Camera(s) blocked or blinded

[Dilly]

2021.4.10 seems to be giving rise to multiple cameras blocked or blinded at any time of day if the sun’s out
Every trip this week, long or short, morning or afternoon, has had the same warning come up.
One wonders how Elon expects anything to work that relies on cameras!

 

[Pagemakers]

Happens to me all the time. I think it’s just another permanent Tesla bug we have to put up with.

In the years I’ve had my S and now 3, very few of the real bugs ever get fixed.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Same here. I had to drive around 160 miles yesterday, and for almost all of that time I had either the left or right hand cameras blocked or blinded. It was a very sunny day, though, and I've noticed in the past that the side cameras don't like low angle sun (or complete darkness).

I do wonder what on earth the point is in alarming the driver by flashing up that warning all the time. All it does is highlight the flaws in the car, over which the driver has no control. If anything, it just further undermines confidence in the technology in the car.

 

[Pagemakers]

100% agree

 

[hcdavis3]

Same here. I had to drive around 160 miles yesterday, and for almost all of that time I had either the left or right hand cameras blocked or blinded. It was a very sunny day, though, and I've noticed in the past that the side cameras don't like low angle sun (or complete darkness).

I do wonder what on earth the point is in alarming the driver by flashing up that warning all the time. All it does is highlight the flaws in the car, over which the driver has no control. If anything, it just further undermines confidence in the technology in the car.

Same here too. I wish we had the option to swipe to minimize the alert. Total pain.

 

[AndrewGR]

Since the alert doesn’t seem to compromise any of the current functions of the car, it would be better not to have it at all.
I’m really surprised how the cameras can be blinded by relatively low light levels if the sun is low but the sky is cloudy - conditions under which the human eye has absolutely no problem.
When video cameras first appeared - about 50 years ago - I thought they could ‘see’ in a much wider range of light levels than the human eye - especially low light, but that doesn’t seem to apply to the ones fitted by Tesla 50 years later. I guess the Tesla ones cost pennies whilst the first ones were £100’s or more.

 

[Pagemakers]

I thought with the camera blinded it won’t auto-lane change.

 

[AndrewGR]

No FSD on mine so that’s not a problem for me!

 

[Sparkeur]

New I thought with the camera blinded it won’t auto-lane change.

Hardly a day went by on sunny winter days when that message didn't appear but it made no difference to auto lane change for me.

 

[Morhydro]

I have written (on paper) the following to Tesla;

I have had significant problems, particularly with the pillar cameras, in my car. This frequently reports ‘blocked or blinded’ messages on the screen. The car has been into the service centre for this to be examined but no fault was found. The frequency of these alarms is distracting as each one has to be read (it could be something serious!).

Having observed the behaviour and occurrence of these ‘blocked or blinded’ messages I conclude that in fact the error is not a ‘blocked or blinded’ camera but that the image produced cannot be interpreted to determine the edge of the carriageway.

Where I live in Scotland there are many roads which do not have hard edges, where white lines become obscured by vegetation and dirt on the road, where there is dense vegetation on the verge or simply no road markings at all. These ‘soft’ edges are understandably difficult for software to resolve, particularly at night or in poor lighting conditions. I suspect that the same will be true when there is snow cover although I have not yet had the opportunity to observe this.

I would suggest the following function is added to the system;

· An option to set the camera alarms to OFF / LOW / NORMAL

The OFF option would allow the driver to inhibit the alarms entirely when they know that they will be driving on roads that are badly affected by ‘soft’ visual edges. Even if OFF is not an option a LOW setting which perhaps would not repeat any alarm within one hour would significantly reduce the number of alarms.

This is a safety critical issue as alarm messages demand driver attention.