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What's that touchscreen in my room?

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Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#381

Post by qsantos »

Ayesh wrote: post #35
josu wrote: post #6

>DATE & TIME ARE ALWAYS CORRECT AND NEVER NEED TO BE ADJUSTED Reads like a quote from a Philip K. Dick book.

My guess was that it probably had a time correction feature from those British radio tower integration, but this device is from 2015 (says in the article), so probably not.

From the Mastodon thread:

> Turns out, they found out an even more innovative time sync mechanism. When you open the UI in the browser, they quickly redirect you to "/set-time/" + Date.now(). This sets a global variable in the Node.js app responsible for "now".

(https://mastodon.social/@laplab/111789584104871367)

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#382

Post by netsharc »

squarefoot wrote: post #209
miellaby wrote: post #136

I like how the author is surprised by the technological aberration that form Linux powered home appliances. A node server to power and publish over wifi a web site, an API, a web socket, while the site is being displayed by a outdated webview engine within an heavily constrained terminal which cant be reused for anything else. That's... the norm. All this is very common. And yet displaying a couple of digits and a ba…

> within an heavily constrained terminal which cant be reused for anything else. Except for botnets and/or spying. Some of those boards already contain MEMS microphones and cameras (the box in the picture even shows the camera objective). I'd have took apart the device to take a look inside, or at least run some diagnostics to explore which hardware was installed/detected.

I wonder if cat /dev/video1 would be enough to turn it into a surveillance device..

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#383

Post by erhaetherth »

Jedd wrote: post #164
8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something in my apartment is consuming a ton of power and I don't know what. I would love a graph with a resolution better than a day.

Do you have a conventional HWS? These are notoriously power-hungry, often poorly maintained and calibrated, and hard to monitor. You can buy a power meter plug - that sits between appliance and socket - and work your way around almost all your appliances apart from, typically, oven, air conditioner(s), and hot water systems. For those you're going to need to experiment by turning as many things off as you can, to est…

What's an HWS? Hot water system...?

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#384

Post by squarefoot »

netsharc wrote: post #382
squarefoot wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> within an heavily constrained terminal which cant be reused for anything else. Except for botnets and/or spying. Some of those boards already contain MEMS microphones and cameras (the box in the picture even shows the camera objective). I'd have took apart the device to take a look inside, or at least run some diagnostics to explore which hardware was installed/detected.

I wonder if cat /dev/video1 would be enough to turn it into a surveillance device..

Not sure about cat, but if one could sneak in netcat or better ffmpeg on Android, then opening a audio/video channel to the outside could become trivial.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#386

Post by SoftTalker »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #157
jonathanlydall wrote: post #128

A few years ago I came to the realisation that if you want people to be more environmentally conscious or economical in terms of utility consumption, (electricity, water, gas, etc), they need far better data than a single figure per month. You want to be able to see usage to a resolution of at most 5 minutes. That way people can spot things like “having my electric heater on for those couple of hours used more electr…

Something in my apartment is consuming a ton of power and I don't know what. I would love a graph with a resolution better than a day.

Need to pop the cover off the main breaker panel and use a clamp-type current meter to see which circuit(s) are using power.

Or hire an electrician to do it, if you aren't totally confident in your ability to do that safely.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#387

Post by kristjansson »

sampo wrote: post #362
stdbrouw wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience also points to the limits of monitoring and subsequent behavioral change, though. I mean, yeah, it might prompt you to start your washing machine a bit earlier or a bit later to align with high production by your solar panels... but how much consumption can you really move around like that, and how many energy hogs can you just decide to not use? If you notice high energy use while cooking, are you go…

> I think the jury is still out whether it'll actually lead to significant energy savings. In Finland you can get an electricity contract that follows the hourly spot prices. Usually the hourly prices varies in the range from 5c to 20c/kWh, but sometimes it jumps up to 40c, even 80c/kWh. The record was 2€/kWh for a couple hours in one day. Current hourly prices for today and tomorrow: https://oomi.fi/en/electricity/e…

Is there a cap? AIUI this is how those Texas power bills got to $xx,000 last year.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#388

Post by SoftTalker »

inetknght wrote: post #73
kelnos wrote: post #53

> There were two strings printed with labels “SSID” and “Pwd”. I froze in horror. They wouldn’t dare. It is literally 3 meter distance. These are embedded devices, they do not need this complexity… Not surprising at all. I would expect that a lot of these are bought as retrofits, and not as a part of new construction. Running wires through existing walls can be annoying, and they don't want to put that barrier to sal…

> Probably don't need to be so worried here. If it's a 3A fuse, the entirety of your apartment's mains power is not running through it. If it's a "3A fuse" that doesn't blow at 6A or worse, then it will get very hot (fire hazard) if/when there's a short regardless of the distance to the mains power. If it truly is a 3A fuse, then great. If it's bought from Amazon then I doubt it's truly a 3A fuse.

Fuse needs to protect against 2 main things:

1) a dead short in the circuit. Fuse will blow pretty much instantly.

2) an overload on the circuit. Fuse will blow sooner or later depending on how great the load excess is. If the fuse is rated at 3A, it's not going to be fine at 2.9A and then instantly blow at 3.1A. You'd need actual current monitoring to do that.

And some fuses are "delayed" to allow an overload for a few moments, such as when starting a motor.

None of this disputes that Amazon is well known to sell garbage, and not just limited to fuses. That's why I don't buy anything there.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#389

Post by xattt »

Symbiote wrote: post #55
xattt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the recommendation every so often to buy a fuse locally, but I don’t live in Akihabara. I HAVE to buy online electronic components, and usually it ends up being Amazon, because other national suppliers insist on charging $15 for courier shipping on a $2 part.

The person lives in an apartment in Britain. Apartments are only built in towns and cities, and are generally within walking distance of convenience shops and supermarkets. Every plug in Britain has a fuse, so they are about as easy to buy as replacement light bulbs. Probably on the same shelf.

Thanks for clarifying. I took the fuse in the article to mean something like an appliance fuse, which for some reason, was conveniently located in an accessible place.

Re: What's that touchscreen in my room?

#390

Post by xattt »

outofmyshed wrote: post #158
tjohns wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British household electrical systems are normally built as one large ring circuit, originally in order to save copper after WW2. This means you don't have breakers for each branch circuit (there are no branch circuits), just the single mains breaker for the house. This single breaker is too large to trip from a short from occuring in the smaller wires inside an appliance. So each plug (or hardwired device) needs it's…

Houses built post-1960s (with more than one floor) will have more than one socket ring each protected by a circuit breaker at the distribution board, usually one per floor for general sockets, with a separate one for the kitchen, and usually individual 32A breakers for things like electric ovens and hobs. Lighting rings are also separate, usually on 6A breakers. We cheap out on cable by not running neutrals to the sw…

Im curious as to why the practice continues. Are any houses built with branch circuits?
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