Sentry Mode uses 6%/day

[e645824]

I've noticed that that I lose about 12% on the weekends when unplugged. I'm off for this long Thanksgiving week and am not driving anywhere, so I decided to do a test. I have Sentry Mode on but the A/C system is set to "Off" upon vacating the car. I lose 6% over 24 hours each of the past 4 days According to jjrandorin Sentry Mode uses 230 Watts = 0.23 kW. So 0.23kW * 24hours = 5.5% and that explains my loss.

According to Snowstorm in other threads, the 3 big drains to turn off are:

Summon standby is off​

Sentry mode is off​

Always connected is off​

Is there a way to reduce Sentry Mode's use? I live in the country and park outside so I like having Sentry Mode on even when at home. And it is on while I'm at work. As other people have mentioned in other threads, it really drains the battery when parked at an airport for a week or two. But Sentry Mode is perfect when parked at an airport.

The funny thing is that I can hear something running from the passenger-wide front wheel well. It sounds like a fan. But my A/C is certainly off and it's November so it isn't triggering the 105 degree threshold. I'm guessing it is the cooling system for the 230 Watt box that implements Sentry Mode.


I'm running 2021.35 (haven't received the 2021.40 update yet). Do the release notes for 2021.40 mention any improvements with Sentry Mode's power drain? Sentry Mode is a great feature, and I'd hate to turn it off, but it seems that we can't use it precisely when we need to use it.

Thanks,

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

 

[GtiMart]

Is there a way to reduce Sentry Mode's use? The answer is NO. Sentry requires the car to be awake. As soon as the car is awake the computer is running and the coolant pump runs too. That's what takes roughly 200w. Sentry doesn't add any significant power drain on top, it's the car being awake that uses that power.
There have been small improvements over time I guess. Recently they turned the audio amp off while sentry is running, which caused a problem where it wouldn't turn back on unless you reboot the car. That was fixed in a later update but it shows Tesla is trying to save some power when they have an idea. Just don't expect anything major.

 

[tsam23]

Avoid sentry mode at your home garage

 

[ATPMSD]

Summon standby is off
Sentry mode is off
Always connected is off

If either of the first two is on, the car will not sleep and will consume about 250 watts / hr
Always connect does not wake the car and the drain is trival. If it is off you cannot communicate with the car.

 

[jjrandorin]

I've noticed that that I lose about 12% on the weekends when unplugged. I'm off for this long Thanksgiving week and am not driving anywhere, so I decided to do a test. I have Sentry Mode on but the A/C system is set to "Off" upon vacating the car. I lose 6% over 24 hours each of the past 4 days According to jjrandorin Sentry Mode uses 230 Watts = 0.23 kW. So 0.23kW * 24hours = 5.5% and that explains my loss.

According to Snowstorm in other threads, the 3 big drains to turn off are:

Summon standby is off​

Sentry mode is off​

Always connected is off​

Is there a way to reduce Sentry Mode's use? I live in the country and park outside so I like having Sentry Mode on even when at home. And it is on while I'm at work. As other people have mentioned in other threads, it really drains the battery when parked at an airport for a week or two. But Sentry Mode is perfect when parked at an airport.

The funny thing is that I can hear something running from the passenger-wide front wheel well. It sounds like a fan. But my A/C is certainly off and it's November so it isn't triggering the 105 degree threshold. I'm guessing it is the cooling system for the 230 Watt box that implements Sentry Mode.


I'm running 2021.35 (haven't received the 2021.40 update yet). Do the release notes for 2021.40 mention any improvements with Sentry Mode's power drain? Sentry Mode is a great feature, and I'd hate to turn it off, but it seems that we can't use it precisely when we need to use it.

Thanks,

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

Its well established at this point that sentry mode will use between 1 to 2 miles an HOUR of range. This mode was bolted on in 2018 due to tesla break in's in San Francisco. It keeps the car awake, so it will drain 24-48 miles per day of leaving it on.

No, you shouldnt use it when parked at an airport unless your car is plugged in (unless you want to come back with 20% or less range, for a few day trip).
There will likely never be any real improvements on sentry mode power usage. It keeps the car awake so it can record, awake car = what you see. You will need to install an aftermarket dashcam of some sort if you want something different.

otherwise, know that you will lose at minimum 20 miles of range a day with just sentry mode, more if anything else (like cabin overheat protection) is on.

