Is my BYD Dash Cam Missing? The Truth About Sentry Mode and Australian BYDs

You have picked up a new BYD, poked around the mirror shroud looking for that Tesla-style camera everyone talks about, and found an empty plastic housing staring back at you. If you are wondering whether your BYD has a built-in dash cam, or whether Sentry Mode is coming, you are in the right place, and you are far from the first person to ask.

The short answer: Only one BYD sold in Australia came with a built-in dash cam, the Atto 3, and even that one is front-only, 1080p, and stops recording the moment you park. Sentry Mode is the newer wrinkle. Owners are now reporting a working Sentry Mode on the Sealion 8, which watches the car while it is parked. No BYD sold here records while you are actually driving. So on a Sealion 8 you are covered in the car park and not covered on the road, and on every other BYD you are covered in neither.

We spec and supply dashcams for new BYDs every week here in Melbourne, and this is easily the most common question we get asked. So here is the honest, model-by-model version, with no marketing gloss on it.

Does your BYD have a built-in dash cam?

Here is where every Australian delivered BYD actually stands. Find your model, then follow the link for the camera we recommend for that exact car.

Model	Built-in dash cam?	Sentry Mode?	Our guide
Atto 3	Yes, but front only, 1080p, no audio, and it stops when you park	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Atto 3
Atto 1	No, the housing is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Atto 1
Dolphin	No, the housing is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Dolphin
Seal and Seal Touring	No, the housing is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Seal and Seal Touring
Sealion 6	No, the housing is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Sealion 6
Sealion 7	No, the housing is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Sealion 7
Sealion 8	No, the housing is empty	Yes, owner-reported (Aug 2026). Parked surveillance only, it does not record while you drive	Best dash cam for the BYD Sealion 8
Shark 6	No, the bracket behind the mirror is empty	No	Best dash cam for the BYD Shark 6

The Sealion 8 is the odd one out and it is a recent change, so read the section below before you assume your car has it. We have left every other row alone because nothing has changed on those cars that we can see.

The pattern is hard to miss. The Atto 3 landed here in 2022 with the camera hardware live, and BYD has left it out of every model released in Australia since. The mounting point is still there on most of them, which is exactly why so many owners go looking and come away confused.

What about the OEM dash cam BYD sells?

You will see a factory-style unit advertised online, sold as an OEM or plug-and-play camera. It clips neatly into the housing behind the mirror and plays back through the car's centre screen, so it looks tidy and it is genuinely easy to fit.

It is worth knowing what you are getting. These units record the front only, at 1080p, and they do not run a parking mode, so they behave much like the Atto 3's original camera. There is no rear camera and no phone app, which means getting a clip off the car involves the centre screen or pulling the memory card out from behind the mirror.

If your only worry is having some record of a front-on prang while you are actually driving, that is a reasonable buy and it looks factory. If what you actually want is proof of the car park hit-and-run, the trolley strike or the person who keyed your door while you were inside the shops, it will not help you, because it is switched off whenever the car is.

What Sentry Mode actually is, and where BYD is up to

Sentry Mode is a Tesla feature. The car keeps its own cameras awake while it is parked and saves footage when something gets close or bumps it. People assume any modern EV with cameras dotted around it can do the same thing, and it is a fair assumption, because the hardware is right there.

On most BYDs sold here, it is still just hardware. The 360-degree cameras exist to help you park. They feed the screen while you are manoeuvring and then shut down. They are not wired to record, they have nowhere to save footage to, and no amount of digging through the settings will find a Sentry Mode that is not there.

The Sealion 8 is now the exception

An owner got in touch in August 2026 to tell us their Sealion 8 has a working Sentry Mode, recording from the cameras around the car while it is parked and switched off. Same owner, same message: there is still no dash cam function, so the car records nothing at all while you are driving it.

That fits what BYD has been doing globally. BYD's May 2026 over-the-air update upgraded Sentry Mode across its range, adding automatic cloud upload of high-risk clips, viewing through the BYD App, USB export and Wi-Fi Direct to your phone. The very same release notes list "omnidirectional driving recorders" as a separate feature going to a different group of cars. That is the whole story in one line: BYD does not treat Sentry Mode and a dash cam as the same thing, and getting one does not get you the other.

Being straight with you about what we do not know

We have not driven a Sealion 8 with this enabled, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Here is exactly where we stand.

BYD Australia's own 2026 Sealion 8 Owner's Handbook runs to 260 pages and does not mention Sentry Mode once. Not under that name, not as a sentinel mode, not as a driving recorder, not anywhere. The only recording it documents is the Event Data Recorder, which is crash telemetry and not video. BYD Australia also does not publish an OTA changelog anywhere public, so there is no release note to point you at. Update details go out by email to owners and get posted in the official owner Facebook groups.

So this is almost certainly something that arrived over the air after the handbook was written, and we cannot yet tell you which trims or build dates have it, what triggers a recording, how long clips are kept, or whether the footage is good enough to read a number plate off. If you own a Sealion 8, go and look: Settings, then have a dig through the vehicle or security menus. If you find it, or if you cannot, send us a screenshot. We will update this page and credit you.

