I purchased the IR illuminator intended for use with cameras linked by dtdtdt. I found that for a quick test in my neighborhood I could hold it in place with two very large rubber bands, one wrapping vertically over the right side of the rear view mirror, and the other horizontally going around the mirror support. It came to rest not pointing at the driver's seat at all, but just slightly off-center toward the passenger side. But it is a big array of IR LEDs without focusing optics.
On my test of driving under FSDb control at very low speed on my own dark (zero streetlights, not much light shown by houses) street, I was able to drive without cabin camera obstruction complaints, even with the illumination level turned down as far as it goes on this unit. I suspect this unit would have several hour battery life at that condition, but will need to test that. After I turned off the IR illuminator, I turned on the dome light and drove a short way, then turned off the dome light and got the red hands of death within a couple of hundred feet.
Combining evidence from this drive of a bit over a mile with other tests in the same area, I am highly confident that this IR illuminator positioned as I had it, made a major change to cabin camera-related autosteer aborts on my car.
So we have some new evidence in hand.
1. It appears pretty conclusively that the installed cabin camera in my 2022 Tesla Y LR has useful sensitivity at 850 nm.
2. It appears that my particular sample of Tesla Y either was not meant to come with an IR illuminator, or failed to get one installed, or the installed one was not working (most likely when it left the factory--possibly enabled by Tesla lacking a test) by the time I got FSDb installed.
3. Or possibly the car software neglects to turn on an IR illuminator which would function if asked.
4. It appears that not very much IR illumination is required to satisfy the cabin camera requirement not to be considered obstructed or blinded.
As several users, but not a great many, have reported similar difficulty with modern cars (built later than the claimed start date for IR illuminator installation), we have some possibilities:
1. all the cars are the same, but only a few participants drive them at night on dark enough roads to have this problem.
2. some of the cars are defective in a way that defeats adequate IR illumination--but an appreciable defect rate--this would probably mean Tesla lacks suitable factory floor testing to assure this function is working when the car leaves the factory.
Granted Albuquerque night sky is dark compared to many places in the US, but I've had this problem show up in places much brighter than my residential streetlight-free neighborhood--once in Interstate 25, and at least seven times on Paseo del Norte-a major arterial road, divided, with at least two lanes in each direction, and quite a bit of traffic.
If my problem is indeed an individual car defect, it is a great pity that the customer service system seems set up to exclude it from consideration. Bizarrely, the tech I spoke to considered the report of cabin camera blinding as somehow an indication that there was not a fixable defect, as the car did not report to him a request to fix something. He also was unaware of IR illuminators being present in ANY Tesla, and seemed inclined to not believe.
