Hacking the Tesla Autopilot 'Nag'!

In this video I show that wearing sunglasses drastically reduces the number of nags you get when running Autopilot or FSD.

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Interior Accessories

Exterior

Travel/Camping:

Car Mount Setup

[carriepinter]

I found that if you roll the autopilot scroll wheel up or down 1 mph every so often the car is convinced youre paying attention so nags are less frequent. Also if you get a nag then scrolling the wheel is less annoying than shaking the steering wheel.

[xalthe]

I noticed this, let's call it an 'anomaly', on my drive back from Des Moines a couple months ago. I was getting steering wheel nags regularly every 15-30 seconds, up to 1.5 minutes with sunglasses.

[stephenmiller]

I noticed this with my 2023 FSD MY LR a while ago. Thanks for the test.

[myaccount__]

The ‘nag’ makes autopilot borderline useless. If I take my eyes to send a text or look at my phone it immediately gets mad and complains and turns it off. So I basically have to turn it off…use my phone…then turn it on. Useless

[Patriot]

Just pull the visor over and block the camera. Then add a weight to the wheel, and it all works fine. I drive 110 miles a day that way.

[polarlight]

Great video - but it might also be relevant what your setting is for your driving mode - just curious to know what mode you were using? I have found differences when being in Chill mode versus Standard versus Sport ... try the same set of tests you did, but with the different driving modes and see if there are any further differences!

[sharkcookie.photography]

Excellent point about the car nagging you when you adjust climate control or other things at the touch screen. It shows that having everything controlled through the touch screen instead of physical buttons means you *have* to look at the screen, away from the road. With physical buttons, muscle memory allows you to reach for a control without having to look, or at least a short glance. Definitely less than going through a menu on the screen.

[TheGOF]

Just returned from my first trip using FSD Beta. 3900 miles roundtrip, FL to ND and back. I noticed the same sunglasses behavior with similar times between nags (I’m a nerd and timed them like you did). Nags are extremely annoying, combined with other irregularities like never once using a turn signal to merge, jumping into turn lanes unnecessarily (dived highways in Iowa, like you are on), hanging out in the left lane for no reason, alternately not moving left to pass slower traffic, etc., leads me to not renewing the subscription. I spent the last day of the trip using only Autosteer Beta (Enhanced Autopilot, that comes with FSD subscription) and found it a much more enjoyable drive as it has far better nag behavior (you can actually use the touchscreen). FSD is magical when it behaves, but often it’s just being a bad neighbor getting in everyone else’s way. One day it’ll be great, but for now it doesn’t enhance my life enough to be worth $199/ month.

[peterbro]

Interesting test. I just completed a road trip with FSD 12.3. Nagging seemed to be much worse on two lane roads far from civilization with less clear lines. Maybe the nagging rate is lower when the autopilot is confident with road view, nagging rate higher when less confident or considers the road more dangerous due to oncoming traffic in the adjacent lane.

[paulshoover]

great video and sunglass hack. I've also noticed that the amount of weight needed to tell the car you are there has increased. Not sure how to measure but its much more that what its felt like over the past 2 years. I'm running FSD Beta FWIW. I may need to pick up a few of the sexy buttons. Keep up the great fun content!

[mshmusic]

Put black tape on cabin camera.
As long as u don't have FSD it completely fixes the new nags that have been introduced

[lucidf]

I have always worn prescription sunglasses. Nags were not that bad until the Holiday update, then they became frequent and annoying. I changed sunglasses to a darker shade and it got better, but it is still worse than before the Holiday update. I considered S3xy buttons, but thought I would give it an update or two before trying active intervention. I use Teslogic which provides an additional screen directy in front of me, which makes spotting the nag message easier. I will start checking the CAN bus logs to see if there is any precursor indications prior to the actual nag message. I’m sure it won’t take much sleuthing to determine the duty cycle, and maybe some precursor indicators will turn up. Personally, I think the algorithm needs to be tuned. 1. Head up, eyes forward. 2. Hand or hands on wheel (camera determined should be fine as well as torque). Nag only if head or eyes drop more than x seconds (x depends on speed and surrounding traffic density). Higher speeds and heavier traffic generate a more frequent nags. Lower speeds and low density traffic produce less frequent nags. A quick glance to mirrors, or over the shoulder left or right for indicated lane changes does not produce nags or change the x second nag duty cycle.

[JosephMyLife]

Does this mean camera is watching on basic autopilot? Is there anyway around this like a spinner or weight?

[iowa_don]

If you just turn on FSD Beta with no destination, it will keep to the lane you started it in. Then the lane changing behavior to "follow route" does not happen. I really, really, really hate the unnecessary lane changes to "follow route".
Exactly what function is your SEXY button set to trigger?

[fulks]

I suppose if you covered that camera, FSD would not work.

[Davidtheinfidel]

When I wear sunglasses it helps a lot. A hat will work too

[garyindiana]

You said autopilot but your screen looks like you're running FSD not autopilot which one is it

[ajm]

great test Thanks from Canberra Australia

[MikeRadioNY]

I noticed the nag is so much reduced with sunglasses. However, I don’t know why. I am hoping the camera can see fine through the glasses actually, and the nag is removed. I’d rather keep looking at the road then have to touch the steering wheel, where the warning and flashing and time it asks for torque can be at a time you should be concentrating on making sure a maneuver is going well.

I’ve driven a supercruise car before and although it’s definitely nowhere near as advanced as FSD and won’t change lanes, it will allow you to drive without touching the wheel at all as long as you’re eyes are in the road. There is something very comfortable about that. If the cabin cam can provide the proper monitoring which it normally could, I can see the nag going away one day but NHTSA won’t allow it if there is not perfect monitoring. I don’t think anyone wants to sacrifice wearing sunglasses to use FSD without the nag, so I am hoping that they can get the camera algorithm right and know if your eyes are open, closed etc…. I’m pretty sure this is already doable based on the new non FSD feature about drowsiness coming out. All in all IMO the system is so advanced and although you do want to take over with some maneuvers, there is no need to have your hands on the wheel constantly. I wouldn’t have said that a year ago but after 25K it’s just close to perfect and the things that aren’t are more decisions which you know about ahead of time… not strange emergencies where you better take the wheel or get injured. I’m not saying it can’t happen but for years people have driven ICE cars with no protection..l they can have hands in wheel or not. Pay attention or not. Now there is all this tech to make things exponentially safer… so we should move forward and embrace them with new rules. Years ago, elevators had “elevator operators” to steer and land the elevator correctly. Then came automatic elevators which we use all the time and don’t even think about. We need to move forward here too. Sorry for the long message but with blue cruise and supercruise already fully hands free we should just be there with Tesla already.

[BCTeslaGuy]

nice video and observation. I've tried looking directly at the camera and that didn't help. Might be time to get prescription sunglasses. Have you tested blocking the camera?