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TeslaCam why only 1 hour of video?

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Hoping Tesla updates the teslacam functionality to continually write video to the drive and overwriting as needed. I don't understand why it's not already a feature unless it's a technical hurdle for Tesla OS to manage files but what is the logic here otherwise?

I ordered several large USB drives, up to 500GB, and have tested them in both our X and 3 and after testing and researching and finding that only the most recent hour of dash cam recordings are preserved I realized a 32GB drive would have been sufficient. Should RTFM's prior to buying large, expensive data storageo_O

Supposing I need to submit feedback to Tesla for feature requests but I'd like to see a couple of obvious features come to light including and hoping to get support here via Tesla feedback channels:

  1. Keep recording dashcam till the drive is full before overwriting
  2. Allow viewing of dash cam and Sentry video in the freakin' car!
  3. Provide functionality via the Tesla app to view dash cam and Sentry video via a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi while in or near car.
  4. Provide notifications in the Tesla app that a Sentry event has occurred and send me a screen shot and/or allow me to view video if connected to Wi-Fi source at my own expense, (I'll happily leave a pocket wi-fi in the vehicle)
I realize buying and installing a third party dashcam can achieve this but that's not taking advantage of what's already there in terms of all the cameras, screens, etc.
 
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The larger drives are still useful if you don't want to constantly clear Sentry mode footage. I'm assuming this is one of the reasons they don't let the dashcam take unlimited space. Although it would be nice to be able to configure the maximum amount of video saved...

Sentry mode works similar to the dashcam as well - it keeps a running loop of video, and simply saves the last 1 or 10 minutes (or whatever length) to a special folder if something noteworthy happens.

Your feature requests are pretty common from what I've seen, I would bet some of them will get implemented in the future.
 
Not really sure why there's a need for hours upon hours of TeslaCam video. TeslaCam was never designed to be a traditional dashcam but an answer to help people who were getting their cars broken into or vandalized. The intent is to record accident (pressing save) or parking issues where Sentry Mode gets triggered and those get saved off. Depending on where you park and how heavy traffic is around the car, the triggered alert files or triggered alarm files in Sentry Mode can fill up a 128GB microSD card soon enough. The 1-hr buffer gets rewritten and from what I recall from a more recent update the older sentry mode files will too if space becomes an issue.

People on here have recommended the large capacity SSDs because they feel you don't have to check them often for maintenance and because the number of writes and rewrites of the flash eventually kills the memory cells and ultimately will corrupt the drive so it's not writeable. The larger the capacity, more room to write to that's never been used before so prolonging the life/use of it. The SSDs are flash too so subjected to the same limitations.

A 32GB usb drive would fill up pretty fast if you are using Sentry Mode. I've been using two 128GB microSD cards with card reader in my Model 3 (switch between them when I do maintenance or check files) and they've been working very well for me. I also don't park in heavily trafficed lots where they're constantly triggering Sentry many times a day. Eventually though the 128 will need replacing but it was only around $30. Our Model S that has had a traditional dashcam (Blackvue 650S-2ch and 900S-2ch) that constantly records had a microSD card that last just about a year of continual use. I think the 900, due to 4K recording ability, now has software that limits it's continual recording as the files that need to be written can be much larger.

Sorry you feel you have wasted your money and regret not reading the manual (or apparently checking out the numerous threads that have been started on the use of TeslaCam/Sentry and flash media).
 
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As Sentry Mode will record 40 minutes of video (10 min. with 4 cameras) per triggered incident and it will continue to fill up your device with more files as time goes on, really unless your car has been damaged or you saved video of an accident, you don't need the files around forever nor do you really need to ever view them. I periodically check my microSD card to check available capacity to write and when it's getting down to like 10GB I pull the card without viewing but a few of the recorded files for any corruption, I then erase and reformat it, add back the required TeslaCam folder and pop it back in my car and turn on TeslaCam.
 
I like having a larger flash drive because although it only keeps 1 hour in the loop, you can press the little teslacam icon on the screen and it will save the last 10 minutes of video to a more permanent folder. That folder doesn't get looped/written over, so the extra storage is nice so you can save many clips. Of course, I only get to do that when something interesting happens, which fortunately/unfortunately doesn't happen a lot on my commute.
 
I had a 'sudden braking' incident yesterday while I was driving, wanted to go look this morning to see if the dashcam caught anything. But that happened about 30 minutes in to a 2 hour drive, and now this morning the video I was hoping to see is gone. I'm a new user, so I had no idea that it limited itself to an hour rather than the capacity of the drive.
 
