Sentry mode without flashing lights?

[positiv]

Hey guys,

I'm frequently on the road and I often stay in rural motels which tend to have parking right outside the bedroom/unit.
I want to use sentry mode but I don't want flashing lights to wake me up or my neighbours. I don't want to attract any attention.

Is there any way to turn off the flashing and just have the dash camera recording?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Big Earl]

Hey guys,

I'm frequently on the road and I often stay in rural motels which tend to have parking right outside the bedroom/unit.
I want to use sentry mode but I don't want flashing lights to wake me up or my neighbours. I don't want to attract any attention.

Is there any way to turn off the flashing and just have the dash camera recording?

Thanks in advance!

Nope. Best I can offer you is to back into the parking spot so the headlights aren't shining toward the motel room windows.

 

[PLUGZIN]

I don’t know how or if even possible to shut off flashing headlight feature in Sentry. Best I can thin of is to back into the space. You probably have already considered that.

 

[positiv]

Thanks for the quick reply guys. I had figured that I must have missed a setting somewhere but it seems not.

I’ve considered backing in, but the reflections are still pretty bright at night. And the motel I’m staying at is U shaped, so if I back my car in, I’m still directly facing and flashing another unit block a few metres away.

I’ll turn it off. I have a dash cam from a previous car that I can use once I find someone to do the wiring.

 

[Watts_Up]

I don't use Sentry at night because you cannot adjust the sensitivity so I was getting too many messages
just because may be there was a fluorescent light some where triggering Sentry, but I kept the alarm on.

I used instead a dashcam (Blackvue DR900) that can be connected by WiFi to the Cloud.
So I get an alert on my phone and I can access remotely the camera to get a life view of the car.
Also Sentry was draining too much the battery when running for the full night.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Had my car for a month now and just realized that Sentry Mode recordings would at times show this bright flash of light. I initially thought it was from other cars especially when I'm in a parking garage, but I guess it was just my car reacting to activity. It always seems to catch people's attention though (someone parked in front or just simply walking past the car) and now I'm thinking whether I should just disable it altogether to prevent unwanted attention (but then I lose security offered by it)

 

[Alysashley79]

Iirc the entire point of the flash is to alert people they’re being recorded.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Iirc the entire point of the flash is to alert people they’re being recorded.

Well yeah, I get that part. But I also wish that it was configurable. I like the peace of mind offered by Sentry Mode, but I would also be fine with it not having to flash its headlights every time it picks up an event. I feel like a lot of people keep asking for this feature (and it looks like Elon even acknowledged it at one point last year), so it's surprising that the option hasn't been made available yet.

 

[TydalForce]

IMHO the flashing lights only serve to bring more attention to the car, and not in a good way.
It's been suggested that the flash is required by law to indicate that it's recording, but I don't know that as fact.
I would turn the flashing off too given the option.

 

[johnburbridge]

That could be resolved by flashing parking lights or blinkers, I suppose. Pity there isn’t that option.

 

[SMAlset]

I read that if you are viewing Sentry in live time it will flash the lights.

I think it’s kind of annoying to people like in a store or restaurant near the window with your car parked in front of it (or at a residence possibly) to have that flashing going off but I also see the potential of alerting someone casing your car for whatever purpose (theft, keying, etc) that they know the car is “alive and watching”. Older cars don’t have the external speaker that would allow you to speak to them but guess that’s sort of like having a Ring doorbell except Tesla says the video isn’t stored anywhere other than your USB device whereas I believe Ring stores footage in their cloud storage.

 

[TexasTezla]

I read that if you are viewing Sentry in live time it will flash the lights.

I think it’s kind of annoying to people like in a store or restaurant near the window with your car parked in front of it (or at a residence possibly) to have that flashing going off but I also see the potential of alerting someone casing your car for whatever purpose (theft, keying, etc) that they know the car is “alive and watching”. Older cars don’t have the external speaker that would allow you to speak to them but guess that’s sort of like having a Ring doorbell except Tesla says the video isn’t stored anywhere other than your USB device whereas I believe Ring stores footage in their cloud storage.

Its not flashing on remote view...the lights pulsate a little

 

[CaptUAL]

Had my car for a month now and just realized that Sentry Mode recordings would at times show this bright flash of light. I initially thought it was from other cars especially when I'm in a parking garage, but I guess it was just my car reacting to activity. It always seems to catch people's attention though (someone parked in front or just simply walking past the car) and now I'm thinking whether I should just disable it altogether to prevent unwanted attention (but then I lose security offered by it)

If you park in a higher echelon neighborhood, no one really cares if the Tesla lights twinkle once and awhile.

 

[cowmix]

It seems like the false triggers (and thus blinding flashes) has gotten a lot worse. Also, I've notices that Sentry Mode has activated itself a few times on its own --- so my cross the street neighbors are getting PO'd at me. Gah!

 

[Lightbulb]

yeah its pretty annoying that there isn't a feature to turn the flashing lights off and just start recording after movement is detected. The flashing lights def get peoples attention but sometimes I would rather that not be the case

seems pretty silly to have to get another dash cam to record when the car has a build in system

 

[Earl]

Car cover?

 

[Resist]

Someone asked Elon a few years ago about an option to turn off the Sentry Mode flashing headlights and he said they would do it. Yet we still have nothing. I hate the attention my car gets because of the flashing headlights. My Sentry Mode video shows people walking by my car, get flashed then they walk back to my car and look in, to see if someone was in the car.

 

[ZOEs_EndGame]

yeah its pretty annoying that there isn't a feature to turn the flashing lights off and just start recording after movement is detected. The flashing lights def get peoples attention but sometimes I would rather that not be the case

seems pretty silly to have to get another dash cam to record when the car has a build in system

Same issue here parked at Hotel. Non stop flashing of sentry lights - had to disable sentry.

 

[Lightbulb]

Exactly. The option should be so easy to add and it’s right there! When my car is plugged in either at home or at a hotel, the camera can run all night for all I care. But after a windy night in the carport, I come out to 256 sentry mode videos. And of course because Tesla doesn’t have a select all option, I usually just end up reformatting my hard drive to delete them all

Just small stuff like that annoys me. For being a software company first, they sure miss the target on a lot of seemingly simple issues

Not to mention the times when preconditioning the car has triggered the alarm to go off

 

[Resist]

Just small stuff like that annoys me. For being a software company first, they sure miss the target on a lot of seemingly simple issues

I question this all the time too. How can some of their people be so smart, yet miss so many things? You're never going to please everyone but common sense things should be a given. Just like when they released the new UI.