Very disappointing new M3 experience

[Sunny5280]

It does cycle on teslas... Over an hour as previously stated. The main use for that USB is really supposed to be music storage so it wouldn't make sense to fill it with footage. No one else has an issue with how it works but you. Want to save a clip? Honk your horn. I guess I don't understand what the problem is with that. If something happens I usually am honking my horn and if it was something I saw not with me involved, I can click save on the screen

The main use for USB is irrelevant. I can see only one reason for removing all the files after they've aged out an hour: So there is no "evidence" of any potentially "bad behavior". Otherwise I see no benefit to just leaving them on the USB drive and overwriting them as space requires. There are two people who are suggesting Tesla modify the current behavior. Yes, I can honk my horn or hit the button on the touch screen but why? Aside from the aforementioned reason I can't think of any good reason to just erase all the video files merely because they've aged over an hour.

What's puzzling to me is your objection to this suggest change.

 

[Trekker_]

The main use for USB is irrelevant. I can see only one reason for removing all the files after they've aged out an hour: So there is no "evidence" of any potentially "bad behavior". Otherwise I see no benefit to just leaving them on the USB drive and overwriting them as space requires. There are two people who are suggesting Tesla modify the current behavior. Yes, I can honk my horn or hit the button on the touch screen but why? Aside from the aforementioned reason I can't think of any good reason to just erase all the video files merely because they've aged over an hour.

Because that's how you flag as "do not delete" that is how all dashcams work. You are making a problem out of normal functionality here my man

 

[Sunny5280]

Because that's how you flag as "do not delete" that is how all dashcams work. You are making a problem out of normal functionality here my man

What I have failed to see is a semi reasonable explanation as to why the files are proactively erased. They should just be left on the drive until space is required, then remove them in a circular fashion. Your defense of the existing behavior is puzzling.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Is there someone at Tesla I could contact to try to explain to them how pointless and self-defeating this approach is? At this point, I really do feel justified in calling this implementation 'idiotic' on another thread, which I took a lot of grief for. Erasing perfectly good video, rather than just overwriting the oldest clips when it gets full accomplishes nothing. You mentioned the lifetime write cycles of flash earlier in this thread. Even though the erasing accomplishes nothing (other than possibly pointlessly using up write cycles), let's do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation anyway:

Each of the 4 cameras records a maximum of about 40 MB per one minute clip. Doing the math, it takes about 13 hours to fill the supplied 128 GB flash device. Even cheap flash memory is guaranteed for 100,000 write cycles. So let’s take the extreme case of a maniacal traveling salesman who drives 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. It will take that guy 274 YEARS before he exceeds the write cycles on the device. Even if I’m off by a factor of 10, it will last far longer than the car. And if I’m off by a factor of a hundred, I’m pretty sure that someone who just dropped 60 grand on a car can spring for 10 bucks for a new flash device every couple of years. And that’s for a maniacal traveling salesman. For any normal person, with a current, quality flash device, it will never happen.

You are off by a factor of 333-666x. The typical rating for even a T5 SSD is only using memory (based on 850 EVO) rated for 150-300 cycles (150 TBW for 500GB/1TB) and I doubt the cheap USB sticks are using any more advanced, so it'll last you less than a year under your accounting if it was writing it full. That's why the USB sticks all exclude dashcam usage from their 5 year warranties, because they know it'll likely fail well before that if put to the most demanding usage. I happened to do extensive research on this and did a long post with references here:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam
I personally opted for High Endurance microSD cards which are rated for around 900 cycles and has a warranty for dashcam usage:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam

Also keep in mind this function was added mainly as a bonus and that it was launched when people were even using smaller sticks like 8GB or 16GB on them. I think the idea for not filling the drive is it leaves more free space (even with saved clips or other data taking up a portion) so that the chip in the USB stick can have flexibility in wear leveling. If you fill up the drive as typically done, then it may be rewriting certain blocks repeatedly.
Here's a quick dive in how wear leveling works. Older drives did not have wear leveling, but a lot of modern USB sticks now have controllers that have built in wear leveling of some sort.
Introduction of Wear Leveling - Embedded Computing Design

Tesla certainly can add a toggle to make the length longer or it to fill up the drive, but I think it's low priority at the moment.

