Sentry Mode - Help

[Gordon87]

I have been out of town for a week. My Model 3 is plugged in, automatically set the charge up to 80% every morning at 7:30 am. I have a large USB drive installed and have Sentry Mode enabled.

I just checked my car from the app and surprisingly it shows a charge of 47%, and notes that the car will start charging at 7:30 am. I tried to start charging immediately through the app. It attempts to and then just reverts to the note that it will start charging at 7:30 am. Odd?

I tried to turn off Sentry Mode through the app, but it won’t turn it off. I feel that it hasn’t been charging daily and Sentry Mode is running the battery down.

When the battery gets to 20% (if it doesn’t start recharging), will it automatically turn off Sentry Mode? I am not sure what to do since I’m still out of town for another week and a half.

I had someone check power to the outlet and the charger. He said: There is power to the charger and it was plugged into the car. I jiggled it and hit the little button on top and the blue light came on.

I was able to unlock the car remotely and asked him to go turn off Sentry Mode. Will he be able to go in and turn off Sentry Mode?

When he went to the car it had re-locked. Now I’m confused. I unlock the car with the app and. Few seconds later, it re-locks. Uggh. I am going to try to unlock the car when he is standing by the car and see if that works. I hop it won’t set off the Sentry Mode alarm.

Not sure what else to do. I don’t want to keep checking the car through the app and use up more battery charge.

 

[Fernand]

You might try updating your phone's app from your app store.
Then put phone in airplane mode and back to reinit comms.
There are apparently frequent updates.

 

[Gordon87]

Thanks. Good suggestion. I just checked the Apple App Store. No updates.

Also, I tried to unlock through the app, but my friend said the car was still locked.

Will the car shut off Sentry Mode when it hits 20%?

 

[Fernand]

Yes, that's what it's supposed to do.

I think there's a bit of a security "concern", where the
Bluetooth and Network ideally are both connected,
and I'm not sure which functions work on Net alone.

Also does your car have a strong Wifi signal? Cell
data bars too?

 

[Gordon87]

Thanks. It usually has strong bars, but the garage where I park has no Wi-Fi. The app connects to the car though. Before, I sometimes had problems waking the car up to connect, but with Sentry Mode on, the car is awake and connects.

 

[Incredulocious]

Thanks. Good suggestion. I just checked the Apple App Store. No updates.

Also, I tried to unlock through the app, but my friend said the car was still locked.

Will the car shut off Sentry Mode when it hits 20%?

Hmm... perhaps you should contact Tesla support and explain that, even though you can remotely connect to the car, you’re unable to control it (turn off sentry mode, unlock it, charge it, etc). Perhaps they can remotely reboot it for you.

 

[Gordon87]

I need to show someone how to turn off sentry mode from the screen in the Model 3. Can someone post pics of the switch on and off? Thanks.

 

[SMAlset]

Don’t know if you still need image but here’s on from my Model 3. To get here your friend needs to tap the Controls icon (car) at bottom left.

On 2019.12.1.2

 

[Gordon87]

Don’t know if you still need image but here’s on from my Model 3. To get here your friend needs to tap the Controls icon (car) at bottom left.

View attachment 412582

On 2019.12.1.2

Thanks. Just what I needed.

 

[SMAlset]

Just a wild out of left field guess here but do you have Lock on Walk-Away set to on? Wonder if since it doesn’t sense the phone key it locks right away???

If so, friend could disable under Locks screen I think unless it wants a key present. Not near my car right now.

 

[SMAlset]

....When he went to the car it had re-locked. Now I’m confused. I unlock the car with the app and. Few seconds later, it re-locks. Uggh. I am going to try to unlock the car when he is standing by the car and see if that works. I hop it won’t set off the Sentry Mode alarm.

Not sure what else to do. I don’t want to keep checking the car through the app and use up more battery charge.

Just a wild out of left field guess here but do you have Lock on Walk-Away set to on? Wonder if since it doesn’t sense the phone key it locks right away???

If so, friend could disable under Locks screen I think unless it wants a key present. Not near my car right now.

Let us know if the Lock on Walk-Away was enabled and causing your car to lock on your friend. Your situation has me curious. Thanks.

 

[Gordon87]

Walk-away locking is on, but I don’t believe that was an issue. My car at some point (probably early on) needed a reboot.

My friend was able to get into the car with my keycard this morning. The screen was black. I walked him through a reboot and after that, the car started charging, it showed Sentry Mode off (presumably because the charge had dropped to 20% last night and so, automatically turned off Sentry Mode), and my iPhone app was able to fully connect to the car.

Weird thing - While it seems the car turned off Sentry Mide last night, by the time my friend got to the car, the charge had dropped further - down to 13-14%. I don’t know why I was still losing so much charge other than Sentry Mode. I thought the car would lose around 1%/day if it weren’t charging (and Sentry Mode was off).

My one lesson learned - One cannot use Sentry Mode if one will be away from the car for many days. There’s is too much of a chance a problem like mine will arise. If I hadn’t had Sentry Mode engaged, I assume that my loss of miles charged while out of town would have been significantly less, and I could have rebooted and recharged when I returned.