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I had a 'sudden braking' incident yesterday while I was driving, wanted to go look this morning to see if the dashcam caught anything. But that happened about 30 minutes in to a 2 hour drive, and now this morning the video I was hoping to see is gone. I'm a new user, so I had no idea that it limited itself to an hour rather than the capacity of the drive.
you can save as many clips as you want by tapping the dash cam icon on the screen and they will stay there until you delete them.
That way you get the important 10 minutes each time.
Alternatively, set it so you save the video on honk.
 
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This seems so pointless. If the space is there, why not use it? What is the harm? It's already writing to the drive. People shouldn't need to remember to physically press a button or honk a horn to save the video, it should save everything if there is space and delete the oldest. You never know when you'll need it.

Came out to my car today and noticed someone had side swiped it in the parking lot. Very minor so not sure when. Didn't have Sentry on, but having all the saved clips from Tesla Cam, I could have retraced my steps to figure out approximately when/where for Police/Insurance purposes. Instead I come to notice this stupid issue and have to come searching for why the hell it doesnt save all recordings then loop when full like literally every dash cam in existence.
 
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^Was going to suggest what a few others have already stated in a few places.

Summary:
1) I know it might be a hassle, but if you need to save about 50min-1hr of footage, just press the camera icon, it will save the footage and will start a new file/recording. It will keep all saved clips unless you manually delete them. Yes, you have to remember to do it, but not that difficult if needed, set a continually timer on your phone every 50min. IDK...

2) Get a huge drive. I have a 1TB SSD partitioned 10GB Fat32 for music, then the other 990GB exFAT for TeslaCam footage. My 128GB filled up in about a few days with many sentry alerts going off.

If you want something to perform a very specific singular task, like car camera for just monitor, then buy one. Sentry and regular recordings will eventually start to delete the oldest automatically and overwrite, obviously to keep the system usable. Again, Saved recordings should always be saved in the Saved folder and never be overwritten, you have to do that manually.

Regarding all of those other features, yeah, would be pretty cool for sure to have a Ring doorbell/home camera setup saving stuff to the cloud or whatever and send alerts blah blah...but that is an entire other industry right now.
 
This seems so pointless. If the space is there, why not use it? What is the harm? It's already writing to the drive. People shouldn't need to remember to physically press a button or honk a horn to save the video, it should save everything if there is space and delete the oldest. You never know when you'll need it.

Came out to my car today and noticed someone had side swiped it in the parking lot. Very minor so not sure when. Didn't have Sentry on, but having all the saved clips from Tesla Cam, I could have retraced my steps to figure out approximately when/where for Police/Insurance purposes. Instead I come to notice this stupid issue and have to come searching for why the hell it doesnt save all recordings then loop when full like literally every dash cam in existence.
Your problem is that a dashcam driving footage is no proof they did anything or how many other cars parked there, especially for police/insurance purposes.
Thats really why Sentry is there.
I had a similar thing, but the sentry footage showed a guy park next to me and open his door onto mine. He got out to check if there was damage and ran his finger over an old paint chip before moving to a different parking spot - all in the same 10 minute section :D
The paint chip was already there so I didn't follow it up, but you see all sorts of crazy stuff happening around your car with sentry on - definitely worth leaving on.
 
This seems so pointless. If the space is there, why not use it? What is the harm?
You are 100% correct -- It buys you nothing to keep overwriting the one hour, rather than waiting 'til it's almost full. But it's even worse than that, as what I'm seeing in my brand new M3 with latest s/w is that it doesn't even leave the last hour of video in place -- it erases it while parked! This makes absolutely no sense. And no, I don't have Sentry Mode turned on, so that's not what's erasing it.
 
It save groups of video in latest hour, each group has 4 .mp4 files with 1 minute length.

But likely less than 60 groups, the group 1 hour before will be erased, even you have parked the car and let it sleep during the time, it will deleted old group once you start your car.

Telsa could work better.
 
I got screwed by this MIGHTILY today.

10:47am a Granite Rock truck pelts me with two rocks in rapid succession. My first thought is: is my windshield cracked, what was that?, what just happened? and NOT press the dash cam icon now. So I forgot. Plus with the old UI it was easier to find. I also didn't honk.

I was coming back from urgent care for one kid and my wife is texting me another kid is vomiting so I'm sent to Safeway for Pedialite and Gatorade. Well that 'put me over the top' so when I got home I missed the 60 minute window by 40 minutes. Gone forever. I'm sure Granite Rock will not pay for the 5 rock chips I got from two (or three rocks) that hit my windshield. If it develops into a crack its a $1000 replacement, I already have one of those under my belt.

WHY IS THIS ONLY 1 HOUR, PLEASE CHANGE THIS, MAKE THIS SELECTABLE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY
 
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The bad part about using a large drive is that, after quite a few sentry videos etc, the entire dashcam app slows to a crawl and becomes unusable because the app can't handle that many files. I have a 500gb drive and have to regularly remember to delete the sentry videos otherwise the whole thing becomes too slow to use after a month or so