 

[Rocky_H]

Do the release notes for 2021.40 mention any improvements with Sentry Mode's power drain? Sentry Mode is a great feature, and I'd hate to turn it off, but it seems that we can't use it precisely when we need to use it.

What people don't seem to realize is that the car was never designed to do that. It was an afterthought added later, so it is doing this feature very badly and energy inefficiently, because it was never meant to do this. A good self-contained dashcam system is made to use a tiny amount of power. The way they had to hack this to implement it is having to keep several major systems in the car, including the main control computer, turned on all the time, which is a really big drain on energy. So no, it will never really reduce in power much until a really major redesign of the cars to segregate this off into a very tiny system that can use less energy while keeping most of the car off, but I don't know if they will ever do that.

Always connected is off

If either of the first two is on, the car will not sleep and will consume about 250 watts / hr
Always connect does not wake the car and the drain is trival. If it is off you cannot communicate with the car.

No, that's not true. It doesn't disable communication. It's a time response thing. Always connected keeps things more awake so it will respond to the app almost instantly, like in a second or two. If you have always connected turned off, you open the app, and it takes about 20-30 seconds to wake some things up before it will respond to things in the app.

 

[ATPMSD]

No, that's not true.

This option was in my 2020 MS manual, but the setting is no longer an option.

 

[Rocky_H]

This option was in my 2020 MS manual, but the setting is no longer an option.

The feature just had a bad/confusing name. That isn't communication enabled or disabled. It's more about instant response or delayed response. I hadn't heard that they have removed that setting.

 

[e645824]

Thanks. I park outside so I had wanted to have Sentry Mode on all the time. But at this point, I have set it to deactivate when it is at "Home". I told the navigation system to go "Home" and it confirmed that it thinks that it is indeed at home. So I'll see tomorrow morning if that actually works.

If not, then I'll just have to manually turn Sentry Mode on and all all the time. I'm actually bummed about this because I was looking forward to this feature in my $63k car. But it appears that it doesn't actually work for the instances when we want it to.

Thanks to all for the 6%/day confirmation.

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

 

[e645824]

Thanks. I park outside so I had wanted to have Sentry Mode on all the time. But at this point, I have set it to deactivate when it is at "Home". I told the navigation system to go "Home" and it confirmed that it thinks that it is indeed at home. So I'll see tomorrow morning if that actually works.

If not, then I'll just have to manually turn Sentry Mode on and all all the time. I'm actually bummed about this because I was looking forward to this feature in my $63k car. But it appears that it doesn't actually work for the instances when we want it to.

Thanks to all for the 6%/day confirmation.

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

Just a follow up: It has been a couple of days and battery capacity is holding steady at 151 miles (same as on Wednesday). So I have confirmed for myself the same thing that everyone else indicated: Sentry Mode really gobbles up battery.

So be sure to put a check in the checkbox that disables Sentry Mode when safely at home (unless you park outside in an unsavory neighborhood).

The problem with this recommendation is parking at an airport when we really would like Sentry Mode turned on. But for that, I think that I'd print a screen protector with the "Sentry Mode" icon shown on a white background.

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

 

[jjrandorin]

Just a follow up: It has been a couple of days and battery capacity is holding steady at 151 miles (same as on Wednesday). So I have confirmed for myself the same thing that everyone else indicated: Sentry Mode really gobbles up battery.

So be sure to put a check in the checkbox that disables Sentry Mode when safely at home (unless you park outside in an unsavory neighborhood).

The problem with this recommendation is parking at an airport when we really would like Sentry Mode turned on. But for that, I think that I'd print a screen protector with the "Sentry Mode" icon shown on a white background.

Scott

--

MYLR | Red ext | White int | 19" | 5 seats | tow | no FSD | made/delivered Oct 2021

If you travel a lot, perhaps consider looking for airport parking with EV charging. Where I am, parking AT the airport is like double the cost of off airport parking with shuttles to the airport, and many off airport parking lots have EV chargers in them that dont cost anything additional (or it didnt cost additional the last time I traveled by airplane, which was mid 2019).

 

[CaptUAL]

Arizona No Power loss Sentry Mode…..The Crossbow