What it does not fix

Even taken at its best, Sentry Mode covers a parked car. Most of the footage people actually end up needing comes from the other half of the equation, the moving half. The nose-to-tail where the other driver's story changes on the phone to their insurer. The merge. The tailgater. A dash cam runs the whole time you are driving, records at a resolution that gets you a plate, and the card is yours. You are not waiting on a manufacturer's app, a cloud retention policy, or an OTA that might change the feature next month.

That is not us talking down a feature we would rather you did not have. Sentry Mode on the Sealion 8 is a genuinely good thing, and we would like to see it on the rest of the range. It just is not a dash cam, and BYD is not claiming it is.

The 13.8Ah problem every BYD owner runs into

This is the part that catches people out, and it is the reason you cannot just buy any old camera off the shelf and bolt it in.

A dashcam needs power while the car is switched off if you want it guarding the car in a car park. That power does not come from the big battery that drives the wheels. It comes from a small 12V battery, the same humble type that starts a normal petrol car.

In a petrol car, that 12V battery is a decent-sized esky, often 40, 50 or even 60Ah (amp hours, which is simply a measure of how much charge it holds). In every modern BYD, it is just 13.8Ah. Picture a shot glass next to a bucket. BYD keeps it small to save weight, which is smart engineering, but it changes the rules for parking cameras completely.

A translucent white rectangular battery with yellow terminal caps sits next to a black electronic control module on a dark tabletop, with a blurred indoor background.

Left: Standard vehicle battery, Right: Physically, and significantly smaller BYD 13.8ah Battery

Pro Tip: The two things that keep a BYD safe are a low-power parking mode and a low-voltage cut-off. Low-power parking mode means the camera sleeps while parked and only wakes when something knocks the car. A low-voltage cut-off is a setting designed to stop the camera drawing power before the battery gets too low to start the car. Get both right and the risk of a flat is small. Our EV dash cam battery guide has the exact voltage numbers we use.

What we spec for BYDs, in general terms

Every model is a little different, which is why each car has its own guide in the table above. Broadly though, we are looking for three things on any BYD.

A genuine low-power parking mode. Not every dashcam that claims parking mode is gentle enough for a 13.8Ah battery, so we stick to models where the manufacturer publishes a low-power or hybrid parking mode and a low-voltage cut-off we can set. You can browse the cameras with low-power parking mode here.
Enough resolution to read a number plate. 1080p often will not do it at highway speed, which is the single biggest weakness of the factory and OEM cameras. A Sony STARVIS 2 sensor also makes a real difference at night against headlights.
A battery pack if you want the clever features. Motion detection and buffered impact recording draw more power. Run them off a dedicated pack and your car's little battery is barely asked to help.

BYD dash cam FAQs

Does BYD have a built-in dash cam?

Only the Atto 3, and only in a limited way. The Australian Atto 3 has a built-in front camera that records in 1080p with no audio and no rear camera, and it stops the moment you park. Every other BYD sold in Australia, including the Dolphin, Seal, Sealion 6, Sealion 7, Sealion 8 and Shark 6, has an empty camera housing and no built-in dash cam at all. The Sealion 8 does now appear to have a parked-car Sentry Mode, which is a different thing again, and we cover it in the Sealion 8 section above.

Does BYD have Sentry Mode?

Some now do. Owners are reporting a working Sentry Mode on the Sealion 8 as of August 2026, recording from the car's cameras while it is parked. We have not confirmed it on any other Australian BYD, and on the rest of the range the 360-degree cameras are still for parking assistance only, so they do not record and there is nowhere to save footage. Worth knowing on the Sealion 8: Sentry Mode watches the car while it is parked, it does not record while you are driving, and BYD Australia's own owner's handbook does not document the feature, so treat it as owner-reported and subject to change.

How do I access BYD dash cam footage?

On an Atto 3 with the factory camera, or on a car fitted with the OEM plug-and-play unit, footage sits on a memory card behind the mirror and plays back through the car's centre screen. There is no phone app. An aftermarket camera is much easier, you connect over Wi-Fi and save the clip straight to your phone, which matters when an insurer wants it the same day.

Can BYD cameras record while parked?

On a Sealion 8, owners report yes, through Sentry Mode. On every other Australian BYD, no, the factory and OEM cameras switch off with the car. And on no BYD sold here does the factory system record while you are actually driving, which is where most usable evidence comes from. An aftermarket dash cam with a proper parking mode covers both, and on a BYD it needs to be a low-power camera because of the small 12V battery.

Will an aftermarket dash cam void my BYD warranty?

Not on its own. Under Australian Consumer Law a manufacturer cannot void your whole vehicle warranty simply because you fitted an accessory, though it can decline a claim for a fault the installation itself caused. That is why a professionally installed dash cam using a fuse tap or hardwire kit is the lowest-risk approach we recommend. If you want certainty for your particular car, ask BYD or your dealer in writing before anything is fitted.

Do dash cams drain an electric car battery?

Not the big drive battery. A dash cam draws from the small 12V battery, and on a BYD that battery is only 13.8Ah, so a power-hungry camera really can flatten it overnight. A low-power camera with a low-voltage cut-off, or a dedicated battery pack, brings that risk right down.

Talk to us about your BYD

Every model has its own quirks, and we would rather you got the right setup the first time than guessed. Find your car in the table above for the specific guide, or reach out to Michael or Harrison and we will get you sorted. No worries either way.