I’m parked in the city.
If it’s 2.4kWh or 10 miles may be worth it hmm ...

 

[The_Observer]

I wouldn't worry about battery usage from using sentry mode. I use sentry whenever possible, except for driving and at home (I park inside a garage that's watched by a camera).

When in doubt, use sentry mode, better to be safe than sorry.

 

[camalaio]

I have the M3P (not that it makes a difference), it’s still a 75kWh battery. Yes sentry mode works fine. I get the alerts and video when I return to the car. In the early days of sentry mode, it did drain the battery faster, maybe 5% a day. Not surprisingly, they must have improved the power draw in the form of a SW update later on.

It really shouldn’t take more than 30W to power all the cams, the SW and the storage. I have PoE cams that only pull about 3.5W and they each do motion detection, networking and store video on SD Cards (and stream video to an NVR). I don’t expect Tesla’s Cams to be so efficient as that isn’t what the system was originally designed for, but 300W is far more than needed.

Sounds like others (in this thread) also pull less than 100W.

I don't know what to say, really. To me, it actually would be surprising to improve with an update. The components I mentioned earlier all need to run. AP computer for cameras. MCU for USB and screen. Coolant pumps to cool those two. These are all necessary for Sentry and can't be shut off. The most savings would be power optimisation for the AP computer (not something I'm certain they can do) or reduce the pump power (which might be risky). I agree it shouldn't require that much power, absolutely! But the system was never designed for this use-case, so it's far from optimal.

Outside this thread, way way more people report 250W-350W. This is the only time I've heard less for Sentry.

To me, this does not add up.

My lifetime average is 276 Wh/mile on 65K miles LR AWD 2018 M3 (19 month old), which while driving, actively have all cameras (essentially Sentry mode), radar/sonar sensors, and 2 motors, plus HVAC etc running.

How does it translate that active Sentry on a M3 in standstill consumes 300W, vs 276W on an M3 driving with all system go?

Wh/mi and W are not the same. Wh/mi is equivalent to W divided by speed (mi/h).

• Watts (W): A measure of power. More power is more energy per second. Higher watts means heating water in a kettle faster, for example.
• Watt-hours (Wh): A measure of energy. Heating water takes the same number of Watt-hours no matter how many watts, because a certain amount of energy is needed to heat it (the time changes, though). This is what your electricity bill uses (actually, kWh, 1000x bigger unit).
• Watt-hours per mile or kilometre (Wh/mi or Wh/km): Energy used to go a certain distance.

For example, it might take 15kW (15,000W) to go 60mph on flat, level ground. This would be 250Wh/mi (15,000 / 60). While idle but in Drive, Model 3 will use around 500W as well (for very similar reasons as to why Sentry uses about 300W).

So it does actually use a lot more power while driving! You can't get a Wh/mi number for Sentry, because it's not traveling any miles. And where the trip meter does count kWh consumed, it only counts that while not parked, so it never counts Sentry usage.

 

[RoBoRaT]

I don't know what to say, really. To me, it actually would be surprising to improve with an update. The components I mentioned earlier all need to run. AP computer for cameras. MCU for USB and screen. Coolant pumps to cool those two. These are all necessary for Sentry and can't be shut off. The most savings would be power optimisation for the AP computer (not something I'm certain they can do) or reduce the pump power (which might be risky). I agree it shouldn't require that much power, absolutely! But the system was never designed for this use-case, so it's far from optimal.

Outside this thread, way way more people report 250W-350W. This is the only time I've heard less for Sentry.



Wh/mi and W are not the same. Wh/mi is equivalent to W divided by speed (mi/h).

• Watts (W): A measure of power. More power is more energy per second. Higher watts means heating water in a kettle faster, for example.
• Watt-hours (Wh): A measure of energy. Heating water takes the same number of Watt-hours no matter how many watts, because a certain amount of energy is needed to heat it (the time changes, though). This is what your electricity bill uses (actually, kWh, 1000x bigger unit).
• Watt-hours per mile or kilometre (Wh/mi or Wh/km): Energy used to go a certain distance.

For example, it might take 15kW (15,000W) to go 60mph on flat, level ground. This would be 250Wh/mi (15,000 / 60). While idle but in Drive, Model 3 will use around 500W as well (for very similar reasons as to why Sentry uses about 300W).

