Sentry mode without flashing lights?

[Stevs6382]

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!

This has bugged me ever since Sentry mode 1st came out years ago. I often park in crowded parking garages in the city, and have captured footage of people becoming annoyed at my car for flashing them for just casually walking by. It's only a matter of time before I piss off the wrong person and they vandalize my car. So I have to turn off Sentry mode in places where I would need it most.

How do we get Tesla's attention on this so we can get a feature update?

I just want the option to turn off the flashing lights while in Sentry mode. Please just give us a simple toggle switch and let us choose when & where to use it as appropriate. I get that sometimes the flashes are wanted/needed, but other times they are a complete nuisance and attract unwanted negative attention. A simple toggle switch would make everyone happy, and takes nothing away from the existing Sentry Mode feature.

 

[Earl]

Cars have chirped and made noise when one approaches them for some time because of proximity burglar alarms. I really don't think this is going to antagonize vandals.

 

[Resist]

Cars have chirped and made noise when one approaches them for some time because of proximity burglar alarms. I really don't think this is going to antagonize vandals.

And you would be thinking incorrectly. There is a huge difference between a chirp and flashing headlights, especially at night.

 

[StaticVortex]

I hate how my Tesla flashes everyone that walks past in a car park. It is rude and someone will get pissed off. It’s not common for proximity alerts in other cars in Australia. Should be a way to switch it off and still record. Or make it much more subtle like the indicator lights coming on for a few seconds.

 

[Resist]

Elon give us an option to turn off the Sentry Mode flashing headlights already! Maybe if you took the time to stop texting wacky tweets, maybe you could focus long enough to get this done.

 

[golfcart]

I noticed this was an issue in a parking garage the other day. Despite my best efforts to park in a place that nobody would want to park next to me, someone parked next to my car and got out. Tesla flashed at them and put the red eye on the screen, the person noticed it and was clearly put off by it (I could see this all happen as we were walking across the garage towards the car). It made it really awkward when I walked up to the car because the guy was still there getting his kids out and it looked like I had intentionally flashed my lights at him to be a jerk. I told him sorry that my car does that when its in security mode if anyone gets close to it. Have noticed other peoples reactions when I view sentry footage and generally I think it draws too much attention in benign situations.

I would prefer there was a setting where the car just recorded what was going on without all the flashing to use in public places. The flashing is fine for when I am at home because nobody should be walking near my car at home but in a parking garage or public street there will naturally be lots of people coming and going and I'd rather not draw unnecessary attention to my vehicle and antagonize certain personalities that will be tempted to F with my car when they see it flash at them... especially people coming out of bars and stuff who are already in that mindset that its funny to mess with peoples stuff.

 

[Resist]

Have noticed other peoples reactions when I view sentry footage and generally I think it draws too much attention in benign situations.

Exactly my point! It can turn what should be a non issue situation into an anger situation. And I just don't want any attention to be drawn towards my car.

 

[rob538]

The bigger problem is the anybody who knows about the flashing on sentry will know, from a distance, if sentry mode is not switched on. This puts the car at more risk. No flash = Car unprotected.

 

[Earl]

No flash = Car unprotected

This is a little overstated. If the lights don't flash, it is protected by locks and intrusion alarms, just not video recording.
I could also point out that with the lights flashing, it tells a would-be robber that there is likely to be a recording device in the car so they should look for it and remove it when they break in.
As with all car security, it deters casual thieves but not serious ones.

 

[Turnabommm]

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.

This is an extension of Elon's ego. It works well in a myopic theory of rational human actors but fails miserably in the real world where drunken partygoers get flashed and take offense to the perceived insult, especially if they are ideologically manipulated to hate EVs in general. Just like diesel truckers, 'rolling coal' when they pass by a group of cyclists training for a triathlon.

The additional attention (again a subset of Elon's attention seeking ego!) icurrs hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage per year and significantly increases insurance costs for owning a Tesla.

Let us turn the damn sentry alert feature off!!!

 

[Big Earl]

This is an extension of Elon's ego. It works well in a myopic theory of rational human actors but fails miserably in the real world where drunken partygoers get flashed and take offense to the perceived insult, especially if they are ideologically manipulated to hate EVs in general. Just like diesel truckers, 'rolling coal' when they pass by a group of cyclists training for a triathlon.

The additional attention (again a subset of Elon's attention seeking ego!) icurrs hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage per year and significantly increases insurance costs for owning a Tesla.

Let us turn the damn sentry alert feature off!!!

Gonna need a source for the part about sentry mode flashing lights resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage annually, along with the corresponding insurance rate increase.

 

[Kevy Baby]

This is an extension of Elon's ego. It works well in a myopic theory of rational human actors but fails miserably in the real world where drunken partygoers get flashed and take offense to the perceived insult, especially if they are ideologically manipulated to hate EVs in general. Just like diesel truckers, 'rolling coal' when they pass by a group of cyclists training for a triathlon.

The additional attention (again a subset of Elon's attention seeking ego!) icurrs hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage per year and significantly increases insurance costs for owning a Tesla.

Let us turn the damn sentry alert feature off!!!

Hyperbole on a first (and so far only) post.

 

[Resist]

I've had so many occasions where Sentry Mode flashed the headlights and people came back to look into my car. Had it not flashed, they would have just kept walking. I want my car to flash and make noise when someone attempts to beak in, not for just walking past my car. But regardless, Elon said we'd get an option to turn off the flashing headlights yet it's still not here after what over a year later. Yet we have more games in our cars.

 

[SJC3]

my my22 doesn’t seem to flash like my 3 does. The y sometimes flickers the headlights but the red eye doesn’t show up in the screen. Did Tesla change how sentry mode operates?

 

[Resist]

my my22 doesn’t seem to flash like my 3 does. The y sometimes flickers the headlights but the red eye doesn’t show up in the screen. Did Tesla change how sentry mode operates?

Nope. Are you sure you have Sentry Mode setup correctly?