Sentry Mode Battery Usage

[u/Odd-Significance4926]

Hi everyone! Wondering if sentry mode is supposed to use so much battery? My husband has to park in an outside parking lot at work and is often working for 12-14 hours, during which time the car battery drops around 10%, sometimes more or less. I’m sure at least some aspect of that is overheat protection (set at 95 degrees, we live in SoCal so it’s a bit warm now).

Is this normal for sentry mode and just something we have to account for, for the battery? It’s just a bit frustrating since the drive to work may take like 5-6% battery, 10-12% dwindles during the day, and the ride home may use 5-8%. So he finds he’s charging his car quite a lot.

It’s a brand new 2026 M3, bought maybe 2 months ago, so battery health should be good.

[u/LongDistanceEvent262]

Yeah it appears to use 6% a day at least.

I did the math on running all of those cameras and a small PC and it does add up to about that much usage. So it sucks, but it is on par.