Sentry Mode on Tesla is a great security feature that allows you monitor and get alerted to potential security threats around your car. It uses your Tesla\u2019s cameras to record suspicious activity, but only when the vehicle is locked and in Park mode.<\/p>\n
When a threat is detected, you will see various indications and notifications, including:<\/p>\n
If you are looking to find out how to view all the Sentry Mode events on your Tesla, this article is for you.<\/p>\n
But before going into that, I feel it\u2019s important to first let you know some caveats about Sentry Mode such as what conditions must be in place before Sentry Mode can work at all.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/p>\nToggle<\/span>
The Sentry Mode feature availability depends on Market Region, Vehicle Configurations, Options Purchased, and the Software Version on your Tesla.<\/p>\n
And, even if it is available in your Tesla, yours may not work exactly as is generally available in Tesla vehicles.<\/p>\n
If your Tesla does come with Sentry Mode, it is turned off by default. If Sentry Mode remains off, it will not record any events and there will be nothing to view. So, in order to be able to view Sentry Mode events on your Tesla, you have to first turn it on using any of the methods below:<\/p>\n
To enable using voice command, simply say “Enable Sentry\u201d, or “Keep My Car Safe\u201d, and this will turn on Sentry Mode.<\/p>\n
To initiate a voice command, you need to first press and release the right scroll wheel button. When you hear a tone, then you can speak your command.<\/p>\n\n
You can also enable Sentry Mode using the Touchscreen. To do this:<\/p>\n
In order for Sentry Mode to work, your Tesla battery must be at least 20%. So, if Sentry Mode is available and enabled on your car but the car battery level is below 20%, the feature will not work and there will be no events to view.<\/p>\n
If battery is below 20%, Sentry Mode will turn off automatically and you will receive a notification to that effect on your Tesla mobile app. At this point, I must also point out that:<\/p>\n
Now that you know how Sentry Mode works, let\u2019s explore how to view the events on all the Tesla models.<\/p>\n
The method to view Sentry Mode events is the same on all Tesla models as long as the feature is available and enabled. The easiest ways to view the events is to use the USB and watch on a computer, or watch the events directly on the touchscreen.<\/p>\n
Note:<\/strong><\/span><\/em> If you’ve ever had issues with Sentry Mode not working<\/a> properly, I’ve done an article on this that gives the main reasons as well as exhaustive fixes.<\/p>\n
First of all, bear in mind that if your Tesla was manufactured after November 2021, it is likely that you will not be able to use the center console USB ports to retrieve Sentry Mode events: you would have to use the USB port inside the glove compartment instead.<\/p>\n
Having said that, here\u2019s how to retrieve and view Sentry Mode events on your Tesla using USB:<\/p>\n
To format the USB, you can do this on your computer or on the Tesla by following the steps below:<\/p>\n
Newer Tesla models come with a 128GB USB drive. If yours does, you do not need to format it<\/p>\n
Once all of this is set up, Sentry Mode events will automatically start storing on the USB device.<\/p>\n
Please note the following<\/p>\n
Note:<\/strong><\/span><\/em> If you want a breakdown of the best USBs for Sentry Mode<\/a> that I’ve recently analyzed, you can view it in the article I just linked to.<\/p>\n
You can also view Sentry Mode events on your phone if a USB device is not plugged into the USB port of your Tesla. In this case, when there is a security event, a notification will be sent directly to the Tesla mobile app on your phone.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, you can actually monitor events around your Tesla vehicle realtime, using your phone. You do not have to wait to receive Sentry Mode event notifications as you can see the events happening realtime.<\/p>\n
To set up realtime Sentry Mode monitoring on your phone:<\/p>\n
When these conditions are in place, then:<\/p>\n
Note:<\/p>\n
Yes, you can view Sentry Mode events without a USB. I have already shown you that if you do not have a USB device plugged in your Tesla, you can receive event notifications on your Tesla mobile app that\u2019s paired with the car. You can then tap to view the events.<\/p>\n
You can also leverage Sentry Mode\u2019s View Live Camera to monitor security events live.<\/p>\n
The difference is that you do not have to remove the USB device and plug it into a computer to view the events. You can access the events directly on the touchscreen following the steps below:<\/p>\n
If you get into your car and there has been a recent Sentry Mode event, you will see a notification stating thet even has occurred, and an option to tap to view.<\/p>\n\n
When you tap to view a Sentry Mode event, it will open on the touchscreen as a video that you can play. One thing you need to look out for is a red dot anywhere along the video playback.<\/p>\n
The red dot is the point where the Sentry security event actually happened. You can move the slider to that point to view the actual event so you don\u2019t have to waste time watching the entire video recording.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sentry Mode on Tesla is a great security feature that allows you monitor and get alerted to potential security threats around your car. It uses your Tesla\u2019s cameras to record suspicious activity, but only when the vehicle is locked and in Park mode. When a threat is detected, you will see various indications and notifications, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-software"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslord.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}