Sentry Mode and TeslaCam

[vitesse]

While I have a facelft loaner (late 2017 or 67 reg) for a few more days I thought I'd try out TeslaCam but I can't seem to get it to work. The car definitely has Sentry Mode but when I plug in a FAT32 USB drive nothing happen. I've tried two different drives.

Does the availability of Sentry Mode mean the car has TeslaCam? Both are supposed to be features only available in cars from August 2017 onwards.

 

[DJP31]

Does the availability of Sentry Mode mean the car has TeslaCam? Both are supposed to be features only available in cars from August 2017 onwards.

No. AP2 cars have a version of Sentry Mode. You can activate it but it won’t record anything locally, that’s only on AP2.5 (and AP3 of course). This is probably why you’re not having any success with the USB.

 

[vitesse]

OK, thanks!

 

[Peteski]

67 Reg should be 2.5 I would have thought? Mine is anyway (Feb 18). Did you remember to create a Tesla directory on the USB drive? Otherwise it won't work

 

[ArunG]

67 Reg should be 2.5 I would have thought? Mine is anyway (Feb 18). Did you remember to create a Tesla directory on the USB drive? Otherwise it won't work

Yip, you need to have a folder called TeslaCam folder on the USB drive

 

[ArunG]

Sorry, folder should be called "TeslaCam"

 

[vitesse]

Yes, TeslaCam folder. FAT32. What's the best way of verifying the car is HW2.5?

 

[Asterix187]

I have an Aug 17 with 2.5.

 

[vitesse]

Apparently there should be sticker on the body surrounding the driver's door frame showing the build year and month but although I see two stickers none seem to show this information (one is about tyre pressures and the other has the VIN number, and something to do with weights (towing?). 2017 08 is the magic start month for HW2.5 A 67 car might have been registered as early as August 2017 but may, of course, have been built several months earlier.

The software notes mention Sentry Mode but not TeslaCam so I guess it's not on the car but I don't give up easily! I will try a couple more USB sticks as I have a whole box of'em!

Would really like fw 2019.20 as will be doing 200 miles today...

 

[DJP31]

The software notes mention Sentry Mode but not TeslaCam so I guess it's not on the car but I don't give up easily!

I’d stop wasting your time then . The release notes would include dashcam if it was an AP2.5 car.

Spend the time saved driving instead

 

[Peteski]

You would soon switch dashcam off anyway if you use Spotify streaming as it causes it to skip annoyingly on every track. I only use it now for parking in Sentry mode.

 

[vitesse]

You would soon switch dashcam off anyway if you use Spotify streaming as it causes it to skip annoyingly on every track. I only use it now for parking in Sentry mode.

Interesting, I have a dual dashcam in our car but felt a bit vulnerable without them in the loaner.

Am actually a bit sick of the car despite it being newer and quicker than our 70D!

 

[Bernard_S]

Slightly unrelated question. Is it possible see the pictures from the side cameras on the screen in real time when reversing ? This feature would be very useful for for reversing into/out of tight spaces e.g. my garage

 

[mo.dilwar]

Another unrelated question: is there a setting to record all dashcam footage until the USB drive is full, then auto delete the oldest files?

Currently, all my dashcam footage older than 1 hour is being deleted even though I have pretty of remain space on the USB drive.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

On dashcam, if you have an 'incident', you need to press the camera icon. This will move the last 10 (?) minutes into saved clips.

On sentry, it just records, but at some point, does start deleting stale clips.

I've not got my head around it yet, but there is an overlap between dash and sentry, so you may find some sentry clips in saved, or drives in sentry - I think. Bit of an organisational mess, especially when it skips a few seconds at end of each minute clip so if you hut record/save too early, you miss the incident.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

Slightly unrelated question. Is it possible see the pictures from the side cameras on the screen in real time when reversing ? This feature would be very useful for for reversing into/out of tight spaces e.g. my garage

No, but there are side sensors but not sure how much I trust them. Also summon with FSD - my comment about trust x 10 !

Just the rear view (in nrt).

 

[Glan gluaisne]

From what I've read so far, it looks as if using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, together with a robust µSD card and a suitable USB lead and case, gets around many of the potential limitations with the way the TeslaCam records footage.

I've just stuck a spare Raspberry Pi Zero W (cost ~£10) in a small case (cost ~£5), loaded a pre-formatted image to a µSD card (~£25) and should have a robust USB dongle that will record TeslaCam video, store music and both download all the stored video as soon as the car gets within range of our wifi and synchronise the music folder with the one on the house server.

I've yet to test it, but it looks to be a reasonably good way to store TeslaCam video.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

Raspberry Pi solution is not immune to 'too slow' and other problems - they seem to get sorted though.

 

[Mr Miserable]

I tried to get the Raspberry Pi Zero W solution to work but failed miserably - it never connected to the WiFi to dump its footage for some reason.

The more I drive the Model 3 the more I would like to see instant playback of Sentry events and that will be my next project.

 

[Bernard_S]

No, but there are side sensors but not sure how much I trust them. Also summon with FSD - my comment about trust x 10 !

Just the rear view (in nrt).

That's a shame, the problem I've got is that on the left side in particular there is very little clearance from a buttress on the wall. I can fold the mirrors in but then you are blind. Oh well, I'll just have to take it slowly.