Vampire Drain Test: With and Without 24x7 Dashcams

[AmpedRealtor]

3 miles of drain is equivalent to what, about 750-900 Wh? That's 0.75-0.90 kWh. I didn't realize dash cams use that much power.

 

[CameronB]

But if I don't have smart pre-conditioning on, the delta between with and without cams on is only 1.1 miles a day. For 24x7 coverage, that doesn't seem all that bad. Not sure why the cams plus the SPC together have a significantly higher usage. Some kind of additional cycling overhead related to having to run the preconditioning perhaps?

 

[AWDtsla]

But if I don't have smart pre-conditioning on, the delta between with and without cams on is only 1.1 miles a day. For 24x7 coverage, that doesn't seem all that bad. Not sure why the cams plus the SPC together have a significantly higher usage. Some kind of additional cycling overhead related to having to run the preconditioning perhaps?

Preconditioning draw is 4 orders of magnitude higher than the dashcam. Any effect of the dashcam will be invisible, just looking at randomness.

 

[Mr. Jim]

Update...

I've run a few more tests and basically I have realized that the "Smart pre-conditioning" setting being on has a huge impact on 'vampire drain'. Makes perfect sense in retrospect but basically the cabin is being heated several degrees each morning a bit before 9am...even when I am out of town.

If Smart Preconditioning is turned OFF, then 'base' vampire drain drops to 4.3 miles (6.9km)/day with dash cams on. Turn off dash cams as well and it dropped to 3.2 miles (5.1km)/day. At least for my few tests so far.

I'll keep running experiments to get more data points. Here's what I have so far...


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Nice analysis Cameron. One thing you mentioned is interior heat. My 2018 MX 100D is usually elevated in temperature. It's in the low 70's outside now and the interior is 84. In the past 20 minutes I have lost a mile (apparently) so there is work going on someplace in the car. I say this because I have had some real drops overnight coupled with elevated interior temperature sometimes in the low 90's inside my garage. I'm concerned that this consumption is beyond any of these reports and with 100 KW sitting out there I am getting uneasy about safety - I hope I'm just being paranoid. I will turn off smart conditioning to see if that helps.