Sentry
Your Tesla, in self-defence mode.
Tesla's Sentry Mode films vandalism, theft or a break-in. Its cameras record, and that is all: it does not warn you, it deters nobody, and it keeps no readable trace. iCar adds all three.
With a subscription
A measured response: headlight flash, then horn
❌ What the Tesla app does not do: the cameras record, a message appears on the centre screen, and that is where it stops. Whoever is keying your car, denting a door or vandalising it is never interrupted.
✅ What iCar does: when Sentry spots someone, your Tesla flashes its headlights. Once, silently: enough to tell a prowler he is on camera, without waking the street. When the alarm goes off, the response steps up: horn and headlights together.
The theft alert: told while it happens, not on your return
❌ What the Tesla app does not do: a smashed window, a dented door or an attempted break-in are discovered when you get back to the car. The video exists, but you have to be there to know anything happened.
✅ What iCar does: a notification reaches your phone or your watch the moment Sentry reacts. Someone comes close, the alarm sounds, a door or boot opens, the car starts moving: you are alerted straight away, and you can head back, call, or simply look at the car from where you are sitting.
Surveillance carries on when Sentry stops
❌ What the Tesla app does not do: with Sentry off, to save the battery overnight or in an office car park, there is no surveillance at all. The cameras are dark, and a break-in leaves no trace.
✅ What iCar does: the opening alert does not depend on Sentry. It fires as soon as a door or boot opens on a parked, locked car, Sentry on or off. It is the alarm that keeps watch while the cameras sleep.
The alert log
❌ What the Tesla app does not do: the videos live on the car's USB drive. No readable history, no date, no place. For an insurance claim or a police report, you have to pull files off a stick and reconstruct the rest from memory.
✅ What iCar does: every approach, every alarm and every opening goes into a dated log, kept for ninety days. With the address, the time, the temperature, whether the car was locked, and what it did in response.
Armed on its own, except where it is pointless
❌ What the Tesla app does not do: a Sentry switched off by hand stays off. You turn it off for one evening, you forget to turn it back on, and the car spends the week unwatched.
✅ What iCar does: Sentry arms itself every time you park, with an exception for home and one for work. You want the alarm on the car sleeping in the street, not on the one in your garage. iCar knows neither address: the car simply answers whether it is at home, or not.
Ready to try? The bookmark grid is free, with no time limit.
Create my account