So it does actually use a lot more power while driving! You can't get a Wh/mi number for Sentry, because it's not traveling any miles. And where the trip meter does count kWh consumed, it only counts that while not parked, so it never counts Sentry usage.

Thanks for the explanation.

I see it now. It takes 15000 W to power the car driving vs only 300 W while sitting with Sentry active.

 

[Nikola3327]

I don't know what to say, really. To me, it actually would be surprising to improve with an update. The components I mentioned earlier all need to run. AP computer for cameras. MCU for USB and screen. Coolant pumps to cool those two. These are all necessary for Sentry and can't be shut off. The most savings would be power optimisation for the AP computer (not something I'm certain they can do) or reduce the pump power (which might be risky). I agree it shouldn't require that much power, absolutely! But the system was never designed for this use-case, so it's far from optimal.

Software improvements can make significant improvements to resources needed in any system (CPU cycles, memory, etc). Admittedly, I don't know much about the system architecture on Teslas so forgive my ignorance, but are you assuming that all those things run at full power draw? I wouldn't think they'd need but a tiny fraction of computing power to run Sentry. With such a low current draw (read: low heat), I'd like to think they're smart enough to find a way to do it without running the cooling pumps (i.e. heat sink)...but oh well.

Outside this thread, way way more people report 250W-350W. This is the only time I've heard less for Sentry.

I wonder how many of those folks are conflating the Cabin overheat protection with this. That does draw a significant amount of current. With that AND sentry mode, when parked out in the Sun here in the South, my draw does go up to about 10% day (which is roughly just over 300W/h).

 

[Mattopotamus]

I leave it on outside of when it is home where it is garaged.

 

[zhu-]

They come from many ways that corroborate each other. Here's a simple way to tell without any other hardware or software:

• Plug in your car with the UMC. Wait until charge is done. The screen should indicate it's not internally connected and charging by displaying something like "0/32A" and 1-3V. The low voltage is especially indicative that the onboard charger is not active, and is our first evidence that being plugged in does not necessarily mean it is charging or having power provided from the wall.
• Stand by the UMC and turn on Sentry Mode. If this causes it to start charging, you'll hear a click from the UMC. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. In my experience, most times it won't. If you stay there for a while, it will eventually click and start charging (and at this point, you should be able to see that on the app as well probably) because the SoC has dropped enough that it will top up the charge. It will eventually click off again as well.
• Turn on the climate control to a setting that will draw a lot of power (very cold or very hot). You should definitely hear it click now, because it will activate the charger in this case.

Other ways you can monitor this (and far more accurately):

• Power monitoring device like a Kill A Watt. When it's only drawing a few watts, the car isn't actually using it (this is just the "sleep" power of the UMC itself).
• Monitoring powers via CAN bus, with apps like ScanMyTesla.

It sounds like there's a wattage threshold before the outlet kicks in but once it's on it stays on in my experience. I have a third party charger and even when it's fully at 90% and with Sentry on it's LED still indicates it's "charging" the vehicle.

 

[SoCalGuy]

In my experience, I lose between 17-23 miles of rated range per day on Sentry mode for my LR AWD. If the rated range is based on the ideal 225 wh/mi, then it seems like Sentry mode uses between 159 and 216 watts per hour.

 

[holmgang]

Thanks for the explanation.

I see it now. It takes 15000 W to power the car driving

not quite complete... unless you provide the speed of the car. 15000w is about 20hp, so enough to power the car at maybe parking lot speed.

another way to make the comparison (assuming 300W for sentry, and ~300wh/mi for the car at highway speed):

Using sentry for 1 hour, consumes the same amount of energy it takes to drive the car (at highway speed) for 1 mile.

 

[Gasaraki]

Not sure where you get your "facts" from but many of the things you're saying are completely untrue.

If the car is plugged in, it pulls from the outlet. Only if electrical needs exceed what the outlet provides then it uses the battery.



Tesla literally says to keep your car plugged in 24/7 if being stored for an extended period of time and that "A plugged in Tesla is a happy Tesla."

