Got sentry mode on Monday night (from 2018.50.6 4ec03ed to 2019.8.3 da116a6. HW2.5 MCU1) and have been trying it out the last few evenings. Let me preface this that I hadn't done any prior research or youtube review watching prior to this. First impression - awesome!
I have a BlackVue DR-750S-2CH installed currently so I haven't been using TeslaCam all that much. The original version of TeslaCam was just the front cam view so not too interesting for me. Anyway, I had to go find my USB stick again so that I could give sentry mode a try. We went to Costco to pick up some things and I enabled Sentry mode via the MCU before locking up the car. Slightly annoying, but nothing to really cry about. You can also enable Sentry mode from the phone app if you'd like to do so.
On the way back to the car, since I hold the key fob, I had my family go first and I stood back and watched. Once they got up to the car, the car powered up, exterior lights turned on (night time) and the MCU lit up. They were at the trunk so they could see the MCU and everything. The MCU showed basically what it normally does for my setup - Navigate button strip at the top, rear view cam below, then music below that. Additionally, there was what looked like a HAL, red dot, overlay over the top. We didn't go any further than that to trigger any other fireworks.
Finally got home and started to review the footage. Basically three cameras are set to record - the front and the two cameras near the side markers/signals. You end up with files like date-front.mp4, date-left-repeater.mp4, and date-right-repeater.mp4. Sentry mode (parking mode) clips are about a minute in length at 30MB per file. Additionally, all three cameras also record while driving, which is probably new, at least new to me since the last time I tried TeslaCam. So you get all of that additional footage as well, which is awesome. The POV of those cameras reminded me of videos where people attach GoPros to their cars to capture the side views. The overall quality of the clips were good - there were a few pixelated issues here and there. I could read license plates in the parking lot just fine.
Anyway, closing thoughts - I need to get a bigger USB stick, a lot bigger. Especially if they ever start to store the footage from the pillar cams and the rear camera. I will also keep my BlackVue installed for the foreseeable future too, primarily because of the added rear view footage, but also because I prefer videos with a soundtrack and all the extra metadata that comes along for the ride.
I have a BlackVue DR-750S-2CH installed currently so I haven't been using TeslaCam all that much. The original version of TeslaCam was just the front cam view so not too interesting for me. Anyway, I had to go find my USB stick again so that I could give sentry mode a try. We went to Costco to pick up some things and I enabled Sentry mode via the MCU before locking up the car. Slightly annoying, but nothing to really cry about. You can also enable Sentry mode from the phone app if you'd like to do so.
On the way back to the car, since I hold the key fob, I had my family go first and I stood back and watched. Once they got up to the car, the car powered up, exterior lights turned on (night time) and the MCU lit up. They were at the trunk so they could see the MCU and everything. The MCU showed basically what it normally does for my setup - Navigate button strip at the top, rear view cam below, then music below that. Additionally, there was what looked like a HAL, red dot, overlay over the top. We didn't go any further than that to trigger any other fireworks.
Finally got home and started to review the footage. Basically three cameras are set to record - the front and the two cameras near the side markers/signals. You end up with files like date-front.mp4, date-left-repeater.mp4, and date-right-repeater.mp4. Sentry mode (parking mode) clips are about a minute in length at 30MB per file. Additionally, all three cameras also record while driving, which is probably new, at least new to me since the last time I tried TeslaCam. So you get all of that additional footage as well, which is awesome. The POV of those cameras reminded me of videos where people attach GoPros to their cars to capture the side views. The overall quality of the clips were good - there were a few pixelated issues here and there. I could read license plates in the parking lot just fine.
Anyway, closing thoughts - I need to get a bigger USB stick, a lot bigger. Especially if they ever start to store the footage from the pillar cams and the rear camera. I will also keep my BlackVue installed for the foreseeable future too, primarily because of the added rear view footage, but also because I prefer videos with a soundtrack and all the extra metadata that comes along for the ride.
