Back when Tesla launched the Model 3, it mentioned that all cars came as standard with a small camera embedded in the rear view mirror. At the time of the Model 3’s launch, Tesla stated that the camera lay inactive, but that in the future it would be used to enable various functions.
One function that immediately springs to mind is for the camera to be used as a drowsiness and fatigue detector (also known as a driver monitoring system). Many cars have similar features, so it would not have been a stretch for Tesla to follow suit, especially in order to make sure the driver has eyes on the road while Autopilot is enabled (currently it can only tell if the driver is keeping hands on the wheel).
However, now a Tesla hacker who goes by the name green has revealed what the camera is actually going to be used for. These are the events that it will be used to track and they are quite obviously driver monitoring parameters
BLINDED
DARK
EYES_CLOSED
EYES_DOWN
EYES_NOMINAL
EYES_UPHEAD_DOWN
HEAD_TRUN
CLOOKING_LEFT
LOOKING_RIGHT
PHONE_USE
SUNGLASSES_EYES_LIKELY_NOMINAL
SUNGLASSES_LIKELY_EYES_DOWN
More Tesla/hacker related news:
So does this mean that more advanced driver monitoring will be implemented in Teslas in the future? Well, we don’t know, but Tesla is clearly researching this and, in fact, it may not be the only use for the cabin-facing camera - we’re sure the automaker can come up with other ways of making it useful.
Source: green via Twitter
