Roof Top Camping - Rivian Lights/Noises…

[diranged]

We just completed our first night camping in our old Roof Top Tent on the R1T - and overall it was great.. but we noticed something. When we lock the car (because our phones were charging in there, wallets/purses in there, etc), the truck seemed unhappy to have people sleeping on top of it. We have a roof top tent mounted to the cargo rails, and about every 10m the car would make a chirpy type noise. Unlocking the car caused it to go to sleep and ignore us but that has its own issues.

I’m curious if anyone else has done this yet and has any tips? I am planning on providing some feedback to Rivian, but here are my thoughts. There needs to be a ”camping mode”:

* The battery fans do not start up each time we unlock the car, we’re not driving anywhere.
* The interior HVAC and Stereo do not turn on each time we go into the car to get something
* The exterior lights go into off/dim mode so that when we DO unlock the car at night, we don’t wake up the poor suckers in tents on the ground
* The door handle lights go off, so if we do chose to leave the car unlocked, we aren’t also lighting up the ground all around the truck
* Gear guard is automatically and completely disabled so we don’t waste energy recording ourselves walking around our own car

Any one else have any thoughts on this?

Sponsored

 

[Dark-Fx]

We camped this weekend on ours. Turned off all the automatic light settings and auto lock/unlock, so the truck never turned on any lights except for the weak ones in the door handles.

I left the truck unlocked since I'm pretty certain someone opening the door would make enough noise to wake me. It would be nice to have the handle lamps time out after a short period of time though. It's not a great thing to advertise that the vehicle is unlocked.

Also turned off all climate control and set the radio volume to zero, so no issues with random noises from the truck due to that.

I never even enabled gear-guard, so nothing to note about that.

I have to agree it would be nice to have a single mode that does all that for you, AND levels the truck out so that it's not such a requirement to park on perfectly level ground. Our campsite had a constant pitch to it, so we ended up sleeping somewhat downhill.

 

[MichaelD]

AND levels the truck out

This would be a terrific addition!

 

[Dark-Fx]

This would be a terrific addition!

I expect it should be easy enough for them to do. They could even pre-warn you that the spot you are parked in won't be capable of getting the truck to a completely level position, before even trying to do it. I'm tempted enough to try to figure out if there's a way to hook into the system and do it myself manually. Putting the truck into tire change mode seems like it should stop it from trying to make adjustments itself.

 

[wicked2112]

We camped this weekend on ours. Turned off all the automatic light settings and auto lock/unlock, so the truck never turned on any lights except for the weak ones in the door handles.

I left the truck unlocked since I'm pretty certain someone opening the door would make enough noise to wake me. It would be nice to have the handle lamps time out after a short period of time though. It's not a great thing to advertise that the vehicle is unlocked.

Also turned off all climate control and set the radio volume to zero, so no issues with random noises from the truck due to that.

I never even enabled gear-guard, so nothing to note about that.

I have to agree it would be nice to have a single mode that does all that for you, AND levels the truck out so that it's not such a requirement to park on perfectly level ground. Our campsite had a constant pitch to it, so we ended up sleeping somewhat downhill.

I would send this Rivian in detail, and maybe it will become something they put together for the next update.

 

[dleewla]

We just completed our first night camping in our old Roof Top Tent on the R1T - and overall it was great.. but we noticed something. When we lock the car (because our phones were charging in there, wallets/purses in there, etc), the truck seemed unhappy to have people sleeping on top of it. We have a roof top tent mounted to the cargo rails, and about every 10m the car would make a chirpy type noise. Unlocking the car caused it to go to sleep and ignore us but that has its own issues.

I’m curious if anyone else has done this yet and has any tips? I am planning on providing some feedback to Rivian, but here are my thoughts. There needs to be a ”camping mode”:

* The battery fans do not start up each time we unlock the car, we’re not driving anywhere.
* The interior HVAC and Stereo do not turn on each time we go into the car to get something
* The exterior lights go into off/dim mode so that when we DO unlock the car at night, we don’t wake up the poor suckers in tents on the ground
* The door handle lights go off, so if we do chose to leave the car unlocked, we aren’t also lighting up the ground all around the truck
* Gear guard is automatically and completely disabled so we don’t waste energy recording ourselves walking around our own car

Any one else have any thoughts on this?

sounds more than reasonable. my main thought... Rivian didn't notice this when they were testing? seems like a bunch of big misses here.

 

[Zac]

I would send this Rivian in detail, and maybe it will become something they put together for the next update.

Agreed! If enough people say something, it’s more likely to find it’s way into the product roadmap. As a vehicle being marketed with a RTT, I am a bit surprised this has not been designed into the product.

 

[Singletracker]

As a long time RTT user, count me in on the self leveling feature. That would be cool. No more piling rocks.

 

[Deleted member 6231]

Any thoughts on your favorite RTT? I’ve ordered the Rivian tent but hearing it might not be available til the end of 2023. I’m looking at the iKamper Skycamp 3.0 mini but it seems a bit narrower than others.

 

[EVnewb]

The self leveling feature should be a fairly easy update from Rivian I would assume. My neighbor has a 2016 Winnebago on a Sprinter platform and it has the auto self leveling feature. Pretty slick.

Hopefully Rivian reads these suggestion threads because a lot of members here have some really great ideas! The more owners report possible improvements based off of experiences, the better!

 

[Dark-Fx]

The self leveling feature should be a fairly easy update from Rivian I would assume. My neighbor has a 2016 Winnebago on a Sprinter platform and it has the auto self leveling feature. Pretty slick.

Hopefully Rivian reads these suggestion threads because a lot of members here have some really great ideas! The more owners report possible improvements based off of experiences, the better!

I'm asking my guide if there is somewhere we can directly request features.

 

[tomaskuehn9]

The self leveling feature should be a fairly easy update from Rivian I would assume. My neighbor has a 2016 Winnebago on a Sprinter platform and it has the auto self leveling feature. Pretty slick.

I am not very techie, but doesn’t this require a physical level/accelerometer somewhere? Is there a way to do this with software only?

 

[Deleted member 6231]

I am not very techie, but doesn’t this require a physical level/accelerometer somewhere? Is there a way to do this with software only?

The self leveling feature already exists in the car, now it’s just a matter of getting it to hold position during camping.

 

[Lsthrz]

sounds more than reasonable. my main thought... Rivian didn't notice this when they were testing? seems like a bunch of big misses here.

Right? Maybe they tested and decided to push the vehicles out and catch-up on issues later. I think about that with the so-called wireless phone charger and the phone key unlock issue - had to be known ahead of customer deliveries. Someone had to have camped in a RTT as well.

 

[PoorPilot]

Any thoughts on your favorite RTT? I’ve ordered the Rivian tent but hearing it might not be available til the end of 2023. I’m looking at the iKamper Skycamp 3.0 mini but it seems a bit narrower than others.

I've ordered the Thule Tepui Ruggedized Kukenam and hopefully receive it soon and I'm waiting on the iKamper X-Cover 2.0 mini that should be available in May. I'm trying out an Off Grid Trailer this weekend with a RTT, so I'll be curious to see how many different settings I have to turn off or disable to make it through the night with no distractions. I've been compiling a list of items for my Guide and was getting ready to send it, but I might wait until next week after our trip.

Sponsored