Sentry Mode (yes or no)

[ICE5891]

Just remember, Sentry doesn't prevent the door ding, and it likely won't catch the license plate of the car that does it. So all it does is document it.

There is a subjective factor that could prevent the ding. Some of my friends say that they like to park next to fancy cars because it is more likely that they are carefully. In the other hand a car full of damages that the owner don't even bother to fix is more likely to open the dor without attention. Few of my closer coworkers start to park besides me because they know chances are I won't ding them, and they know about sentry so I assume they are carefull also.

Very often sentry it takes the license plate, here everyone have front license plate. And in my work parking hall there are 300+ vehicles, even without recordered license there is a high chance of finding the car next day or having a friend who knows who the owner is.

Of course this conditions don't apply to everyone.


On the other hand I just realized how much more careful I would be if I didn't have charging at home. Right now cost and energy use are the only factors. But today there was a maintenance and I had to charge on a CCS charge nearby. It was a 150kw charger that for whatever reason was charging between 57-66kW and was significantly more expensive. If that was my charging routine I would use sentry much less.

 

[EV1980]

Just finished reading this thread after deciding I needed to understand sentry mode a bit better. Sadly one of my neighbours had their car stolen off their drive a few nights ago and when they told me about it I started wondering if I could have offered them any helpful footage had sentry been enabled.

I had thought that you could leave sentry on and it would be 'dormant' but activate and record when triggered via someone/something approaching within a certain proximity. After reading this thread it seems that's not correct - it's either off and recording nothing, or on and recording everything.

One thing i'm unsure of - how do you access the footage if your car gets stolen? Is there a way to do so, or do you need the USB in the glovebox of the stolen car, rendering the whole thing pointless?

 

[gearchruncher]

If your car gets stolen, just look up the location in the app. Where the car currently is located is more useful than who did it.

You can't access sentry recordings remote.

Sentry only records when it identifies a reason to do so. However, the processing to identify when to record is basically identical to recording all the time.

 

[nate704]

If your car gets stolen, just look up the location in the app. Where the car currently is located is more useful than who did it.

You can't access sentry recordings remote.

Sentry only records when it identifies a reason to do so. However, the processing to identify when to record is basically identical to recording all the time.

The very first thing the car thieves will do is to take out the sim card, so you cannot track the car.

 

[gearchruncher]

The very first thing the car thieves will do is to take out the sim card, so you cannot track the car.

Which means you couldn't get to sentry recordings anyway even if the system let you do it.

Also, modern Teslas use an eSIM that cannot be removed like that. You have to use a diagnostic tool to change to the physical sim slot.

This is not to say that you can't just unplug the cell antenna from the computer though, or even wrap the side mirrors in metal (where the LTE antennas are)

 

[davewill]

If your car gets stolen, just look up the location in the app. Where the car currently is located is more useful than who did it.

You can't access sentry recordings remote.

Sentry only records when it identifies a reason to do so. However, the processing to identify when to record is basically identical to recording all the time.

It's more accurate to say that it only SAVES the recordings when it identifies an event. If it didn't record all the time, then the footage from the event would be lost before the event was identified.

While it's true that Sentry isn't much use if the car is stolen, It's plenty useful if your neighbor's car is stolen, or in case of an accident or vandalism.

 

[gearchruncher]

If it didn't record all the time, then the footage from the event would be lost before the event was identified.

I bet this is a pedantic discussion had at lunch at surveillance manufacturers the world over. Is buffering the last 30 seconds of a video stream in volatile memory without committing it to disk "recording" something? Does this mean YouTube is "recording" the video stream when it buffers it on your pc to deal with network performance?

While it's true that Sentry isn't much use if the car is stolen, It's plenty useful if your neighbor's car is stolen, or in case of an accident or vandalism.

Only if it actually identifies people near enough to your car to trigger a recording of your neighbor's car being stolen, and then also records useful information. Why would sentry go off when someone was in your neighbor's yard?

