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

[Mehdi]

I'm currently using the main branch of teslausb (i.e. teslausb-20190615) version.
I'd like to try the newly released "2.0-beta.2" version.
What should I have for the branch statement in the config file instead of "export BRANCH=main-dev" so future fixes/commits/release are correctly applied?

 

[DRive]

FYI, I've created a thread about my solution where I use a combination of the TeslaUSB project and batch processing on Azure
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...sentry-mode-video-processing-in-azure.183969/

 

[C141medic]

Maybe this helpt someone. Was looking for an easy solution to download the files off a USB drive

Bought this

https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-MediaShare-Wireless-Black-49160/dp/B01GVZ56T2

(paid 10 usd somewhere online).

It acts as an USB drive. Flip the switch on the device and it creates a share which can be connected to in your own network.

Then just fire off this wget (or schedule it in a cron job or batch job) and whenever it finds new footage it will copy it to your local drive (and in my case to a Dropbox in the cloud)

wget -r -nH --cut-dirs=2 --no-parent --reject="index.html*" -nc --user=admin --password=xxxx http://192.168.0.103/data/UsbDisk1/Volume1/TeslaCam/ -P /Users/xxxxx/Dropbox\ \(Persoonlijk\)/TeslaCam

I have the same drive. Works great. Never had any issues. I also tried the raspberrypi but I think the verbatim is way easier to use. The downside is the verbatims are discontinued. Now just have to figure out how to upload to the cloud using the Verbatim.

 

[C141medic]

Maybe this helpt someone. Was looking for an easy solution to download the files off a USB drive

Bought this

https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-MediaShare-Wireless-Black-49160/dp/B01GVZ56T2

(paid 10 usd somewhere online).

It acts as an USB drive. Flip the switch on the device and it creates a share which can be connected to in your own network.

Then just fire off this wget (or schedule it in a cron job or batch job) and whenever it finds new footage it will copy it to your local drive (and in my case to a Dropbox in the cloud)

wget -r -nH --cut-dirs=2 --no-parent --reject="index.html*" -nc --user=admin --password=xxxx http://192.168.0.103/data/UsbDisk1/Volume1/TeslaCam/ -P /Users/xxxxx/Dropbox\ \(Persoonlijk\)/TeslaCam

Any chance of pointing a wget noob in the right direction in setting this up with Dropbox and the Verbatim?

 

[MLo1]

Anyone else having issues after a few weeks? Like videos just won’t upload any longer. I’ve been rocking it on my X but have to re do set up every few weeks to get a good consistent experience

 

[DopeGhoti]

Not me; it's been super reliable.

 

[RichieB]

The only issues I had was when my S75D did not go to sleep (bug in an older firmware version). This caused the RPi to always stay on. I had to manually replug the power to get it to upload videos again a few times. Now that my car sleeps again the RPi reboot regularly and I have 0 issues with it.

 

[SoCal Cal]

Anyone else having issues after a few weeks? Like videos just won’t upload any longer. I’ve been rocking it on my X but have to re do set up every few weeks to get a good consistent experience

I'm having the same experience. Redo and it works for maybe a day or two and teslacam icon disappears the third morning. I unplug and replug and it reappears, but then arriving home, sentry never turns off and videos never finish uploading. I end up taking the pi in the house, reviewing videos directly off the sd card and manually deleting. Works again for a few days and have to repeat the process.

 

[hugh_jassol]

Anyone else having issues after a few weeks? Like videos just won’t upload any longer. I’ve been rocking it on my X but have to re do set up every few weeks to get a good consistent experience

Nope. Been working since ~June.

 

[KL0809]

No intention to “hijack” this thread, so if I should create a new one, please let me know.

I found a working alternative to the Pi solution, by using a USB drive that has its own wifi and is accessible via a tablet or phone. Basically, it’s a portable mini NAS.

I just bought one and am testing the hard and software. So far, it looks good.

After repartitioning it in two parts, formatted both to FAT32 and created a folder “TeslaCam” and “Media” respectively, the dashcam and sentry mode both work like a charm.

To view the clips on your phone, you will have to switch on the wifi (button) on the device and the app “SSKCloud” will let you view and manipulate the clips.

I found two flaws:

a. When plugged in to the Tesla USB, the wifi will be disabled and to view the clips, you will have to press a button to switch on the wifi. After you’re done, switch it off again and the USB mode resumes. No workaround.
b. The companion app “SSKCloud” is limited and the video player is slow. However, I am using the app “FileExplorer Pro”, which has a brilliant player to view, move, delete etc the clips. It connects using SAMBA.

PROS:
1. Creates its own wifi network hotspot
2. Easy to configure via the app
3. Is also a router (connects to your home wifi, if you want)
4. Works with dash cam as well as with your music
5. File manipulation (move, delete, share, upload, download). Even into the cloud.
6. Has its own (basic) video and music player
7. Less relevant: is also a recharger
8. Less relevant: can use network cable

CONS:
- USB and WIFI do not work simultaneously. Need to manually switch WIFI on to view clips on your device, then switch off again to resume USB.
- Router only connects to your network via 2g.

