Tesla is cutting edge, even bleeding edge technology, but sometimes returning to the classics can help too. There is no doubt Elon Musk and likely several Tesla fans watched David Hasselhoff play Michael Knight in Knight Rider in the 1980s.
At that time, the Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT) Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was the most advanced vehicle on the planet. The artificially intelligent car could do just about anything, drive by itself, take commands and go really, really fast. Those things all sound familiar. Lots of KITT's features are in Teslas, but there was one item that needed some work – Sentry Mode.
Tesla's Sentry Mode Improvements in 2022
Tesla continually tweaked and added more features to Sentry Mode in 2022. With the 2022 holiday update Tesla added the ability to view the vehicle's cabin camera directly from the app when Sentry Mode or Dog Mode are engaged.
In the prior update, Tesla added the ability to turn off camera-based detection, resulting in fewer Sentry Mode alerts in crowded areas. In some regions, Tesla also added the capability to adjust the length of each Sentry Mode clip.
In addition to these enhancements, Tesla now lets you use Sentry Mode and Dog Mode at the same time, as well as being able to disable Sentry Mode sounds.
Sentry Mode to Calm Down
KITT's advantage was that no one knew it was this technologically advanced car hiding a lot of tricks under the hood. KITT was super stealthy, except for the red light on the front of the shiny black front end, slowly pulsing from side to side.
Sentry Mode is a modern-day KITT, but instead of playing it cool like the Trans Am, Tesla's Sentry Mode freaks out, blinding everyone in sight. Every Tesla owner has returned to their car with a Sentry Mode notification. A lot of the time, it is some poor unsuspecting person walking to their car, and suddenly they are blinded by thousands of lumens.
Lights will Pulsate in Update 2023.2
Another Sentry Mode improvement is about to be introduced in update 2023.2. When Sentry Mode is enabled, the system will no longer blind passers-by with its bright headlights. Instead of full-on panic mode, it will now emit a gradual pulse of the headlights, ramping them up and down as a sort of warning. Hopefully, this stealthy, calm way of handling the problem will result in fewer surprised people being forced into the spotlight. It will also help when viewing Sentry Mode clips by not washing out the surroundings due to the bright flashes.
This feature is available in Tesla's 2023.2 update, which also includes the ability to automatically adjust the temperature of your steering wheel.
Sentry Mode Lights Video
In the video below you can see the updated Sentry Mode lights when a possible threat is detected. This is currently available for the Model 3 and Model Y.
You can read the full release notes for the 2023.2.0.5 update in our updates section.
