Anyone still rocking a Pi Zero W smart drive for TeslaCam on Sentry Mode?

[BioSehnsucht]

The Pi Zero W works great as a USB stick that pushes files to another computer. The build with the prebuilt image from marcone/teslausb is very easy to set up - you just have to configure your WiFi network credentials and your file share credentials, and (optionally) split the drive into two partitions, one for music and one for video from the car.

I wouldn't expect that the Pi 4 would work for this, since it can't be programmed to be a USB device, only as a USB controller. I'd love to be wrong, since the Pi4 is a nifty device, but both Raspberry Pi and the TeslaUSB documentation is pretty emphatic on this point.

Actually.. the Pi 4 is the first "normal sized" Raspberry Pi device that supports USB OTG. The USB-C power input port is also a USB OTG port.

I've already tested it and it works (though not tested with any of the off the shelf solutions like marcone/teslausb - I am working on my own flavor and I verified my code works on the 4, YMMV as to whether there needs to be special support for the 4 vs the Zero W, I haven't tried any of them so I don't know).

 

[danix]

I'm running this as well now. I'm not sure if it's a new problem, but I had noticed that my car won't do dashcam if I split the USB into two volumes. Same seems to be true with the Pi Zero W, I first told it to set aside 4Gb for music and sentry mode works but no dashcam.
Early today I redid the install with no music option, and will confirm if it works as expected.

 

[focher]

Actually.. the Pi 4 is the first "normal sized" Raspberry Pi device that supports USB OTG. The USB-C power input port is also a USB OTG port.

I've already tested it and it works (though not tested with any of the off the shelf solutions like marcone/teslausb - I am working on my own flavor and I verified my code works on the 4, YMMV as to whether there needs to be special support for the 4 vs the Zero W, I haven't tried any of them so I don't know).

How are you powering the 4?

 

[gmtom1]

Yup, you are... I've been using the Pi4 for a couple weeks. Works great. See #98 above.

Thanks for the info. So are you able to setup two partitions for music & sentry/dashcam video?

 

[gmtom1]

I'm running this as well now. I'm not sure if it's a new problem, but I had noticed that my car won't do dashcam if I split the USB into two volumes. Same seems to be true with the Pi Zero W, I first told it to set aside 4Gb for music and sentry mode works but no dashcam.
Early today I redid the install with no music option, and will confirm if it works as expected.

Please let us know how it goes. I'm interested in hearing your experience.

 

[C141medic]

Would appreciate any help with this. I just set up the marcone/usb on my Pi. Was very easy. However; I can’t see the Pi when it’s running to configure it to upload to my Synology. I tried to set up a CIFS share to the Pi through file manager on the Synology but I’m not sure I’m configuring it correctly.

 

[japhule]

Would appreciate any help with this. I just set up the marcone/usb on my Pi. Was very easy. However; I can’t see the Pi when it’s running to configure it to upload to my Synology. I tried to set up a CIFS share to the Pi through file manager on the Synology but I’m not sure I’m configuring it correctly.

If you're using the one step setup, all of that should be configured after you load the image onto your sd card. As long as you can setup smb/samba shares on your synology, you should be creating/modifying the config file with your smb share information.

There should be a log file in the sdcard (load it directly onto your pc to view) that you can reference to see if the set up was finished or where you may have run into errors.

FYI, for my setup, I had to add a line the line below to get the pi to upload to my smb share due to my versioning.

export cifs_version=1.0

 

[BioSehnsucht]

How are you powering the 4?

It's not in the car yet, but my plan is to power it with 12V using this 6~14V power input + fan hat. On the bench I've got it hooked up with a 12V supply powering it via that hat.

However, you can probably get by with USB powering it, since you shouldn't be using it anywhere near it's full capacity and thus the power needs shouldn't be too high.

I am hoping to find someplace to squeeze it inside the center console or dash area someplace out of sight and additionally slip a USB hub between the USB hub that is in the center console and the car to hook it up, so that I'm not taking up either of the two USB ports in the center console. Plus, if anyone gets wise to the whole USB dashcam thing and starts stealing USB devices that are in the center console to try and cover up break ins, well, they won't find it

 

[focher]

It's not in the car yet, but my plan is to power it with 12V using this 6~14V power input + fan hat. On the bench I've got it hooked up with a 12V supply powering it via that hat.

However, you can probably get by with USB powering it, since you shouldn't be using it anywhere near it's full capacity and thus the power needs shouldn't be too high.

I am hoping to find someplace to squeeze it inside the center console or dash area someplace out of sight and additionally slip a USB hub between the USB hub that is in the center console and the car to hook it up, so that I'm not taking up either of the two USB ports in the center console. Plus, if anyone gets wise to the whole USB dashcam thing and starts stealing USB devices that are in the center console to try and cover up break ins, well, they won't find it

I had the same thoughts, but when I’ve watched the videos on opening up the center console there isn’t a ton of free space. My other idea is to place it next to the 12V battery in the frunk, power it directly from the battery terminals, and run the USB cable through the firewall. That’s purely an idea at this point as I’ve done ZERO investigation on access through the firewall to the USB wiring in the center console. As the crow flies, it’s not far, but really unknown as to the possibility.