Yeah exactly. He's just throw *sugar* out of his ass. No one's Telsas state of charge will drop when it's plugged in. If it's plugged in and you use energy, it will keep it topped off that the level you set it at.

 

[android04]

I wanted to have a more definitive answer to how much energy is consumed by having Sentry Mode on. I don't use Cabin Overheat Protection and have Smart Summon Standby Mode disabled. I decided to measure the consumption while I was at work, using ScanMyTesla to get more advanced info.

I work at night and arrived at 10:53 PM.
71%, 206 mi, 46.1 kWh usable remaining

I only worked 8 hours and left at 7:08 AM.
68%, 196 mi, 43.9 kWh usable remaining

The difference was 8 hr 15 min, 3% lost, 10 miles of range lost, 2.2 kWh of energy lost. The power usage during Sentry Mode was 2200 Wh/8.25 hr = 266.66 W.

Over 24 hours this would add up to 266.66 W * 24 hr = 6400 Wh. This would be a loss of 9% (8.72% actual) and 29 miles of range on my car.

 

[camalaio]

I wanted to have a more definitive answer to how much energy is consumed by having Sentry Mode on. I don't use Cabin Overheat Protection and have Smart Summon Standby Mode disabled. I decided to measure the consumption while I was at work, using ScanMyTesla to get more advanced info.

I work at night and arrived at 10:53 PM.
71%, 206 mi, 46.1 kWh usable remaining

I only worked 8 hours and left at 7:08 AM.
68%, 196 mi, 43.9 kWh usable remaining

The difference was 8 hr 15 min, 3% lost, 10 miles of range lost, 2.2 kWh of energy lost. The power usage during Sentry Mode was 2200 Wh/8.25 hr = 266.66 W.

Over 24 hours this would add up to 266.66 W * 24 hr = 6400 Wh. This would be a loss of 9% (8.72% actual) and 29 miles of range on my car.

Thanks for posting the data for everyone. Do you happen to know if you're on HW2.5 or HW3? (some thought this might change it a lot).
For the "usable remaining", did you use nominal or expected? "Expected" can fluctuate more artificially and might be less accurate for this particular test. I take it you have a LR RWD with those numbers too?

I'm on HW3 with my 250W-350W numbers personally.

 

[Nikola3327]

I wanted to have a more definitive answer to how much energy is consumed by having Sentry Mode on. I don't use Cabin Overheat Protection and have Smart Summon Standby Mode disabled. I decided to measure the consumption while I was at work, using ScanMyTesla to get more advanced info.

I work at night and arrived at 10:53 PM.
71%, 206 mi, 46.1 kWh usable remaining

I only worked 8 hours and left at 7:08 AM.
68%, 196 mi, 43.9 kWh usable remaining

The difference was 8 hr 15 min, 3% lost, 10 miles of range lost, 2.2 kWh of energy lost. The power usage during Sentry Mode was 2200 Wh/8.25 hr = 266.66 W.

Over 24 hours this would add up to 266.66 W * 24 hr = 6400 Wh. This would be a loss of 9% (8.72% actual) and 29 miles of range on my car.

Not sure that 8hr is a long enough sample. Does ScanMyTesla wake the car up to query it? That would affect the sample.

I'd be sincerely disappointed if my car pulled that much juice for Sentry. (I have HW3 perhaps that explains the difference).

Also wondering how much local climate affects the resting draw. I know even in my garage, I hear the car making noises just about every time I go out there (and Sentry mode is off at home). Now it gets in to the >30C range in my garage during the summer (it's on the South side of the house) but I also hear it sometimes in Winter.

 

[camalaio]

Not sure that 8hr is a long enough sample. Does ScanMyTesla wake the car up to query it? That would affect the sample.

I'd be sincerely disappointed if my car pulled that much juice for Sentry. (I have HW3 perhaps that explains the difference).

Also wondering how much local climate affects the resting draw. I know even in my garage, I hear the car making noises just about every time I go out there (and Sentry mode is off at home). Now it gets in to the >30C range in my garage during the summer (it's on the South side of the house) but I also hear it sometimes in Winter.

The car is awake with Sentry. But either way, SMT does not wake the car (it's just passively listening).

