Saturday, June 6, 2020

New DashCam Viewer (and other Updates)

Let's face it, almost no one ever took out the USB device that record Dashcam and Sentry Mode footage to see what has happened unless a specific event such as damage/ accident prompted one too. Long requested was the ability for Tesla to simply view the footage in the car. With the update on/around April 9th, 2020 that is exactly what Tesla did... finally... a Dashcam Viewer in the car! Awesome and extremely useful.

Tesla Dashcam Viewer

Now I almost always view Sentry footage before leaving a parking location and so far the results have been hilarious... from the unknowing person simply doing weird stuff while parked next to the Tesla or others impressed by the Tesla coming over to look at it. Piece of mind before leaving a spot against damage and vandalism.

Here is the update screen with the information about the Dashcam Viewer...

Dashcam Viewer Release Notes

A number of ways to launch the viewer. On the initial update above the Dashcam viewer can be launched by clicking on the Dashcam icon (the camera icon) and not the Sentry icon. Clicking that will simply save the current footage (or rather few minutes leading up to this moment) as a Sentry Video. This is useful if an event occurs e.g. someone cuts you off and you do not feel like Honking to save footage (if that settings is enabled).

Launching Dashcam Viewer

Once the Viewer is launched the viewer starts displays the most recent dashcam footage leading up to the present time from the front camera. Along with simultaneous synced footage from the Rear and Left and Right Cameras. Clicking on any one of the other footage makes that come on the main screen and the current one goes to the appropriate corner.

Dashcam viewer shows 4 synced videos from each side.

The viewer has 3 separate ways to sort the footage, all, By Sentry Events and by DashCam footage. Pity there is no TrackMode footage option.

Sorting of different footage types

Update:

On the update that I received on August 1st, 2020, Tesla made the Dashcam Viewer even better. Now not only am I able to go directly to a Sentry Mode recorded footage by clicking on the informational bubble that tells me Sentry event was recorded, but also when viewing footage from a Sentry Mode event the exact moment that triggered the event is shown by a red dot in the player and the videpo start playing from a few seconds before the red dot.

Sentry Mode footage has a Red Dot in timeline

Update to the Update:

The listing of the Dashcam mode videos now show a the location of where the video was captured, name of the town/city, which is super convient.

Bravo Tesla.