 

[Nifty-Stuff]

Fascinating thread / discussion!

... now I sit and wait for all the nerds that are WAY smarter than me to package the Pi already configured with the proper software, and then sell these things direct that are plug-n-play

Ideally, it would just connect to my wifi once I get home and dump all the uploads to a service / location of my choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, AWS, etc.) and have settings that would allow me to control the cycle / expiration period of the date stored locally on the Pi and in the destination location.

I figure with almost 1,000 Tesla's being cranked out of Fremont on a daily basis, a nice little USB device like this would sell really well!

 

[swaltner]

export cifs_version=1.0

I used version CIFS version 2.0 to connect to my Synology DS415play. I was able to debug that this was the issue by looking at error messages during the first boot by having a keyboard/monitor attached to the Pi on the first couple setup attempts.

 

[lairdp]

Fascinating thread / discussion!

... now I sit and wait for all the nerds that are WAY smarter than me to package the Pi already configured with the proper software, and then sell these things direct that are plug-n-play

Ideally, it would just connect to my wifi once I get home and dump all the uploads to a service / location of my choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, AWS, etc.) and have settings that would allow me to control the cycle / expiration period of the date stored locally on the Pi and in the destination location.

I figure with almost 1,000 Tesla's being cranked out of Fremont on a daily basis, a nice little USB device like this would sell really well!

That's pretty much what it does. Best supported is to load files to a windows file share (CIFS) but there are instructions for SFTP, rsynch, Google Drive, S3, DropBox and OneDrive linked from marcone/teslausb .

That being said, it's all packaged in a way that assumes you're comfortable on a Linux command line to configure it. For a consumer product, you'd need to make it a little friendlier, I believe.

 

[Nifty-Stuff]

For a consumer product, you'd need to make it a little friendlier, I believe.

Yeah, I'm even a little techy and have been known to do some command-line access into my webhost... but anything Pi related (and the other bits in this thread) feel even way over my head.

How hard would it be for someone to purchase a case-load of these, image them all with the same code, and then put together a pretty simple "plug it in and then do xyz" instruction card, and sell them on ebay or amazon?

 

[japhule]

It's not as bad to set up. What's more important is where you're copying your files to and how it is set up with the pi to connect to.

 

[danix]

The install is fairly easy, certainly easier than it used to be.
The problem I see is that while sentry mode works fine, dashcam never worked, and I was unable to get any files uploaded to my share though I verified connectivity and function of the share. At this point I don't have time to put any more work into it and risk not having a working dashcam.

 

[sbtz]

The install is fairly easy, certainly easier than it used to be.
The problem I see is that while sentry mode works fine, dashcam never worked, and I was unable to get any files uploaded to my share though I verified connectivity and function of the share. At this point I don't have time to put any more work into it and risk not having a working dashcam.

Sheesh - didn't even realize that the dash cam files weren't being transferred - thanks for pointing that out. I wonder if they're still on the pi's SD card? It shows the camera icon with the red dot though... Is this expected behavior?

 

[hugh_jassol]

Weird... for me, I do get my dashcam footage uploaded automatically (the stuff I save by pressing the camera icon on the screen) is that not happening for some?

 

[swaltner]

Weird... for me, I do get my dashcam footage uploaded automatically (the stuff I save by pressing the camera icon on the screen) is that not happening for some?

Agreed. It copies the dashcam footage that I save. However, it does/should NOT offload the regular 1 hour loop to the NAS. It only deals with the SavedClips folder.

 

[davewill]

Yeah, I'm even a little techy and have been known to do some command-line access into my webhost... but anything Pi related (and the other bits in this thread) feel even way over my head.

How hard would it be for someone to purchase a case-load of these, image them all with the same code, and then put together a pretty simple "plug it in and then do xyz" instruction card, and sell them on ebay or amazon?

Easy enough. You could even just sell preconfigured microSD cards. However, to make this a REAL product, you'd want to do some better software so that you can use a web interface or phone app to pair it to your WiFi and to configure the partition sizes and video upload without using the command line. You would also want to create some sort of recovery partition and a procedure that would reset the device back to factory specs if the main partition were to be damaged in some way.

But just for yourself, I honestly have to say that it's pretty well automated, at least on windows. You image the card. Install a terminal app. Plug the Pi into your PC and connect to it, and follow a basic set of command lines that configure the card. For a guy who's a little techy and has been known to do some command-line access, it should be a piece of cake.

 

[SemoTech]

My 2c:

For anyone looking for a simple install and smooth operation of TeslaUSB on a Raspberry Pi, I recommend using the One-Step Setup with the Latest Build from macrone/teslausb as it's updated often, macrone is very responsive, and it works with latest Tesla Firmware as of 8/2019

For some ideas on powering the Pi / Console and ensuring that there is no loss of power during transfer, see my mod here with a 12v Extender and a Zendure Battery.

If you're shy and don't want to modify the car or drill any holes, you can just use the Zendure Battery alone. It allows for passthrough charging and also includes a built-in USB hub, so it can be used for the Pi and even a music USB stick, if one wants to keep it separate and not use more than a single USB port in the front of the console.