Sentry IQ / Guides / Schedule Sentry Mode
How to schedule Sentry Mode. Tesla gives you no timer, so here is one.
Updated 19 August 2026
Sentry Mode has two positions: on until you turn it off, or off. There is no clock, no "weeknights only," no "while I am at the office." So owners pick a bad trade: leave it on around the clock and pay the battery cost, or leave it off and hope. The exposure is predictable; the switch is not.
What Tesla gives you natively
- The manual toggle, on the screen, in the app, or by voice.
- Location exclusions. The car can skip Sentry Mode at Home, Work and Favorites. Useful, but it is a where, not a when.
That is all. Nothing in the car or the Tesla app arms Sentry Mode at 22:00 and stands it down at 07:00.
Putting Sentry Mode on a weekly schedule
Sentry IQ adds the clock. You paint the hours on a weekly grid, the way you would block out a calendar: weekday office hours, weekend street-parking nights, whatever your week actually looks like. The car then arms itself when a painted window opens and stands down when it closes. Your phone can be off; the schedule runs server-side.
If you want, the schedule can also answer for you: auto honk and flash when the car reports an event during scheduled hours. That is opt-in, off by default, and you choose the hours it may act.
What a schedule saves
Sentry drain scales with armed hours. A car armed 45 hours a week instead of all 168 spends roughly 73 percent less on Sentry Mode, and is still protected for every hour you marked as exposed. The schedule is not a compromise between battery and safety; it is the version where both numbers improve.
The honest part
A schedule means an app sends commands to your car with nobody tapping a button. You should know exactly what that can and cannot do. Sentry IQ sends arm, disarm, honk, flash and lock. There is no code path that unlocks, opens or starts the car, and you can revoke its access at any moment from the Security section of your Tesla account. The full policy is on the homepage FAQ and in the privacy page.
Questions owners ask
Does the schedule work if my phone is off?
Yes. It runs on the server. The car gets its commands regardless of your phone.
What if I am driving during scheduled hours?
Sentry Mode only applies while parked. Driving always wins; the schedule picks up again when you park.
Can the schedule save battery?
Usually yes, compared to leaving Sentry Mode on around the clock. The math is in the battery drain guide.