Same is generally true of the accident/vandalism cases. A friend just had sentry "catch" a car bumping his car. But there never was a question that the car got bumped, he didn't need sentry for that. And sentry didn't record any identifying information of the other car, so it was not really useful. So the insurance claim isn't really changed. Even if he did know the license plate of the other car, his insurance claim wouldn't change either, as it was still be covered as a hit and run in all cases. Sentry sometimes helps you get "justice" but rarely helps you in raw financial issues.

 

[davewill]

I bet this is a pedantic discussion had at lunch at surveillance manufacturers the world over. Is buffering the last 30 seconds of a video stream in volatile memory without committing it to disk "recording" something? Does this mean YouTube is "recording" the video stream when it buffers it on your pc to deal with network performance?

Couldn't care less about that. The more important point is that it's using power and continually writing data on the flash drive...which is what the concern was, I think.

 

[SumOne]

Leave sentry on. Check the boxes to disable sentry sounds and to disable at home.
I always park nose-in cause I think the headlight flash is far more annoying than the tail lights.
Only check the recordings if your car has damage. Done.

 

[fholbert]

Couldn't care less about that. The more important point is that it's using power and continually writing data on the flash drive...which is what the concern was, I think.

It only writes data if there is an event. Sentry capturers lot of useful video.

Most days mine is triggered by the woman who always backs in next to me, I park next to a stairwell in a parking structure so it's a little hidden from view. At least a couple times a week she stands between my car and hers adjusting her clothing making sure the girls are at the same elevation.

I'm sure others have captured a lot more than that.

 

[gearchruncher]

Couldn't care less about that. The more important point is that it's using power and continually writing data on the flash drive

It does not continuously write to the flash drive. That was my point. It buffers to RAM. It only writes to the flash drive if there is a trigger. If it wrote to the flash drive constantly, it would wreck drives in weeks.

You might be mistaking sentry with the dashcam function.

It draws power because it needs to "capture" video and process it to determine if there is an event there. Then decide if it needs to copy a RAM buffer to the flash drive.

 

[gearchruncher]

Leave sentry on. Check the boxes to disable sentry sounds and to disable at home.
I always park nose-in cause I think the headlight flash is far more annoying than the tail lights.
Only check the recordings if your car has damage. Done.

All good minus the ~thousand dollars a year this could cost you in electricity and battery wear.

 

[RayK]

At least a couple times a week she stands between my car and hers adjusting her clothing making sure the girls are at the same elevation.

LOL!

 

[Knightshade]

It does not continuously write to the flash drive. That was my point. It buffers to RAM. It only writes to the flash drive if there is a trigger. If it wrote to the flash drive constantly, it would wreck drives in weeks.

You might be mistaking sentry with the dashcam function.

This is completely wrong.

Dashcam is always recording if the car is awake. To the USB drive. This is specifically called out in the user manual.

You can see the most recent 1 hour in the recent folder at all times.

Sentry does not record anything. Anywhere. Ever.

If triggered it will move the last 10 minutes of dashcam footage over to the sentry folder. That's it. (did you seriously think it was "buffering" 10 minutes of video from 4 cameras in RAM all the time?)

It's also why you can't get any sentry footage unless dashcam is on/working- because dashcam is what actually ever records video at all.


There's actually a sticky thread explaining all this here:

Dashcam / Sentry: How they work and what they do (and dont) do

(moderator note) Special thanks to @Knightshade , for taking the time to write up a description of how Sentry and Dashcam interact together. There is a lot of confusion about these two features, and how they interact together. I asked @Knightshade who has a good understanding of how these...

teslamotorsclub.com

And no, that won't "wreck drives in weeks"

24/7/365 recording would still take years and years to wreck a typical 128GB flash drive, let alone the larger ones or the heavy duty SDcards some folks use....and for the 8-10 hours most people are just running sentry at work/store/etc it'd take greater than the typical ownership of a vehicle.

It only writes data if there is an event.

Again this is not true. See the sticky thread.

It only moves it to the sentry folder if there's an event. Otherwise it stays in the recent folder where the last 1 hour is overwritten constantly.