Tesla Sentry Mode Video Notifications - How to Enable Them and When They're Sent [Video]

TesLatino/X

Tesla’s Sentry Mode keeps the vehicle’s cameras active and various sensors ready to record if there is any activity that the vehicle identifies as suspicious.

Sentry Mode is like a 24/7 home security system with 360-degree cameras for your Tesla. In addition to recording from the vehicle’s various cameras, Tesla recently added the ability for the vehicle to alert you when there is suspicious activity.

The vehicle owners will receive a notification from the Tesla app with a short video clip of the activity. However, not all Sentry Mode events result in a notification or video being sent. So, let’s dig into how Sentry Mode’s mobile notifications work.

How to Enable Video Notifications

You’ll need to ensure that Sentry Mode and Dashcam are enabled to receive video notifications as they’re both disabled by default due to the amount of power Sentry Mode uses.

You’ll also need to be subscribed to Tesla’s Premium Connectivity and have a USB drive inserted into the glovebox USB port (or middle console in older vehicles). By default, all Teslas from 2020 and later are equipped with a pre-formatted USB flash drive that supports Sentry Mode recordings.

While “Camera-Based Detection” doesn’t need to be enabled to receive video notifications, we recommend enabling it if available so that Sentry Mode captures all events involving your vehicle.

Sentry Mode video notifications are currently limited to the iPhone and iPad, but there will likely be Android support in the future.

Video Notifications Details

Ok. Is this new Sentry Mode alarm mobile notification with video new to me or everyone? pic.twitter.com/vL5UxfjO4Z

— TesLatino (@TesLatino) May 14, 2024

Each video notification is 60 seconds long. You can tap on your notification to view the video directly, or also go into the app to view recent video notifications. The video notifications are located under Security & Drivers > Sentry Mode Recording Previews.

In addition to receiving a video of the Sentry event, Tesla will also save the same one-minute notification video to your vehicle’s USB drive in addition to the other Sentry Mode footage.

Tesla has confirmed that all preview videos are end-to-end encrypted and can't be accessed by Tesla.

What Triggers a Video Notification

While Sentry Mode will record quite a few events, and display them for the user when they return, only certain events will trigger the threshold for mobile notifications.

Tesla describes two specific parameters that will trigger a video notification:

• the vehicle alarm is triggered, or

• a threat to the vehicle is detected that is caused by sudden jerky motions

Sentry Mode records various other events such as if a person walks by very closely to your vehicle. This may cause the vehicle to pulse its headlights or display a message on the screen, but it will not result in a notification being sent to the app.

Regional Availability

Sentry Mode’s mobile notifications are limited to certain regions due to local laws. The feature is available in North America, Australia, and most parts of Asia.

Who Receives Video Notifications

It’s important to keep in mind that anything that triggers Sentry Mode’s mobile notification threshold will immediately alert all mobile app keyholders of the vehicle. This does not include guest drivers but does include other Tesla account holders with whom you may have shared vehicle access.

Commercial Alerts

If your vehicle is part of a commercial fleet, it will also notify the fleet managers on the Tesla Fleet Dashboard, and the 1-minute clip will be viewable through the Fleet Dashboard. Full-length clips will still need to be accessed on a per-vehicle basis, even through the Commercial Fleet API.

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Tesla Smoking While Supercharging? A Look at What's Actually Happening

Hot_Engineering3140 on Reddit

Winter is here, and temperatures are dropping, so one of the most common Tesla questions is about to resurface.

If you’ve landed here after frantically searching about “smoke” coming from your Tesla while Supercharging, take a deep breath—it’s completely normal.

Tesla Smoking While Charging

If you’re Supercharging in freezing weather—even with preconditioning—you might notice steam rising from your Tesla. But rest assured, your car isn’t smoking.

Your Tesla’s heat pump is hard at work warming both the cabin and battery to keep you comfortable and ensure optimal charging temperatures. Over time, condensation and ice build-up in the heat exchanger coils.

Why Does It Happen?

When you reach a Supercharger with your vehicle, the heat pump is still running hot, but without the cold air from driving to keep the heat exchanger coils cool, the ice and condensation quickly start to evaporate—creating what looks like smoke.

Since this typically happens near the front of the vehicle, where a car would traditionally have an engine, new vehicle owners can be startled by the discovery. However, rest assured that it’s just water vapor and it’s completely normal in cold weather.

In fact, this behavior can be experienced in any EV with a heat pump in cold climates. So, if you saw steam coming out of your vehicle and panicked, don’t worry—you’re not alone.

Now that you know what’s happening, go ahead and Supercharge with confidence.

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Tesla Improves YouTube App With Smoother Playback

Not a Tesla App

Tesla made a lot of improvements in the 2024 Holiday Update, including more than 15 undocumented improvements that were included in the release. One of these was a stealthy performance improvement to the YouTube app.

Several people have mentioned they’ve seen improved performance on YouTube since this year’s Holiday Update - and there’s an interesting reason why.

YouTube Improvements

The improved YouTube performance in Tesla vehicles comes from an unexpected source—Tesla actually rolled back support for YouTube’s newer AV1 video encoding. Instead, vehicles now default to the older VP9 encoding standard.

While AV1 is highly efficient in terms of bandwidth, it requires considerably more processing power to decode and display videos. VP9, on the other hand, is less computationally demanding but uses more bandwidth to achieve the same video quality. This trade-off means smoother playback and better overall performance, even if it comes at the cost of slightly higher data usage.

Intel Inside

The VP9 video codec that the YouTube app is now using is much easier to decode, making it less taxing on the vehicle’s processor. This change is particularly beneficial for Tesla vehicles with Intel processors, which previously struggled to stream video at just 720p. When using AV1, these vehicles often experienced stuttering, sometimes forcing the YouTube app to automatically downgrade playback to 480p.

With this update, Intel-based Teslas should now be able to stream at 1080p smoothly. Streaming at 1440p is also possible, although occasional stutters still occur as the system keeps up with the decoding process.

Intel-based vehicles are the big winners with this change, but this appears to affect AMD Ryzen-based infotainment units as well, providing even smoother playback.

Chromium Web App

Tesla’s Theater apps aren’t native applications; instead, they run as chromeless web apps, leveraging the open-source browser built into Teslas known as Chromium (the open-source version of Chrome). Although this works quite well, there is a severe limitation - Chromium hardware acceleration isn’t supported on Linux, the operating system Tesla uses for their OS.

As a result, Tesla vehicles rely on software decoding instead of hardware decoding, which would otherwise handle video playback far more efficiently. A potential solution could be for Tesla to transition away from Chromium-based web apps in favor of a Mozilla Firefox-based browser, as Firefox does support hardware acceleration on Linux. This switch could also open the door to better streaming performance and the possibility of expanding Tesla’s in-car entertainment options.

However, Tesla’s choice of Chromium likely stems from Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements for streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix, which rely on DRM-enabled playback. Firefox on Linux has had inconsistent support for DRM due to codec availability and variations in operating system versions.

We’re hopeful that Tesla will either adopt Firefox or develop a fully native application to improve video streaming, rather than continuing with the current web-based Tesla Theater. This shift could also pave the way for additional in-car applications built on Tesla’s native Linux environment—perhaps even reviving the long-rumored Tesla App Store.

Regardless, this update is a welcome improvement, particularly for YouTube, which remains one of the most widely used Theater Mode apps due to its accessibility, free content, and mix of short and long-form videos. It remains to be seen whether similar improvements are made for Netflix, Disney+, or other streaming platforms.

If you’ve noticed improved performance in Theater Mode, now you know why.

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