A Tesla owner managed to recover his stolen RV thanks to the help of Tesla Sentry Mode that captured the theft on video.
Tesla’s Sentry Mode is an integrated surveillance system inside Tesla’s vehicles using the Autopilot cameras around the car.
The system detects when there’s a “threat,” which basically consists of anyone or anything approaching the car, and starts recording.
It was released after there was a series of break-ins in Tesla vehicles in the Bay Area.
The system, which is built on Tesla’s TeslaCam dashcam system, has been changing the game when it comes to vandalizing parked cars.
We reported on several instances where Sentry Mode helped police with video evidence to help them identify and find vandals.
It has also been helping prevent theft or solve them after the fact.
Now Tesla Sentry Mode proved useful again as a Tesla owner in Langley, British Columbia managed to retrieve his stolen RV after the theft was caught by the security system:
Derek had just taken his 29-foot RV out of storage and parked it in front of his house and the next morning it was gone.
He told Canada’s Global News:
“It was like waking up out of a dream, I wasn’t sure at first. I kind of saw nothing and couldn’t remember: did I actually bring it home? Am I waking up here? And 10 seconds later it hit me that it was actually gone.”
Derek then checked the Sentry Mode footage from his Tesla and found that it captured the entire theft that took less than 5 minutes.
Two people came in the middle of the night with a pickup and stole the RV.
He shared the video with the police, local news and on social media and managed to recover the RV by the end of the day:
“An officer recognized the truck and RV thanks to the video captured by the Tesla, he said. After sharing the video with Global News and on social media, the family also received several tips that the trailer had been spotted in the Agassiz area.”
Derek commented on the role Tesla Sentry Mode played:
“There’s a good part of that that really did help. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a big part of it.”
They even found other potentially stolen RVs at the location.
In order for TeslaCam and Sentry Mode to work on a Tesla, you need a few accessories. We recommend Jeda’s Model 3 USB hub (now also available for Model Y) to be able to still use the other plugs and hide your Sentry Mode drive. For the drive, I’m now using a Samsung portable SSD, which you need to format, but it gives you a ton of capacity, and it can be easily hidden in the Jeda hub.
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