Dashcam functionality poor design

[ivolvo]

I love the idea that everything that happens to my car when driven or parked is recorded. However, everything related to the dashcam suggests that it is a foster child in the Tesla development process: the way how you prepare a memory flash (root folder with capitalized letters) and lack of support for viewing (fixed now). There is no doubt that this feature is significantly less important than others but it doesn't need to be that bad.

My recent realization that you have to consciously save recordings that are already created blows my mind. Why would you ask for something that is already there not to be deleted? To save space? I would rather set up a time to keep setting and software would happily delete as time expires. It could also be augmented with having enough space on flash and the system keeps as much as it could until close to full and start deleting the oldest content automatically afterward. Other combinations of space and time settings could be implemented that would make dashcam recordings readily available in the most stressful situations when you need them the most.

The other clearly useful feature is the ability to stream dashcam recordings from the Tesla app or Tesla account without a need to remove the flash memory and insert it into a computer. It is secure and convenient, but I suspect that Tesla would not like to have this option available to preserve bandwidth. But I would not mind if it was an additional reasonable fee for using remote access, so people will use it when it is really needed.

I am still not clear, is there a way to offer suggestions directly to the Tesla team. It would be much more productive than just discussing it between customers with little actual impact on the product. I think Tesla would benefit if it listens carefully to suggestions from owners.

 

[webbah]

It is a foster child and after thought feature released due to all the breakins happening to Tesla's (many in California) in 2019. So it was initially a patch job release to offer some kind of solution to a growing problem of broken side windows and thefts inside Tesla's that were parked in public places. The camera's themselves were never intended for this feature and are mainly used for AP and machine learning to improve AP. This is why the graphics themselves are not that stellar, but are perfectly fine for the original intended purpose.

In my case I installed a Blackview dual channel system. It's HD quality and uses only 5 watts. Sentry mode need to keep the entire onboard computer running to do its job so the car won't sleep. If I recall that is more or less 300-400 watts for all the cameras and the onboard computer. Granted this doesn't matter much when you are just using dashcam while driving, other than video quality which for me is important. Many dashcam and sentry videos don't even capture license plate numbers clearly. So you might have the video but still no good evidence of anything. I still use it for redundancy, but tend to turn off Sentry for the most part unless I am forced into some dodgy situation.

 

[Michelle_eriw]

I love the idea that everything that happens to my car when driven or parked is recorded. However, everything related to the dashcam suggests that it is a foster child in the Tesla development process: the way how you prepare a memory flash (root folder with capitalized letters) and lack of support for viewing (fixed now). There is no doubt that this feature is significantly less important than others but it doesn't need to be that bad.

My recent realization that you have to consciously save recordings that are already created blows my mind. Why would you ask for something that is already there not to be deleted? To save space? I would rather set up a time to keep setting and software would happily delete as time expires. It could also be augmented with having enough space on flash and the system keeps as much as it could until close to full and start deleting the oldest content automatically afterward. Other combinations of space and time settings could be implemented that would make dashcam recordings readily available in the most stressful situations when you need them the most.

The other clearly useful feature is the ability to stream dashcam recordings from the Tesla app or Tesla account without a need to remove the flash memory and insert it into a computer. It is secure and convenient, but I suspect that Tesla would not like to have this option available to preserve bandwidth. But I would not mind if it was an additional reasonable fee for using remote access, so people will use it when it is really needed.

I am still not clear, is there a way to offer suggestions directly to the Tesla team. It would be much more productive than just discussing it between customers with little actual impact on the product. I think Tesla would benefit if it listens carefully to suggestions from owners.

I don't understand your thing about saving videos. Most of the TeslaCam videos are not useful for anything and will eventually get overwritten, so why not save what is useful? Further, saving it as a separate clip makes it easier to retrieve. It seems to me that you are suggesting what already exists.

I agree about streaming, but I think that it should be only when the car is on the same WiFi network as the receiving device. E.g., when parked in your garage or carport, or on the street next to your house. Or if on the road, and the car and laptop are signed on to the same WiFi network, maybe at a motel.

 

[ivolvo]

I don't understand your thing about saving videos. Most of the TeslaCam videos are not useful for anything and will eventually get overwritten, so why not save what is useful? Further, saving it as a separate clip makes it easier to retrieve. It seems to me that you are suggesting what already exists.

I agree about streaming, but I think that it should be only when the car is on the same WiFi network as the receiving device. E.g., when parked in your garage or carport, or on the street next to your house. Or if on the road, and the car and laptop are signed on to the same WiFi network, maybe at a motel.