I don't care what over-engineered package they put this in -- this is nothing but a cheap low-end, short range radio, with a minuscule amount of cpu. Have you ever opened up your standard garage-door opener to replace the battery? Or consider an iPhone, which has multiple radios, far more complex than this one, and that is only a tiny piece of what's inside (which is mostly battery)

The point is this is not a standard garage door opener, it's Homelink opener which is owned and made by Gentex and the prices are set by Gentex. Tesla isn't making this themselves. I know of no automaker that when they have it as an option, only charge $5 for it or anywhere close, nor are there Gentex Homelink modules that are available in the aftermarket that costs around that range (the cheapest is $150 as I linked, and it's for a much smaller one with less power).

 

[Sunny5280]

You are off by a factor of 333-666x. The typical rating for even a T5 SSD is only using memory (based on 850 EVO) rated for 150-300 cycles (150 TBW for 500GB/1TB) and I doubt the cheap USB sticks are using any more advanced, so it'll last you less than a year under your accounting if it was writing it full..

I used an inexpensive Micro Center branded 32GB microSD card in my BlackVue DR650S for somewhere around four years. It is now in my DR750S dashcam. Still working fine with four years of continue writing.

Regardless whichever method is used the writing is the same. Only difference is the extra writing Tesla does to unnecessarily erase the stored clips.

 

[ChopinBlues]

You are off by a factor of 333-666x. The typical rating for even a T5 SSD is only using memory (based on 850 EVO) rated for 150-300 cycles (150 TBW for 500GB/1TB) and I doubt the cheap USB sticks are using any more advanced, so it'll last you less than a year under your accounting if it was writing it full. That's why the USB sticks all exclude dashcam usage from their 5 year warranties, because they know it'll likely fail well before that if put to the most demanding usage. I happened to do extensive research on this and did a long post with references here:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam
I personally opted for High Endurance microSD cards which are rated for around 900 cycles and has a warranty for dashcam usage:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam

Also keep in mind this function was added mainly as a bonus and that it was launched when people were even using smaller sticks like 8GB or 16GB on them. I think the idea for not filling the drive is it leaves more free space (even with saved clips or other data taking up a portion) so that the chip in the USB stick can have flexibility in wear leveling. If you fill up the drive as typically done, then it may be rewriting certain blocks repeatedly.
Here's a quick dive in how wear leveling works. Older drives did not have wear leveling, but a lot of modern USB sticks now have controllers that have built in wear leveling of some sort.
Introduction of Wear Leveling - Embedded Computing Design

Tesla certainly can add a toggle to make the length longer or it to fill up the drive, but I think it's low priority at the moment.


The point is this is not a standard garage door opener, it's Homelink opener which is owned and made by Gentex and the prices are set by Gentex. Tesla isn't making this themselves. I know of no automaker that when they have it as an option, only charge $5 for it or anywhere close, nor are there Gentex Homelink modules that are available in the aftermarket that costs around that range (the cheapest is $150 as I linked, and it's for a much smaller one with less power).

I'm not sure I agree with everything you said, but let's say I am off by a factor of 500. My Maniacal salesman also drives at least 5-10 times as much as the average person, which brings the factor down to the 50-100 number that requires spending at most another 10 bucks every year or two. I'll gladly spring for that to have a high-quality built-in dashcam that functions logically like every dashcam I have owned for the last 5 years

 

[Trekker_]

What I have failed to see is a semi reasonable explanation as to why the files are proactively erased. They should just be left on the drive until space is required, then remove them in a circular fashion. Your defense of the existing behavior is puzzling.

