Free app for viewing TeslaCam and Sentry videos on your Android device

[softcoder]

I am able to connect using Cx File Explorer and manually play files files over Wifi SMB, but this is one file at a time and need to file explorer to each folder on the pi. I looked at github projects offering a local webserver using nodejs but they dont work with chrome due to Tesla's use of HEVC codec. This means we need a native app of some kind (like teslacam) but it needs to support SMB

 

[snailboat]

Yeah, there are several file managers for Android that offer SMB support, but I don't know of any that exposes the SMB files to outside apps. For that, somebody needs to write an SMB Document Provider. With a document provider, after setting up the SMB share, you would be able to read and modify files on the share via the regular Files app and any other app. Funnily enough, Google did this a couple of years ago but pulled the app from the Play Store and abandoned the project pretty rapidly. It's still on Github here: google/samba-documents-provider

Enough people have asked for this feature in the TeslaCam viewer app that I am hoping to find the time to write my own SMB document provider, but hopefully somebody else gets to it first so I don't have to!

 

[gmtom1]

Yeah, there are several file managers for Android that offer SMB support, but I don't know of any that exposes the SMB files to outside apps. For that, somebody needs to write an SMB Document Provider. With a document provider, after setting up the SMB share, you would be able to read and modify files on the share via the regular Files app and any other app. Funnily enough, Google did this a couple of years ago but pulled the app from the Play Store and abandoned the project pretty rapidly. It's still on Github here: google/samba-documents-provider

Enough people have asked for this feature in the TeslaCam viewer app that I am hoping to find the time to write my own SMB document provider, but hopefully somebody else gets to it first so I don't have to!

I hope you can find the time to work on this. I paid for TeslaCam and would gladly pay an additional nominal fee to add this functionality (be able to watch clips off of my RPi AP when in the car).
The one problem with the RPi solution is the inability to view video on the go.

 

[Mschwennes]

Am wondering if anyone else has this problem:. Teslacam Reviewer used to work, but now the Tesla doesn't recognize a USB until I format it IN THE CAR, and once that is done, my Android with the TR app won't recognize the USB. Catch-22 situation.

 

[snailboat]

Am wondering if anyone else has this problem:. Teslacam Reviewer used to work, but now the Tesla doesn't recognize a USB until I format it IN THE CAR, and once that is done, my Android with the TR app won't recognize the USB. Catch-22 situation.

I had a report of that from 1 user by email. The app can't recognize the USB because the car formats it as exFAT, which Android devices cannot read. I don't know why the car wouldn't recognize the USB drive before doing its own formatting. Could it be because there wasn't a TeslaCam folder added to the drive after formatting? That's still a requirement from the car's end. I know that, personally, my car is up to date and my FAT32-formatted drives still work.

 

[Beven]

@snailboat - I had emailed you about that in regards in my Pixel 5...can't seem to get it to see the drive, but if I pop it over to my son's beater samsung phone, they come up without issue...

 

[Jejunjm]

@snailboat - I had emailed you about that in regards in my Pixel 5...can't seem to get it to see the drive, but if I pop it over to my son's beater samsung phone, they come up without issue...

Didn't work in my pixel xl4 (SD card w two partitions)

 

[snailboat]

Weird, not sure what the issue would be but my Pixel test device (3a on Android 11) still recognizes drives just fine. Are you guys on the Android 12 beta by any chance?

The other common issue these days is that Android can't read exFAT and if you use the car to format your drive, it uses exFAT. To use the app, unfortunately you have to use a computer (or your phone) to format the drive in FAT32 and then add the TeslaCam folder manually. That way both the car and phone can read the drive.

 

[Jejunjm]

Weird, not sure what the issue would be but my Pixel test device (3a on Android 11) still recognizes drives just fine. Are you guys on the Android 12 beta by any chance?

The other common issue these days is that Android can't read exFAT and if you use the car to format your drive, it uses exFAT. To use the app, unfortunately you have to use a computer (or your phone) to format the drive in FAT32 and then add the TeslaCam folder manually. That way both the car and phone can read the drive.

Nope Android 11. I definitely used the computer to format the drive (so it could have two partitions for music and sentry).