8h is a good size sample. Long enough to average out post-drive stuff (usually just keeping the pumps going longer, which Sentry is already doing too). Even those running it "24/7", they still interrupt that 24h with a couple drives, usually not leaving it more than 15h. If the usage is very different at the 24th hour, that's relevant to very, very few people (but it's also very doubtful that it would be different).

 

[android04]

Not sure that 8hr is a long enough sample. Does ScanMyTesla wake the car up to query it? That would affect the sample.

I'd be sincerely disappointed if my car pulled that much juice for Sentry. (I have HW3 perhaps that explains the difference).

Also wondering how much local climate affects the resting draw. I know even in my garage, I hear the car making noises just about every time I go out there (and Sentry mode is off at home). Now it gets in to the >30C range in my garage during the summer (it's on the South side of the house) but I also hear it sometimes in Winter.

SMT is an app on the phone that connects to an OBD device through Bluetooth. It only works when the car is not asleep and I have the app running while I'm close to the car. The power draw can also possibly vary between firmware updates. I tried again last night and got 1.5 kWh consumed in 8.25 hours. That's 181.8 W of energy being used by the car in whole (less than the 266.66 W that I got last time). I believe I installed firmware 2020.32.2 between now and then. I just today installed 2020.32.3 and will test again. Keep in mind that I also have a Blackvue DR750S-2CH that runs 24/7, but that doesn't consume much power (4.2 W according to their specs).

 

[TMYB-C1]

I live in a major city and park in covered garage with charging, but am not plugged in all the time. TeslaFi shows a ~6% battery loss daily with Sentry Mode always on and the car not moved, this is a MY LR AWD delivered on 03/26/2021.

Running Sentry Mode 24/7 makes sense to me as a city dweller in "private" shared space, but I would love to understand how it may take a hit on battery performance and overall maintenance costs over time.

Thing is don't we already know that THEY are watching us through the cameras 24/7, were just allowing it now ?

 

[jjrandorin]

I live in a major city and park in covered garage with charging, but am not plugged in all the time. TeslaFi shows a ~6% battery loss daily with Sentry Mode always on and the car not moved, this is a MY LR AWD delivered on 03/26/2021.

Running Sentry Mode 24/7 makes sense to me as a city dweller in "private" shared space, but I would love to understand how it may take a hit on battery performance and overall maintenance costs over time.

Thing is don't we already know that THEY are watching us through the cameras 24/7, were just allowing it now ?

Its pretty easy to estimate this. Sentry mode uses between 1-2 miles an hour of range. Estimate 1 mile an hour as an average.

1 Mile of energy per hour = 24 miles usage per day.

24 miles a day * 365 days in a year is an additional 8760 miles a year of "wear and tear" on the battery just sitting there. So, somewhere between an additional 8760 and 17,520 miles a year of ADDITIONAL wear on the battery, not moving anywhere.

if someone drives 10k miles a year average, but runs sentry mode 24/7 at a minimum they are coming close to doubling their battery usage (but more likely more than double, because sentry doesnt use 1 mile an hour, its between 1 and 2 miles an hour for model 3s.)

Its not a dash cam and tesla did not design the car with the usage of sentry mode in mind. Sentry mode was a "bolt on" reactionary feature that was rolled out to assist owners because cars were being broken into in San Francisco at a high rate.

It wasnt really "ment" to be left on "24 /7". It was ment to be left on while someone was shopping in a store, eating dinner at a restaurant, or watching a movie.

 

[jjrandorin]

@lUtriaNt it would be helpful for me if you explained what you are disagreeing with me about, since you are going around clicking disagree on posts I have made on sentry mode. I would like to know what exactly you are disagreeing with.

The usage math? Sentry mode uses at least 1 mile an hour. Thats 24 "miles" of battery usage. Thats 1 mile an hour usage times 24 hours usage.

The fact it was a bolt on later? Thats fact, the car did not release with sentry mode. The fact it wasnt "ment" to be left on 24 x 7? If the car was designed with sentry mode 24 X7 usage in mind, they would have designed it so that it could be left on without the amount of power usage it uses.

Now, whether someone cares about the usage or not is something different. Some people dont care and use it 24 X 7, thats up to them. As long as they are ok with the extra battery usage, thats their decision. Used 24 X 7 that additional usage of the battery is fact, though.