I did explain why... The main use for the drive is music, not video. There is also no reason to store 128 or 256 gigs of old dashcam footage if it saves what you need when you honk or click save??? Again, making an issue of a non-issue.

 

[Sunny5280]

I did explain why... The main use for the drive is music, not video. There is also no reason to store 128 or 256 gigs of old dashcam footage if it saves what you need when you honk or click save??? Again, making an issue of a non-issue.

That doesn't explain why. Also, to my knowledge, the USB drive used for the dashcam is dedicated to that purpose. If I want music I use a different USB drive.

Again: Your defense of the current behavior is puzzling when the suggested solution takes nothing away from what is available now.

 

[Trekker_]

That doesn't explain why. Also, to my knowledge, the USB drive used for the dashcam is dedicated to that purpose. If I want music I use a different USB drive.

Again: Your defense of the current behavior is puzzling when the suggested solution takes nothing away from what is available now.

You just don't like answers that go against what you think, even though most people here have pointed out that you seem very illogical. There isn't much a reason in continuing this conversation at this point because you don't listen to any sort of reason. If it works for EVERY OTHER tesla owner.... You are just trying to find a reason to be mad. Have a good my man, I hope you come to love your car!

 

[MrAntonius]

Wow....talk about going down a rabbit hole of minutiae. Reminds me of the old bimmerpost threads complaining about the lack of a sync button for the climate control in the F30's.

Pretty sure that how dashcam storage is handled and the absence of 'free' homelink qualify as archetypical first world problems.

 

[ChopinBlues]

You just don't like answers that go against what you think, even though most people here have pointed out that you seem very illogical. There isn't much a reason in continuing this conversation at this point because you don't listen to any sort of reason. If it works for EVERY OTHER tesla owner.... You are just trying to find a reason to be mad. Have a good my man, I hope you come to love your car!

Of course everything you just said here applies precisely to you as well. People here just argue for the sake of arguing, and wanting to be right, rather than learning something, and frequently don't even know what they're talking about. The main use for a flash is for whatever you want to use it for. It sounds like you're not aware of the usb port in the glovebox, which the supplied flash that is meant to store dashcam video. You still have the 2 ports in the center console, where you could stick a pair of 1 TB drives with enough music to last without repetition for 10 cross-country trips.

 

[jjrandorin]

Wow....talk about going down a rabbit hole of minutiae. Reminds me of the old bimmerpost threads complaining about the lack of a sync button for the climate control in the F30's.

Pretty sure that how dashcam storage is handled and the absence of 'free' homelink qualify as archetypical first world problems.

It does remind me somewhat of that, yes (I was very active there on the 'post for quite some time.. same handle even).

 

[Trekker_]

Of course everything you just said here applies precisely to you as well. People here just argue for the sake of arguing, and wanting to be right, rather than learning something, and frequently don't even know what they're talking about. The main use for a flash is for whatever you want to use it for. It sounds like you're not aware of the usb port in the glovebox, which the supplied flash that is meant to store dashcam video. You still have the 2 ports in the center console, where you could stick a pair of 1 TB drives with enough music to last without repetition for 10 cross-country trips.

Brotha, you have just come in here and attacked people on a personal level. Anything you say is irrelevant. You are an angry person. I was trying to civilly explain something to someone and I left it on a nice note.

 

[jjrandorin]

(moderator note)

I am locking this thread in an attempt to de escalate the conversation some. I am not sure when, or if, I will re open it as the main points of the discussion have already been had.

Also, on a side note, while there is no "rule" that people should not "ratings bomb" each other, I ask that people exercise discretion in applying ratings. Specifically, "disagrees" which can many times serve to escalate a discussion past "discussion" and into "argument".

Even if one disagrees with another persons position, it usually isnt necessary to go through and mark disagree on every post, as that normally just turns into a "disagree war" type situation. Moderators like myself do not have the ability (and frankly are not interested in) policing peoples post ratings, but if it starts to look like harassment, we may have to take other action.

Thanks in advance for de escalating.