Just realized that Tesla changed the dashcam from continuous to a 1-hour loop - how moronic!

[markinsf]

Got a ticket last weekend and decided to look at the dashcam recordings from my Tesla. For the dashcam footage, I had the day before and nothing else. For sentry I have clips going all the way back to September of 2021!

After some research on the web, I see that Tesla only saves the last hour of dashcam footage. Am I going crazy or did Tesla used to save all dashcam footage until the drive was full and then you had to delete files to clear space?

In any event, I fail to understand the logic of this setup. It is backasswards. Why would I want to save Sentry clips into infinity but dashcam footage is on a 1-hour loop? I park my car on city streets during the day and if I would ever happen to notice there was a dent or someone hit my car (this happened - broke the front wheel off) then I can look at the Sentry clips for more info. I don't need to save Sentry clips until the drive is full as I'll eventually notice a dent or whatever and, max, will want to go back a week or so.

On the other hand, if there is a mishap on the road I have to remember to beep the horn or hit the tiny icon to save the footage? If something scary (accident) or stressful (traffic violation) happens while I'm driving, remembering to hit the record button is the last thing on my mind. Tesla should - just like every other dashcam out there even the crappy $40 one on ebay and amazon - should just fill up the entire storage and then start overwriting.

Just plain stooopid!

 

[croman]

This is how it has always worked. Sorry.

 

[jjrandorin]

As @croman says, the thread title is incorrect. This was not "changed".

 

[markinsf]

Perhaps I'm thinking of my other car or a previous car. That said, I still stand by my statement that it is utterly moronic to have a 1-hour loop on driving footage but to save sentry clips for months. Thanks!

 

[jjrandorin]

Perhaps I'm thinking of my other car or a previous car. That said, I still stand by my statement that it is utterly moronic to have a 1-hour loop on driving footage but to save sentry clips for months. Thanks!

Sentry clips are supposed to be "alarm alerts", while dashcam footage is mostly going to be random drives. it certainly doesnt make sense to keep every second of "random drive" footage in perpetuity. Overwriting it at "some point" is inevitable. What the "right" amount is, is debatable of course.

 

[mspohr]

Perhaps I'm thinking of my other car or a previous car. That said, I still stand by my statement that it is utterly moronic to have a 1-hour loop on driving footage but to save sentry clips for months. Thanks!

Dashcam has to loop eventually as it will quickly fill up storage. A one hour loop sounds good.
If you want to same something, tap the horn or the screen button and it will save it .
(or the car will save sentry, accidents, etc. automatically)
Seems easy enough.

 

[ngng]

Perhaps I'm thinking of my other car or a previous car. That said, I still stand by my statement that it is utterly moronic to have a 1-hour loop on driving footage but to save sentry clips for months. Thanks!

This is how most dashcams work. Typically they loop and overwrite uneventful footage unless a user requests otherwise.

 

[Model S M.D.]

This is how most dashcams work. Typically they loop and overwrite uneventful footage unless a user requests otherwise.

Exactly. This is how Blackvue works. Depending on the size of your SD card, it can save up to several days of continuous 4K footage. So if something happens you dont have to remember to honk horn or check the footage 1 hr later—you just have to go back and check the past few days and get the exact footage you are looking for.

 

[coco135]

how can you view the last hour of dash cam? i can only see a list of Sentry events

 

[Grey Fox]

Got a ticket last weekend and decided to look at the dashcam recordings from my Tesla. For the dashcam footage, I had the day before and nothing else. For sentry I have clips going all the way back to September of 2021!

After some research on the web, I see that Tesla only saves the last hour of dashcam footage. Am I going crazy or did Tesla used to save all dashcam footage until the drive was full and then you had to delete files to clear space?

In any event, I fail to understand the logic of this setup. It is backasswards. Why would I want to save Sentry clips into infinity but dashcam footage is on a 1-hour loop? I park my car on city streets during the day and if I would ever happen to notice there was a dent or someone hit my car (this happened - broke the front wheel off) then I can look at the Sentry clips for more info. I don't need to save Sentry clips until the drive is full as I'll eventually notice a dent or whatever and, max, will want to go back a week or so.

On the other hand, if there is a mishap on the road I have to remember to beep the horn or hit the tiny icon to save the footage? If something scary (accident) or stressful (traffic violation) happens while I'm driving, remembering to hit the record button is the last thing on my mind. Tesla should - just like every other dashcam out there even the crappy $40 one on ebay and amazon - should just fill up the entire storage and then start overwriting.

Just plain stooopid!

Absolutely agree with you!!!

 

[zeleznikja]

As @croman says, the thread title is incorrect. This was not "changed".

Maybe the OP and I had some kind of bug but I assure you my 18X recorded hours and hours of video of me driving around. Several times I was about to put the card in my computer and pull a random event off from hours or days prior to show someone.

 

[Kristoffer Helle]

I don't have the 1 hour or the "continues" clips on my 2019X or 3.

 

[coco135]

how can you view the last hour of dash cam? i can only see a list of Sentry events

you cannot see it in the car, you need to to connect he usb stick to a computer

 

[markinsf]

Maybe the OP and I had some kind of bug but I assure you my 18X recorded hours and hours of video of me driving around. Several times I was about to put the card in my computer and pull a random event off from hours or days prior to show someone.

Thanks. I never like to argue with people on the internet but I am now positive that the Tesla dashcam used to work as most external dashcams that I've used - i.e., the footage is saved indefinitely until overwritten or purposely deleted.

 

[DCGOO]

Thanks. I never like to argue with people on the internet but I am now positive that the Tesla dashcam used to work as most external dashcams that I've used - i.e., the footage is saved indefinitely until overwritten or purposely deleted.

I agree. But that was long ago back when the feature was new and only provided a single camera's view. Later when the feature was enhanced to capturing streams from four camera view, it was changed to the one hour continuous roll we have now. It has been the one hour roll for years. You can now view all four streams in the vehicle, upwards of 100 MB per minute. What I do is. I am running the little program on a Raspberry Pi Zero called 'teslausb.' Basically, that emulates a USB stick to the vehicle, but whenever I pull into my garage, it automatically mounts a share from my Synology NAS and copies all the recorded files to the server on my home network. I can view the files at home on my Mac.

I suppose you could add a script to the Raspberry Pi, to archive the files a while longer or more often, outside the control of the car. But honestly, I've never felt the need to do that. See GitHub - marcone/teslausb: Steps and scripts for turning a Raspberry Pi into a useful USB drive for a Tesla for more information.

 

[Kristoffer Helle]

you cannot see it in the car, you need to to connect he usb stick to a computer

We could see it before. Why did they remove that feature?
I didn't known they still had it. I needed that info several times :/