Tesla released one of the most highly anticipated features last month, giving owners the ability to livestream Sentry Mode footage to their mobile devices.
Unfortunately it has only appeared for owners in the United States, with owners in Canada and elsewhere around the world left having to view recorded footage inside their cars.
One Model 3 owner in Romania wasn’t content with that. The owner, who goes by the name Nicolo Tesla (@nicolotesla) tells Drive Tesla that all owners that are on 2021.35.8 actually have the feature, but the source code restricts it to only work in the US.
After more than a week of coding and hacking into the car’s computers and cameras, he has been able to bypass Tesla’s restrictions and activate Live Sentry access in Romania.
Nicolo Tesla shared some videos of the feature in action, showing it suffers from very little lag and has no side-effects from being an “unofficial” installation.
https://twitter.com/NicoIoTesla/status/1462569430391664645
Sentry live in Europe pic.twitter.com/yxRkm5Ul0q
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) November 22, 2021
Nicolo Tesla also shared with us what he believes is the main reason that Sentry Mode Live Camera Access is only available in the US.
According to the programmer, regular Sentry Mode activates and records when someone is close to your car. This small area around your car can be considered private property, and is therefore allowed to record.
That is not the case with Live Sentry, as you can watch the livestream at any time, from any distance, something which is not allowed in many countries.
Of course this is an unofficial explanation, but makes as much sense as any we’ve seen about why we don’t have the feature yet in Canada.