The thing about saving videos is not to lose what happened recently when you realize that you need it. It could happen a few hours or days later and will be too late to recover this video. It is already recorded, just the idea that you have to save something that could be deleted automatically by software at a later point makes no sense to me. It is bad design

As for streaming. If you are on the same WIFI network means that you are in close proximity to your car. And in this case, you could as well to watch dashcam recordings in your car. The capability to watch over the network is essential because you may need to observe what is going on immediately from anywhere in the world. And it is not too much stretch, you do remote operations by locking or honking car, or changing settings. The only difference in streaming that it will consume significantly higher bandwidth.

 

[Michelle_eriw]

The thing about saving videos is not to lose what happened recently when you realize that you need it. It could happen a few hours or days later and will be too late to recover this video. It is already recorded, just the idea that you have to save something that could be deleted automatically by software at a later point makes no sense to me. It is bad design

As for streaming. If you are on the same WIFI network means that you are in close proximity to your car. And in this case, you could as well to watch dashcam recordings in your car. The capability to watch over the network is essential because you may need to observe what is going on immediately from anywhere in the world. And it is not too much stretch, you do remote operations by locking or honking car, or changing settings. The only difference in streaming that it will consume significantly higher bandwidth.

I can't imagine a situation where you would want to view a TeslaCam more than an hour after the event happened, without realizing at the time it happened that you would want to review it later.

The Recent Clips stores only one hour of recording; then it is overwritten. So, if you didn't save an event within ten minutes after it happened, you need to review it within an hour after it happened.

As for streaming, I wouldn't want my computer to be receiving and recording a stream potentially 24/7; it's more than just bandwidth.

 

[ivolvo]

As for streaming, I wouldn't want my computer to be receiving and recording a stream potentially 24/7; it's more than just bandwidth.

It didn't even cross my mind to suggest streaming to your computer all the time, only when you need it. Maybe even not to stream but download

 

[Msjulie]

Don't forget you can set it to 'save' a clip when you honk the horn, premise I suppose is not that you're an irritating horn blower but that something bad-ish happened and needs recording

 

[Akikiki]

... at a later point makes no sense to me. It is bad design
.

Sounds as though you didn't see what @webbah explained. The cameras here - in the car were not designed to be used as web cams. Soooo many people whined and whined until Tesla took what was there and started recording video. Since you don't like them, don't use them and install whatever you want to use. And there are solutions offered that will let you watch over a cellular connection - at your expense.

 

[sduck]

Sounds like you want a third party dashcam. While the tesla dashcam has evolved into a mostly usable system, it still leaves a lot to be desired. Third party dashcams can be had in all kinds of configurations, something to suit almost everyone's needs. I have a blackvue 750 - it covers all the bases you're complaining about.

is there a way to offer suggestions directly to the Tesla team. It would be much more productive than just discussing it between customers with little actual impact on the product. I think Tesla would benefit if it listens carefully to suggestions from owners.

Currently, no. This is something they dropped fairly recently, and it is a huge mistake if you ask me (or anyone who's paying attention).

 

[Gasaraki]

I love the idea that everything that happens to my car when driven or parked is recorded. However, everything related to the dashcam suggests that it is a foster child in the Tesla development process: the way how you prepare a memory flash (root folder with capitalized letters) and lack of support for viewing (fixed now). There is no doubt that this feature is significantly less important than others but it doesn't need to be that bad.

My recent realization that you have to consciously save recordings that are already created blows my mind. Why would you ask for something that is already there not to be deleted? To save space? I would rather set up a time to keep setting and software would happily delete as time expires. It could also be augmented with having enough space on flash and the system keeps as much as it could until close to full and start deleting the oldest content automatically afterward. Other combinations of space and time settings could be implemented that would make dashcam recordings readily available in the most stressful situations when you need them the most.

The other clearly useful feature is the ability to stream dashcam recordings from the Tesla app or Tesla account without a need to remove the flash memory and insert it into a computer. It is secure and convenient, but I suspect that Tesla would not like to have this option available to preserve bandwidth. But I would not mind if it was an additional reasonable fee for using remote access, so people will use it when it is really needed.

I am still not clear, is there a way to offer suggestions directly to the Tesla team. It would be much more productive than just discussing it between customers with little actual impact on the product. I think Tesla would benefit if it listens carefully to suggestions from owners.

I think you are confusing dashcam footage vs. sentry mode footage. Sentry mode footage gets saved automatically, dashcam you have to honk the horn.
Yes, i would like the Tesla app to alert me when an sentry event happens and I can look at the footage from the app. I don't mind providing my own storage for this ability. If i am required to pay $10 a month, it should be capable to do that. Currently there is really nothing worth $10 a month to have the LTE connection.