Taping your internal camera

[maverick3n1]

A long while back, Tesla had a thing for autopilot where it would track your eyes by the interior camera. If it noticed you looking down or anywhere but the road (IE, My water bottle fell off my passenger seat and onto the passenger floorboards while in autopilot. I bent over to grab it after having just confirmed my hands were on the steering wheel), it immediately started barking at me to keep my eyes on the road, despite autopilot on a straight freeway with not a car in sight.

I found that putting a piece of tape over the camera (I used white electrical tape as black electrical tape tends to leave behind a residue when you remove it in the future, especially if left on for months and in the baking sun), prevented that and the car didn't care that it couldn't see you in the vehicle. A month or so ago, I removed the tape as I noticed they had done an update where you could disable the camera tracking you internally, provided you did not have auto lane-change enabled. Since I use autopilot more as a cruise control and lane assist rather than full on self drive, I was happy to be able to remove the ugly piece of tape.

Now that the new changes have been put in place due to the gov mandate, the eye tracking is forced back on and more aggressive than ever! I was trying to turn on my defoggers on the touch screen because my windows were getting fogged up and the car started yelling at me to look at the road. I can't look at the road through fogged windows! I tried putting my finger over the camera while in self drive mode and left my finger there for a while. It didn't appear to complain, so it appears the lack of access to that camera does not disable self drive. Has anyone tested this with the latest firmware to see if this functions as a long term solution, or maybe I just didn't hold my finger over the camera long enough for it to complain about it?

 

[JB47394]

I was trying to turn on my defoggers on the touch screen

Try using the voice command "Turn on the defogger".

 

[Big Earl]

You can poke away at the screen quite a lot as long as you’re holding the steering wheel. The new software wants you to hold the wheel almost all the time, especially if your eyes aren’t straight ahead.

 

[fhteagle]

2023.44.30.7, basic AP only, internal camera always covered, no issues with eye tracking nags....

 

[Paprika]

I put tape over my interior camera this morning after becoming pretty frustrated with the new update. Drove 40 miles mostly on AP and not a single "Pay attention to the road" . Mine will be staying taped up and will no longer do any updates until they've been out for a long time!

 

[dregdoba]

I put tape over my interior camera this morning after becoming pretty frustrated with the new update. Drove 40 miles mostly on AP and not a single "Pay attention to the road" . Mine will be staying taped up and will no longer do any updates until they've been out for a long time!

This is brilliant... I still haven't updated to the new shittier version and plan on holding off for awhile.

 

[EatsShoots]

I put masking tape on mine a couple weeks ago. Now AP is usable again. The nagging was insufferable. Honestly, it's hard to say AP is much better than the nascent pilot assist I had on a 2018 volvo. I know it's capable of being better because it was better (it's capable of holding lane much better) when we bought the car last July, but the nagging is totally beyond the pale. Whenever I drive I have experimented with wrapping a charge wire around the wheel and resting a finger on it or other measures to add a counter weight to the wheel. Without these it's extremely common to have it nag even though you're touching the wheel. It's a frustrating system to use.