ColoradoMike
Member
I never considered that aspect of being "awake" all the time! For us, we both liking having it on all the time but I can totally understand now how it can eat up battery! Thanks!
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Sentry Mode (yes or no)
- Thread starter Chemaster
- Start date
Is it even possible for Sentry Mode to be draining your battery 24/7/365? I thought if your car is plugged in, it will use power from the wall to run Sentry Mode.
Anyways, I have Sentry disabled in my garage and at my families' houses, and I also work from home, so the only time mine is on is when I'm at a store or out to dinner or whatever... maybe 8 hours per week. If the posters screaming about 8,000 miles of battery wear per year when running it 24/7 are right, I guess I'm putting an extra 380 miles of wear on my battery per year, and costing myself an extra $9.50 in electricity per year. lol, I'm ok with that.
Anyways, I have Sentry disabled in my garage and at my families' houses, and I also work from home, so the only time mine is on is when I'm at a store or out to dinner or whatever... maybe 8 hours per week. If the posters screaming about 8,000 miles of battery wear per year when running it 24/7 are right, I guess I'm putting an extra 380 miles of wear on my battery per year, and costing myself an extra $9.50 in electricity per year. lol, I'm ok with that.
ColoradoMike
Member
Not sure on wall power when connected. Like you we leave Sentry Mode off while at home.
Run sentry mode for 24 hours, and see how much it takes off your car. Its between 16-24 miles every 24 hour period. In power terms, the car being awake is about 200kWh or so, every hour its awake. Its usually easier for people to see it in "miles" even though that statistic doesnt really mean anything itself. its easy to see that sentry mode will take approximately .75 to 1 mile per hour its being used, or roughly 20 miles a day.
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Yes. Ironically (or not, I guess), the people who are most likely to want to use sentry mode 24 X 7 X 365 are people who do not have home charging, or parking on the street, or in a driveway (not an enclosed garage).
The car will drain the power from the battery, and the battery will be refilled from the wall.
My 2c: personally keep sentry mode on at home… but only while i sleep (my area has quite a few car break-ins, all happen in the early AM hours). I also keep it on when in sketchy areas, or when in places that just feel “off.”
It wont stop a motivated thief, but hopefully deters the opportunistic types.
Additional battery “wear and tear” is minor in my use case. Well worth the peace of mind.
Are there more optimal solutions wrt preserving battery life? Sure, but
. Sentry Mode well enough.
It wont stop a motivated thief, but hopefully deters the opportunistic types.
Additional battery “wear and tear” is minor in my use case. Well worth the peace of mind.
Are there more optimal solutions wrt preserving battery life? Sure, but
. Sentry Mode well enough.I cringe when I think of the huge amount of energy wasted on this feature. I understand using it in specific places, but to leave it on all the time seems crazy.
ColoradoMike
Member
It all depends it seems. So when our vehicle is parked in our garage (from off work to driving to work) Sentry mode is disabled. However, where we park it is a very nice feature to have. So approximately 9hrs per day it is engaged. Definitely not 24/7 but something we appreciate.
Using Sentry 9 hours per day will completely dominate any energy used to heat or cool your car.
The car uses maybe 1kW average while driving to heat/cool. Drive for 12K miles a year, and that's maybe 300 hours of driving, and thus 300kWh.
Sentry 9 hours a day uses 1,000kWh per year.
The irony of discussing a feature that doesn't do anything at all while the car is in motion and telling people to enjoy it as you drive....
Given thousands of dollars is not something that's worth worrying about, can I assume that your cars are all running high-end tires that trade cost for great performance?
This is what happens when you don't understand the context. The "driving experience" is not just "driving the car or cars in motion". It is the experience you get from owning the car that includes the actual driving, things that you encounter, issues that needs to be resolved, things that you like/hate etc.
If you apply your logic (it will cost $$$ in the future type logic), you will never be happy and always get stressed out with everything like how much money, time, energy you lose for doing or not doing something in your life.
Do you complain about your insurance that you never or rarely use but you need to pay every month? The insurance provides no benefit when you are healthy and accident free.
I used to use sentry mode and loved it 
The upgrade that enabled Camera-Activated sentry mode has killed it
I used to get about 4 or 5 events per day and I would go through them and see what people were doing when close to my car.
A few very near misses with door dings too. Phew!
Now, with camera-activated sentry mode on, I get about 30 events per day ... pointless.
Turning off Camera-Activated mode give me ZERO events as the sensor-activation is now disabled ... WHY?
I am now going to miss that inevitable first door ding
Hey Elon, adding "features" is fine but stop taking others away!
The upgrade that enabled Camera-Activated sentry mode has killed it
I used to get about 4 or 5 events per day and I would go through them and see what people were doing when close to my car.
A few very near misses with door dings too. Phew!
Now, with camera-activated sentry mode on, I get about 30 events per day ... pointless.
Turning off Camera-Activated mode give me ZERO events as the sensor-activation is now disabled ... WHY?
I am now going to miss that inevitable first door ding
Hey Elon, adding "features" is fine but stop taking others away!
I believe this is correct. I have seen my car charging from 60-80% when I plug it in and then in the middle of the night it charge again from 78-80%.
At the moment I use it 24/7. I both at work and at home I park in parking hall with dozen of other vehicles. But the energy use is really significant. I am moving not to a park spot that is between a wall and a pillar, then my car is out of rich of the door of the car next to me. In that case I think it is logical to turn it off at home.
But I do plan to keep it on when parking at work, it is a busy place with tight spots. Very easy to get a door ding. Also will definitely keep it on when parking on the street.
But I wish it would take less energy, it would make much more sent to be a 20-30w feature.
This isn't the way electricity works. You can't charge a battery and discharge it at the same time. It only has two terminals, + and -. If the voltage is higher than the battery, it charges. If it's lower, it discharges.
If the onboard charger is "on" and drawing power from the wall, then the first thing that uses that power on the car are the non-battery loads. You can see this if you turn on the heater while charging. The charge rate goes way down, but the power draw from the wall stays the same because most of that energy is going to the heater.
The only way it would drain the battery and then refill the battery is if the car actively and completely stops drawing power from the wall while plugged in. Maybe it does this when using sentry? I've never tried it. But I do know that if the car is plugged in and you wake it up, it generally does start drawing power from the wall, and sentry is just keeping the car awake all the time...
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.
I didnt say "at the same time", in the quote you are referencing what I said above. I didnt mean it happens at the same time.
Fair enough, but the person you are quoting asked if it would draw from the wall, and you said it wouldn't, so it's kind of confusing:
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