Dashcam - help me understand its use

[Tony Hoyle]

It's really designed to be 'sentry' - it records what's happening when the car is parked. It's not really that optimised for proper dashcam use, which is a pity, as it doesn't sound like it'd take a huge development effort to make it so (add speed/gps in frame, have it keep longer videos, that kind of thing).

 

[Adopado]

It's really designed to be 'sentry' - it records what's happening when the car is parked. It's not really that optimised for proper dashcam use, which is a pity, as it doesn't sound like it'd take a huge development effort to make it so (add speed/gps in frame, have it keep longer videos, that kind of thing).

Not really designed for Sentry Mode either. The cameras are designed to operate the Autopilot system. In 2017 (I believe) they realised they could use them in Sentry Mode and in late 2018 for Dashcam Mode. Both are "extras" to the designed function of the Autopilot cameras.

 

[Durzel]

It's really designed to be 'sentry' - it records what's happening when the car is parked. It's not really that optimised for proper dashcam use, which is a pity, as it doesn't sound like it'd take a huge development effort to make it so (add speed/gps in frame, have it keep longer videos, that kind of thing).

Something I learnt is that apparently it doesn’t trigger off the rear camera. I’ve never seen a Sentry alert showing the rear camera as the trigger, it’s always been the front or the indicator ones.

 

[Overworked]

I used to have it set to “save on honk” but changed it after watching a video where a user encountered a problem.

You want it to record an incident as your record for evidence. This lady saw a car reversing into her car and honked the horn, the Tesla started to write the save to disc. The car got closer and she honked again and for longer- the Tesla again recorded to disc. When the inevitable collision happened it was still writing to disc and the vital bump was not captured.

As you can press the record button or voice dictate to save up to 10 mins after the incident I decided I would do that rather than miss a key moment because I was using the horn for it’s designed purpose.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I was using the horn for it’s designed purpose

I too don't use the horn for "save dashcam clip", for that reason, but I thought I read recently that OTA update had changed save-on-honk to wait a bit, and then save. I might be imagining it though?