In an exchange on X, Drew Baglino, Tesla’s Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering, addressed the concerns regarding the power consumption of Tesla’s Sentry Mode. Responding to a user inquiry, Baglino confirmed the company’s commitment to reducing the feature's energy use by approximately 40% through a software update expected in Q2, which begins on April 1.
Agreed, sentry mode power consumption needs improvement, the team is working to reduce by ~40% in a Q2 software update.
This announcement follows feedback from Tesla owners regarding the 'vampire drain' experienced when using Sentry Mode, highlighting Tesla's responsive approach to customer feedback and its dedication to continuous improvement. Another X user stated that there should be a breakdown or battery usage. This information already exists, but Baglino politely responded: The energy app provides a wealth of information about where your energy goes. He also linked to our Not a Tesla App article explaining that system.
The energy app provides a wealth of information about where your energy goes: https://t.co/pw30S4tmcY
Sentry Mode is an advanced security feature for Tesla vehicles, leveraging the car’s cameras and sensors to monitor and record surroundings for potential threats when parked. Sentry Mode has proven invaluable for vehicle security by activating various deterrents, including pulsing headlights and alarm sounds.
Despite its benefits, the feature’s energy consumption, referred to as “vampire drain,” has been a concern, with estimates suggesting a small yet consistent drain on the vehicle's battery life. By optimizing Sentry Mode's power usage, Tesla enhances the feature's efficiency and extends the usability for owners, particularly when parking for extended periods without access to charging facilities.
Battery Management: Recognizing the importance of battery preservation, Sentry Mode automatically deactivates when the battery level falls to 20%, ensuring that the vehicle remains operational for essential travel.
Activation and Customization: Owners can activate Sentry Mode via the vehicle's touchscreen or mobile app, with options to customize settings, such as disabling sounds or excluding specific locations, tailoring the security feature to individual preferences and requirements.
Tesla's forthcoming software update aims to significantly reduce Sentry Mode's power usage, making it more adaptable for various situations without impacting the car's range or battery longevity. This enhancement aligns with Tesla's commitment to continuous improvement via over-the-air updates, directly responding to customer feedback with practical solutions. Owners looking forward to this change appreciate the balance between maintaining Sentry Mode's security benefits and preserving battery life for everyday needs.
When the 2024 Tesla Holiday Update originally launched, they introduced awesome new features, but unfortunately, one of the most exciting, the weather radar, was only available for vehicles with the AMD Ryzen processor (MCU 3).
Intel-based vehicles didn’t receive the precipitation maps at all and instead only had access to the Weather at Destination feature. However, we’re excited to report that Tesla has now released a version of the weather radar overlay that’s compatible with Model 3 and Model Y Intel vehicles.
Intel Precipitation Maps
It sounds like Tesla needed to optimize the precipitation map for Intel vehicles, which feature a slower CPU. We received this news from a follower who reached out after finding his Intel-based Model 3 in Norway had the ability to see the new weather map with update 2024.44.25.3.
This update began rolling out just recently and was originally seen as a bugfix update. In the release notes for the update, Tesla lists all of the Holiday features again, making it easy to miss the new ‘Precipitation Map and Weather at Destination’ feature.
While we thought the radar overlay feature may be reduced in some fashion for Intel cars, this isn’t the case. This update brings the maps in their full capacity to Intel, with no reduction in features. The animated overlay, showcasing the last three hours of precipitation, is available in the same way as AMD vehicles.
The precipitation icon shows up at the far right side of the screen, right next to the Superchargers icon.
You’re also able to zoom out or swipe to view the radar anywhere you like or zoom in to be more precise. You can also use it while driving. However, the overlay is pretty distracting, so it can make it confusing if you’re trying to figure out where to go.
The last two key points for the new precipitation maps are that if you have Points of Interest (POIs) enabled, the precipitation overlay will hide them - except for Charging POIs. You’ll also need Premium Connectivity to take advantage of this feature - even if you’re connected to Wi-Fi via a hotspot.
We’re excited to see this feature drop for Intel-based vehicles, as Tesla is still committed to supporting them and finding new ways to optimize features on the older hardware. We’re hoping some of the other features arrive on Intel as well, including the new Parked screen and updated full-screen Autopilot visualizations outside of North America.
With FSD V13.2.1 finally rolling out to HW4/AI4 vehicle owners this week, we’ve been super excited to see all the new features, including Park, Unpark, and Reverse in action for the first time.
However, that’s not everything - more is coming soon. We previously reported that Tesla is collecting audio input to build neural networks for audio, and now we’re learning that that capability will arrive in FSD V13.4.
Better Audio Handling
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI, mentioned that better handling of audio inputs is coming as part of FSD V13.4. That’ll be an interesting change, as the current handling of emergency vehicles on V13.2.1 is already pretty good.
However, we’re sure that being able to recognize emergency vehicles audibly will improve detection speed and reliability. Similarly to vision, FSD will start analyzing all the sounds it hears, and look for signs of emergency vehicles.
FSD will be able to make a reasonable determination on whether the sound of the siren is approaching or just echoing off of nearby terrain or buildings using the Doppler effect. It’s a simple mathematical principle where the frequency of a sound wave increases as the source moves towards the observer and decreases as it moves away.
Interestingly, Tesla will be using the internal microphone for this task - as there are no external microphones on any Teslas… yet. This microphone is sufficient for one simple reason - sirens are made loud enough for humans to hear them inside a moving car.
Better Than a Human
Some users have wondered how the vehicle will be able to distinguish between sirens on the radio and in real life. While I’m sure we’re not the only ones to have ever been fooled by a siren on the radio, Teslas won’t be as easily fooled.
Tesla could actually take the audio going out to the radio and remove it from the sounds captured by the microphone, effectively removing sirens from the captured audio. In addition to being able to measure the intensity and direction of the sound, your vehicle should be able to accurately recognize emergency vehicles, even before a human can.
Opt-In Audio Sharing
Tesla is now allowing FSD users to opt-in to sharing audio data. The prompt for sharing audio data is on FSD V12.5.6.4, V13.2 and V13.2.1. It’s also expected to be in the upcoming Hardware 3 version of FSD 12.6.
However, it’s worth noting that Tesla’s release notes between V13.2 and V13.2.1 changed slightly for audio sharing. Tesla initially mentioned that the vehicle would capture 10-second audio clips when a siren is heard.
In FSD V13.2.1, Tesla updated the data sharing feature, letting users know that audio recordings are now said to be captured when the vehicle detects an emergency vehicle instead of detecting a siren. The audio clip is also not limited to 10 seconds anymore.
Opting into audio sharing will share microphone recordings alongside all the other data that Tesla regularly collects as part of its FSD training. Of course, if you're uncomfortable with that, you’ll be able to opt out of just the audio portion. Tesla’s privacy policy also discloses that they anonymize and sanitize the data during collection and processing.
While vision plays a much larger role, expect Tesla to deal with the capturing and analyzing of audio data in a very similar manner.
We’ve already seen improved handling for school buses on V13.2, so we’re excited to see what else Tesla does in the next few months. Perhaps handling school zones would be the next big item to tackle.
![Tesla Enables 325kW Charging for Cybertruck at Select Superchargers [Full List of Superchargers]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/cybertruck/cybertruck_70.jpg/d37e0e90a89baaa5cc40437493759090.jpg)
![Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/optimus/optimus_fall.jpg/59ea0e3082db081e7473a1f0da1ed31c/optimus_fall.jpg)
