How is your rear camera after MCU1 to MCU2 upgade (dark?)

[Art VandeIay]

Do cars that came factory-fitted with MCU2 have a darker rear camera too than a similar MCU1 equipped camera? Or does it only affect MCU2-upgraded cars?

I don’t recall seeing this mentioned on here until MCU1 to MCU2 upgrades happened.

I have a 2017 Model S with MCU1 and my wife drives a 2020 Model X with MCU2, and as @Battpower mentioned, the rearview camera on the MCU2 is extremely dark on the low light condition of the garage.

Sometimes I have to move both vehicles (depending on who leaves first in the morning) because our parking situation is one car in front of the other, and the difference between both images is literally like night and day! MCU2 renders the image feed with an extremely dark hue.

 

[SDRick]

That is unfortunate, I thought it would be fixed by now. I'm curious as to whether this is a hardware problem or software?

 

[Battpower]

That is unfortunate, I thought it would be fixed by now. I'm curious as to whether this is a hardware problem or software?

I am pretty sure it is an MCU2 issue linked to how the image is rendered from the rear camera. Why it is different for that one camera, I can't establish. It is not camera related based on upgrade MCU's not having changed the camera.

 

[SDRick]

So it must be a software issue. That is surprising because it has not been addressed for over one year.

 

[Battpower]

That is surprising because it has not been addressed for over one year

...or not! Some things just don't seem to be on Tesla's list to fix. How big of an issue can it be? And it likely effects all recent / MCU2 and MCU2 upgrade vehicles. My SC confirmed back in Jan that it is a known issue (not that I put too much value in that statement) and I really hope it gets fixed asap.

 

[blackhawk]

I have a 2017 S90D upgraded to MCU2, and haven't noticed any issues with the rear camera.

If anything, the image seems brighter than before, but that may just been the new screen?

 

[Battpower]

I have a 2017 S90D upgraded to MCU2, and haven't noticed any issues with the rear camera.

If anything, the image seems brighter than before, but that may just been the new screen?

In daylight, I would describe the image displayed as 'very high contrast'. The blacks are way blacker than for the other camera views, but the image is clear enough.

In low-light, the image is very much darker than others, and also far darker than rear on MCU1 cars.

Compare yours with these:

Like this?

View attachment 536813

This is the view from the MX 2017 MCU1 under similar conditions:

View attachment 536814

And a couple of images of all cams from the viewer at night under good street lighting that clearly shows how much darker the rear view is than the others:

View attachment 536823
View attachment 536825

Would be interested to see the 4 camera view from your dashcam viewer - where images are easy to compare.

 

[blackhawk]

I will have to try some night driving and capture some images. Maybe the reason I haven't noticed is because I've been mostly stuck in my house for six months!

 

[Battpower]

I will have to try some night driving and capture some images. Maybe the reason I haven't noticed is because I've been mostly stuck in my house for six months!

It's sad isn't it?!

 

[SDRick]

I will have to try some night driving and capture some images. Maybe the reason I haven't noticed is because I've been mostly stuck in my house for six months!

I kind of forgot about it as I too have not been going out as much and rarely at night.

 

[Cheburashka]

My street has no lighting at all and at night the camera is just black. Can't see anything at all.

Have to turn on emergency blinkers but even then you can barely make things out.

 

[cruiserlarry]

My 2017 S90D had MCU1/HW2, and the rear camera image was great, even at night. Now I've had it upgraded to MCU2/HW3, and the rear camera image is much darker, and less detail - like when you give a screen to much contrast. Hopefully, it'll be a software bug fix, since it seems to be a software created issue.

 

[blackhawk]

I did some night driving (finally!) and my rear camera is also really dark. I just hadn't noticed it before.

Has anyone tried opening a service call?

 

[croman]

I did some night driving (finally!) and my rear camera is also really dark. I just hadn't noticed it before.

Has anyone tried opening a service call?

Service center says it is normal. No one can do anything but engineering. Seems all mcu2 owners have been ok with this for years now. Insane to me as backup camera at night is critical to me. I leave the camera on all the time.

 

[Hank42]

This is a HUGE problem for me. The backup lights don't illuminate the scene for the mirrors to be effective. The old "MCU1" image I had almost knew it was dark and adjusted the white balance accordingly so that those tiny backup LED's made it look like daylight.

 

[SoCal Buzz]

Do cars that came factory-fitted with MCU2 have a darker rear camera too than a similar MCU1 equipped camera? Or does it only affect MCU2-upgraded cars?

I don’t recall seeing this mentioned on here until MCU1 to MCU2 upgrades happened.

My 2018 original MCU2 car has always had a very dark rear camera at night (compared directly to my 2013). I can only see properly on dark street or driveway if I ride the brakes.

 

[Hank42]

My 2018 original MCU2 car has always had a very dark rear camera at night (compared directly to my 2013). I can only see properly on dark street or driveway if I ride the brakes.

Good tip. I try to do the same, but it is very dangerous in certain situations. For example, I back into my driveway at night. The driveway is sloped towards the street, so I need to apply pressure to the accelerator, and can't ride the brakes unless I get a "running start" <- the dangerous part. Furthermore, the rear camera is _essential_ when backing up a on a slope because the field of view out the rear window is to narrow on the vertical plane. While I might be able to see a human, or other large object out the rear window, or there might be enough light to reflect off a person wearing a white shirt, forget about seeing road obstacles such as pot holes, small children, cats, bikes etc..
Oh, and no, my car is so old, it does not have the ultrasonic collision indicators, so the camera is even more important.

 

[SucreTease]

This is a HUGE problem for me. The backup lights don't illuminate the scene for the mirrors to be effective. The old "MCU1" image I had almost knew it was dark and adjusted the white balance accordingly so that those tiny backup LED's made it look like daylight.

I sure wish we could find a way to get Tesla to put it back like it used to be. Isn't there some hero out there who can get a Twitter response out of Elon about this?

 

[Morristhecat]

I had my MCU2 installed about 2 months ago, and now that the days are getting shorter I am using the backup camera more in the dark, and had noticed that the rear view is harder to see these days. Then I see this thread and realize I am not the only one and that it is indeed an issue & I am not going nuts. I don't expect Tesla to solve this issue. I am starting to wonder about installing some sort of infrared backup light that turns on with my regular backup lights. Something like this maybe?

 

[squarepeg77]

I can't believe they can't just turn up the gain a bit... or post-process in software