Sentry Mode extended use

[Jughead135]

What's the collective wisdom on using Sentry Mode for an extended period of time?

When I park at the airport, leaving my car from anywhere from a few hours to a week or more, I have a 20A L1 outlet I plug in to. I don't care at all about the power consumption--understood it's slowing down my charging rate somewhat (by a small, nearly negligible amount) and it's killing innocent electrons to keep the computer awake.

My question is: am I harming my car by doing so? Does keeping the car awake for the extended period have negative repercussions? Does the more frequent charge cycling (since the vampire drain is significantly higher, once the charge level is reached, the car discharges more quickly to the point where it starts charging again) do bad things? Any other problems I'm not considering?

In case it affects the answer: When I'll be back within about three days or less, I charge to my daily target of 75%. When I'm expecting to be gone longer, I'll charge to 50% (then remotely bump it up to 75% the day before I return).

 

[EVRider-FL]

Since you’re plugged in, use Sentry Mode if you need the security it provides. Don’t overthink it. If you don’t want to worry about it, leave your car at home and take an Uber to the airport, if that’s an option for you. That’s what I do.

 

[Jughead135]

Since you’re plugged in, use Sentry Mode if you need the security it provides. Don’t overthink it. If you don’t want to worry about it, leave your car at home and take an Uber to the airport, if that’s an option for you. That’s what I do.

Not truly a "security" issue (I'm not at all concerned about the garage's security). My thinking is that Sentry may ID the random bit of damage. Uber would be quite expensive to do on any sort of regular basis. I briefly lived in town where I could take the train to the airport--THAT was convenient!

Anyway, "in general" I would prefer to have Sentry on--but, I don't "need" it. Just asking if there are any negative consequences of running it all the time....

 

[EVRider-FL]

In general, it’s better for the car to sleep, but I don’t think you’ll do any damage by keeping Sentry on. You might wear out dashcam USBs faster. Airport parking can be expensive, so if you’re parking for a longer period, Uber might not be that much more (or maybe even less).

 

[Jughead135]

In general, it’s better for the car to sleep, but I don’t think you’ll do any damage by keeping Sentry on. You might wear out dashcam USBs faster. Airport parking can be expensive, so if you’re parking for a longer period, Uber might not be that much more (or maybe even less).

Hadn't thought of the flash drive wearing out--good point. That said, those are dirt cheap--and, in my case, it's actually a SD card inside a Raspberry Pi running the teslausb project, with gobs to spare (256GB, I think??). Mild pain to dig it out & swap the card, but no show stopper and doesn't (by itself) make me rethink running the Sentry.

I understand there's certain housekeeping chores the car takes care of when it sleeps, so that's the sort of thing I'm worried about. My car sleeps when I'm at home (the preponderance of my parking, and generally the only place besides the airport where I park more than a couple of hours), so I hope it can take care of itself then (but, whadda I know??)....

Re parking cost: I pay a fixed montly rate to park. In my case, it's roughly equivalent to 1.5 - 2 Uber round-trips, so I'm definitely on the right side of that one looking only at the direct costs.

 

[Big Earl]

Aside from racking up hours on the car’s computers and cooling pumps, it won’t damage anything. Those components have finite lifetimes, but it’s hard to quantify exactly what they are.

 

[Jughead135]

Aside from racking up hours on the car’s computers and cooling pumps, it won’t damage anything. Those components have finite lifetimes, but it’s hard to quantify exactly what they are.

Expand, please.

I wasn't aware there was a "consumable" finite lifetime re the computers. What form is that? Flash memory, again, or something else?

Re the pumps: I'd been under the impression that keeping the charge below approx 77 - 78% kept the pumps off--that's why I charge to 75% in the first place. Have I missed something?

This sort of "early wear and tear" potential is exactly the sort of issue I'm trying to evaluate with this thread, thanks. Once I figure out *if* I'm damaging or excessively "wearing out" anything, then I can answer the "is it worth it?" question....

 

[EVRider-FL]

Re parking cost: I pay a fixed montly rate to park. In my case, it's roughly equivalent to 1.5 - 2 Uber round-trips, so I'm definitely on the right side of that one looking only at the direct costs.

Not having to worry about your car is worth paying for.

 

[DerbyDave]

Keeping Sentry on should not adversely affect the computers or your battery, particularly if your car is plugged in. It causes more stress on computer hardware to cycle off-on that to leave it on all the time wasting energy. The fact that Sentry is on should minimize cycling of the mechanical and computer switching that occurs when the car "wakes up". This will probably make those components last longer, while wasting energy. No worries on the battery.

