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Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

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Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#41

Post by alnwlsn »

mschuster91 wrote: post #4

It's 2025. For fucks sake, getting _basic_ USB-C compliance for power is a matter of two fucking SMD resistors. And yet, people are _still_ messing that up.

Compared to plain wires with your intended voltage and your choice of any 2-pin connector, USB-C is not so basic. SMD resistors imply you have a PCB or something to put them on. Which means that your power connector is no longer just a couple pieces of stamped metal and some plastic. It's also a tiny connector with close together pins. For everything else since the introduction of electric lighting, you can just solder two wires on the back and call it a day.

Not that I'm making excuses here - there's some weird stuff going on inside that lamp. There's a PCB for the battery charger, but the USB-C socket isn't on it, it's on a wire pigtail that connects to the board with another connector. And I don't usually see so many removable connectors inside something made so cheaply. They clearly could have done it correctly in this case, but didn't.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#42

Post by pharrington »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #18
pharrington wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Downvoted because he's in Australia and there was no reason for you to bring your personal political axe grinding into a tech discussion.

Yes, it was my mistake assuming he was in the US. I only read the blog post and did not see this was KMart Australia. The poster asking "Isn't the use of USB-C promotion without at minimum basic USB compatability disallowed?" is explicitly a social/political issue. KMart lying about its products is explicitly a social problem thats larger than just one person replacing a circuit board in his lamp. Hopefully there are legal remedies that can be taken in Australia for violating industry regulations.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#43

Post by mcphage »

Gigachad wrote: post #30
mcphage wrote: post #28

I was not aware Kmart was still in business.

Don’t think the Australian version has much if anything to do with the American one. It’s huge in Australia. Mostly selling cheap junk.

Ah, I totally missed that aspect. In the US it mostly sold cheap junk, too.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#44

Post by JohnTHaller »

hk1337 wrote: post #12

I’m rather surprised anyone would want a battery operated lamp at their bedside anyways, unless it was a backup battery for when the power goes out. There’s no battery indicator to know when it is low so you would just have to guess or pay attention when it looks like it needs to be charged. Most people would probably just plug it in and leave it plugged in all the time.

He has it setup to charge whenever he is not charging his phone. So, it's charging during the day and being used at night most likely. I have friends that have used battery operated lights where there aren't enough outlets or to avoid a cord to trip over.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#45

Post by mschuster91 »

alnwlsn wrote: post #41
mschuster91 wrote: post #4

It's 2025. For fucks sake, getting _basic_ USB-C compliance for power is a matter of two fucking SMD resistors. And yet, people are _still_ messing that up.

Compared to plain wires with your intended voltage and your choice of any 2-pin connector, USB-C is not so basic. SMD resistors imply you have a PCB or something to put them on. Which means that your power connector is no longer just a couple pieces of stamped metal and some plastic. It's also a tiny connector with close together pins. For everything else since the introduction of electric lighting, you can just sold…

> SMD resistors imply you have a PCB or something to put them on. Which means that your power connector is no longer just a couple pieces of stamped metal and some plastic. It's also a tiny connector with close together pins.

So what, there's ready made breakout boards for a few cents that will give you plain old 5V@500mA, and trigger boards for about 1€ at These things are actually a godsend if you are a QRP ham radio operator and have a USB-C PPS capable power bank. No more heavy AGM batteries - just connect your radio to the trigger board, wire it up for 12V (if the power bank "only" supports PD) or 13.8V if it supports PPS, and off you go.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#46

Post by dang »

pharrington wrote: post #8
consp wrote: post #2

https://www.thestockpot.net/videos/whykmart for those who do not want to watch a video like me. Isn't the use of USB-C promotion without at minimum basic USB compatability disallowed? I have a few devices which have a USB-A to barrel plug, but they do not advertise anything and afaik that is perfectly fine. And they also only work with a normal USB charger, not the fancy ones.

[flagged]

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#47

Post by BizarroLand »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #27

Meanwhile I probably would've just returned the lamp and bought a $20 lamp off Amazon that has a proper USB-C charger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087CDBKCH/ I guess I'm not a very good 'hacker'.

Ok, but can you find one that also has homeassistant integration?

That's the real value add with all of the work done. You could also purchase a 1 buck usb-c lithium charging IC chip and wire the outs in place of the broken "usb-c" port and have the original working the way it was "supposed" to.

Re: Kmart lied to me, so I hacked their lamp [video]

#49

Post by dang »

pharrington wrote: post #48
dang wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

To be fair, I took a very specific (yes, offtopic) tangent!

I hear you! but I would still call it generic in HN's sense of the word (which I admit is a little specialized - is that ironic?). "Generic tangent" means something like swapping out a specific/curious topic (USB-C rules) for a larger/more-general one (rule of law in a specific country). This almost always goes along with increasing indignation levels too.

Interestingly, we had two such hops in this thread—the comment you were replying to had already done a version of the same move, going from a more specific/curious topic (hacking a lamp) to a larger/more-general one (USB-C rules).

I hope it's clear how threads tend to get less interesting as discussion moves in this direction! If there's one point I've been trying to get across for years here, and never quite feeling like it lands, it's that one.

Sometimes I describe these 'hops' as the thread getting pulled by the gravity of larger and larger masses (like topic planets!) and ultimately into the black hole of one of the major flamewars. I'd say "the current general state of rule of law in the US" is either one of these black holes or one hop away from one; a dangerous place to fly.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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