I do not have enough info to say anything about reliability. Will update this thread.

But at least you don’t have to remove your drive anymore and plug it in to your computer; keep it in your car and just use your mobile device to view the recordings.

There is also a device from Verbatim on the market, but the supporting app seems to be dead (last update two years ago). At least for iPhone. Wouldn’t want to risk that.

On Amazon:

SSK Portable NAS Wireless Hard Drive 1TB Personal Cloud Smart Storage, External Hard Disk with Personal Wi-Fi Hotspot, Support Auto-Backup, Phone/Tablet PC/Laptop Wireless Remote Access.

 

[MLo1]

I'm having the same experience. Redo and it works for maybe a day or two and teslacam icon disappears the third morning. I unplug and replug and it reappears, but then arriving home, sentry never turns off and videos never finish uploading. I end up taking the pi in the house, reviewing videos directly off the sd card and manually deleting. Works again for a few days and have to repeat the process.

just curious are you also using the Marcone version of the script? I’ve been using that and it’s reliability goes down like you said after a few days.

 

[DopeGhoti]

I've been using Marcone. It's been solid for me. The only time I had any trouble in the past couple months was when my Teslacam partition on the server to which I was uploading got full.

 

[SoCal Cal]

just curious are you also using the Marcone version of the script? I’ve been using that and it’s reliability goes down like you said after a few days.

Yes, using Marcone. Have tried all three of the one-step images and same results with all. Snapshots off and added a few of the lines of code that supposedly remedy the Too slow USB issue, but I still get the too slow message.

 

[NoUserName7]

Hi, I am using marcone's one step configuration, but I don't see the CAM drive on my Mac after the setting.

I pulled the some information using /root/bin/setup-teslausb diagnose > /tmp/diagnostics.txt, and found below. Anyone had this problem? I searched internet over and over but still couldn't find the cause and solution yet.

[ 142.690482] rc.local[460]: warning: /dev/mmcblk0: partition 3 is not defined yet
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ... FAILED
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 59.6 GiB, 64021856256 bytes, 125042688 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
[ 142.699931] rc.local[460]: This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probably a bad idea.
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x22eddddb......

 

[allelectrified]

It was too easy. Ordered raspberry Pi zero W and once I figured out the right usb port on the PI to plug into the car, it all started working without doing anything but changing the config during install. Mine is uploading to a linux server at home.

Is yours using rsync? Or a SAMBA server?
Has anyone else written up their experience for rsync'ing to a GNU/Linux server?
Marcone's documentation could use some more love for the GNU/Linux users. (All so ironic to me, given that the raspberry and the car are running Linux).

 

[towndrunk]

USB writes won't ever be fast with a Raspberry Pi Zero. They're a bit faster on an Orange Pi Zero (I don't have the newer flavors of Orange Pi Zero at hand to test but they might be tad faster still).

The problem is that instead of writing directly to the storage, like with a regular USB drive, it's going through disk emulation software running on the Pi Zero, and it's not a particularly fast device to begin with. A combination of the slowdown due to g_mass_storage software emulation of a USB drive, and slow actual IO to the underlying storage, and various internal data paths that are slower than full USB speed, means that write speeds will always be mediocre at best on these lower powered Pi devices.

Hopefully a Raspberry Pi 4B will be much faster since it's not a lower power device. I plan to pick one up soon to play with.

Perhaps you can set up a Samba ("Windows") network share on your device and transfer the music via WiFi instead, this might be faster (or might not, for similar reasons these small Pi devices tend to have slow WiFi)

Considering the Banana Pi M2 Zero is the same form factor, but with 4 cores, I wonder if anyone's managed to get that working.

 

[RB88]

Is yours using rsync? Or a SAMBA server?
Has anyone else written up their experience for rsync'ing to a GNU/Linux server?
Marcone's documentation could use some more love for the GNU/Linux users. (All so ironic to me, given that the raspberry and the car are running Linux).

I use rsync. What issues are you having? I followed the rsync section of the guide and worked fine.

 

[davidk2213]

I have my Ubuntu server running samba and use it is my Nas at home. Worked easily after filling the instructions.

 

[RichieB]

@RB88 I think you mean this guide: marcone/teslausb ? That is for rsync over ssh which seemed silly to me: costs more CPU (=slower) and needs a setup with ssh keys on the RPi. It might not suffer from the network interruption issues because ssh will probably detect it and disconnect.

 

[DopeGhoti]

It's probably fair to say that for anyone that has the thought "I wonder if I can rsync these files to my Linux box", the prospect of setting of key pair authentication is not exactly a daunting one.