 

[redmunds]

I can't think of any measurable wear and tear this would cause, and the benefit of Sentry Mode should easily outweigh any concern.

When I park at the airport, leaving my car from anywhere from a few hours to a week or more, I have a 20A L1 outlet I plug in to.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm curious -- what airport provides an outlet to plug into in their parking lot?

 

[Jughead135]

Not having to worry about your car is worth paying for.

Indeed. But, again, I'm not worried about my car. The primary reason I'm in a paying for the monthly parking (vs the "free" parking my employer provides) is security, and convenience is in the mix, too. With up to 20 trips to the airport monthly, that Uber stops looking economical at all.

BTW: Do you drive for Uber, or just own their stock...?

 

[DerbyDave]

Many airports do. Do a google search on: "Electric vehicle charging stations at XXXXXXX airport" The ones I use have charging stations available, except one.

 

[Jughead135]

Keeping Sentry on should not adversely affect the computers or your battery, particularly if your car is plugged in. It causes more stress on computer hardware to cycle off-on that to leave it on all the time wasting energy. The fact that Sentry is on should minimize cycling of the mechanical and computer switching that occurs when the car "wakes up". This will probably make those components last longer, while wasting energy. No worries on the battery.

Super. Thanks for the data point!

I can't think of any measurable wear and tear this would cause, and the benefit of Sentry Mode should easily outweigh any concern.

Ditto! Agreed on the "value" of Sentry (why I'm using it). The electricity costs me nothing (nothing extra, beyond what I'm paying to park), so it's a non-factor in that sense. And, while it's enough to visibly drain the battery to the tune of ~3% / day when not plugged in, it's still a pretty negligible amount of juice involved--the only reason I ever care about the power usage of Sentry is if I'm in a situation where the battery drain could put me in a too-low charge position.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I'm curious -- what airport provides an outlet to plug into in their parking lot?

I used "at the airport" a bit loosely, referring to an off-airport, third-party commercial parking garage nearby.

That said, it's Atlanta (ATL)--and, their garages and lots all have (mostly) L2 chargers in place, with a scattering of L1s in various places, all with J-1772 connectors, and free (included with parking fee). The garages have the occasional outlet, also, where I've seen the random EV plugged in from time to time....

 

[Ben_]

What's the collective wisdom on using Sentry Mode for an extended period of time?

When I park at the airport, leaving my car from anywhere from a few hours to a week or more, I have a 20A L1 outlet I plug in to. I don't care at all about the power consumption--understood it's slowing down my charging rate somewhat (by a small, nearly negligible amount) and it's killing innocent electrons to keep the computer awake.

My question is: am I harming my car by doing so? Does keeping the car awake for the extended period have negative repercussions? Does the more frequent charge cycling (since the vampire drain is significantly higher, once the charge level is reached, the car discharges more quickly to the point where it starts charging again) do bad things? Any other problems I'm not considering?

In case it affects the answer: When I'll be back within about three days or less, I charge to my daily target of 75%. When I'm expecting to be gone longer, I'll charge to 50% (then remotely bump it up to 75% the day before I return).

I think you are worrying too much. If it’s plugged in let Sentry be active, don’t fret the power consumption and enjoy the feature. The car is there to be used.

 

[infiniteloop]

I wrote this somewhere else but here are a few things to keep in mind:

• continuous consumption means more charging/more cycles of the battery get used
• continuous recording on a drive
• car doesn’t go to sleep

Sentry uses about 250W. That would mean a complete battery charge used in about 10 days, so 37 EXTRA cycles per year. A Tesla battery lasting 500k miles = 1500 cycles, lets say 1 cycle is 330 miles. 37 cycles = 12.5k "miles" per year EXTRA battery life consumed. That's significant if you don't drive often.

Continuous recording: you might need to get a big SSD (Samsung T5/7) and that will fail some day. Nobody knows when though, but I’m guessing several years.

No sleep = no calibration of the pack = no accurate range estimate = your DISPLAYED range will drop (Tesla chooses to guess safe so you don’t get stranded), making you fear degradation is taking it’s hefty toll. Solve by switching to %.

P.S. a camera doesn’t stop thieves. Having an empty car that is easily seen to be empty is the best way to not come back to a car with a smashed window

 

[DerbyDave]

He is plugged in. Battery refreshes from the dash cam and phantom loss are not a big issue. Tesla had figured that stuff out.

You need to get an endurance SSD card. It won't wear out during the normal life of the car 10+ years, is designed for dashcam use, is heat, shock, and cold proof, and can be continuously overwritten. No issue.