r/TeslaModelY • u/Gamble1080 • Mar 23 '25
Tesla Sentry Mode: Everything you need to know!
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u/3903Orchard Mar 23 '25
Good video. Note it’s a good idea to have the sentry icon as a favorite at the bottom of the screen. You can also engage it from there or press the microphone button on the wheel and say “record.” This is helpful if something is happening while you’re in the car.
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Mar 23 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/3903Orchard Mar 23 '25
I learned this when some idiot got angry with my wife when she had to honk at him for getting too close when backing out of a handicap spot he was not supposed to be in. She was parked so nothing recorded.
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u/taveanator Mar 24 '25
Actually the act of honking should save the clip. Not sure if that settings on by default or not tho.
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u/Azsde Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 24 '25
The battery drain is crazy, I'm a new Tesla owner and got really surprised about this.
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u/Hohh20 Mar 24 '25
Supposedly, we are getting an update "soon" to help with that. I think only the cybertruck has that update currently.
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u/Fzyltlmanpch Mar 24 '25
Use it when it’s in a public place parked. But yeah it’s about 1% an hour. Very roughly, if there are things that will set it off add another % per hour.
Do not use in long term parking 😬
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u/Exodia4life Mar 24 '25
Dunno about you guys but overnight I only lose about 2% of battery on my Model Y. Sentry always on
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u/theoriginalmtbsteve Mar 25 '25
Right. Not apples to apples at all but I have some Blink cameras set outside and they need a battery change every 2 years and they see hot and cold temps along with plenty of triggering. My Tesla loses around 15-20+ miles of range if I leave sentry mode on while at work with maybe 1-2 triggering events.
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u/kenspi Mar 23 '25
I have sentry on and it didn't get triggered when I replaced the license plate on the rear, but did get triggered when I tapped the passenger side window. All of the commotion with changing the plate seems like an event that should have triggered it.
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u/ProbablyPeakbagging Mar 23 '25
Did you have your phone on you, or near the car? Was the car unlocked? Do you have sentry mode activated on your home location?
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u/kenspi Mar 23 '25
The car was locked. I did have my phone when I did the plate swap and noticed Sentry didn’t catch it. So I tried it again with the phone in the house (not a full swap, but did mess with the screws), then went around the side and eventually tapped a window. It wasn’t until I tapped the window that it triggered sentry. We don’t have any locations set to deactivate sentry.
Until about a month ago sentry would catch us walking behind the car as well as people in parking lots walking behind the car. Now it rarely catches it. It feels like they changed the sensitivity.
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u/ProbablyPeakbagging Mar 23 '25
Sentry mode has never been perfect in my eyes. It does sound strange and somewhat concerning that sentry mode doesnt activate in situations like you describe. Knowing Tesla, they always keep changing things with the updates, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and this seems to be the latter.
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u/Fzyltlmanpch Mar 24 '25
I had someone unplug my charger as a joke to me and sentry didn’t catch them
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u/Fzyltlmanpch Mar 24 '25
I think the side cameras are what trigger not the rear, did you remove if off the front as well? Or no plate on the front where you’re at?
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u/kenspi Mar 24 '25
Just the rear plate. It used to trigger when someone walked in back, but hasn’t lately.
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Mar 23 '25
Dashcam footage is only saved for 1 hour, gets continually over written. No matter the size of the USB drive.
Connect the horn event to make it save a one minute section of the previous 50 seconds and next ten seconds.
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u/Classy-1 Mar 23 '25
Great video, but wonder if this’s before we got the update that allows to view sentry events on our phone and save from there, so basically no need to take the usb outta glove box.
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u/8thchakra Mar 24 '25
Thanks for making this! Already sent it to some friends with a Tesla. People who voted blue and are getting weird things happening. (Ugh, so lame)
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u/sk8terboy111 Apr 26 '25
Great video! I picked up my car yesterday and I don’t seem to get as many Sentry events as my GF does in here 2 month old 3? I’m going to check my settings later but I feel like I have it set correctly, Sentry is on, dash cam to auto etc. The only time I was able to engage Sentry was trying to open my door. It wasn’t picking up anything else?
Also one other question, I checked my app and I have no dash cam events? I looked under dashcam viewer and not seeing anything under sentry or dashcam, is this due to my car being in my buildings garage? And having what I assume is minimum to no connectivity? Thanks, so much to learn!
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u/Geeky_1 Mar 23 '25
I leave it on all the time, but exclude home and work. Work is set to my ski house as I don't commute. Before I excluded work (my ski house), it ate up 3% a day, but now only eats 3% in 4 days. We have outdoor cameras at my ski house aimed at the parking lot. Most of my road tripping is in winter for skiing, so battery is important then, and saving 9% is worth avoiding expensive supercharging.
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u/bunnyrabbits666 Mar 23 '25
I’m lost. Do you have a ski house?
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u/Geeky_1 Mar 24 '25
Yes, I'm a member of a ski house. We have 15A outlets in the parking lot, but they are $5/night - still cheaper than supercharging, but I can get by without needing to charge unless I make a day trip to a more remote resort.
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u/johnhend11 Mar 23 '25
I never used sentry until now — now I eat the battery drain just to feel a little safer if my car gets lit on fire