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Irrigation Controller Stolen, Wirelessly Rescues Itself
wooferhound sends along an amusing piece about thieves who got run over by technology and never knew what hit them. "A Rain Master Eagle-i Irrigation Controller recently stolen out of a housing development just outside of Tucson traveled nearly 80 miles before rescuing itself. The smart controller is now back in place on the wall where it was originally pinched... In this day and age, something that may look passive like an irrigation controller may not be so passive. The thieves didn't realize they were removing equipment that features 2-way wireless communications via the Internet. Three weeks later, the unexpected happened. The Maintenance Supervisor noticed a signal coming in from the stolen controller. He thought it was kind of odd that it was up and running... Whoever had stolen it had plugged it back in."
Can someone tell me why this is interent enabled?
From TFA: We're able to do the programming and communicate to the controllers through our laptops or Blackberries ...
Sounds pretty useful in a production environment..
In a large area (entire housing development) where you have multiple sprinkle and drip systems, it is much easier to remotely administer the irrigation system instead of having to show up on site. So for instance, now that it is summer time here in AZ, you have to water differently than you did during the year. So part of your job as the landscaping crew is to adjust all of the irrigation systems. Now, there could be multiple units in the area that need to be adjusted. Instead of having to drive around to each zone and change the settings, you could call all of them up remotely and make your adjustments.
For those who are wondering WTF this thing is, here's the product page.
"The RME Eagle combines evapotranspiration (ET) technology with its already intelligent design providing a variety of ET-based scheduling features that will reduce water usage, save time and money, and optimize the efficiency of water resource allocation for any irrigation application. Additionally, an optional communication card provides central control capabilities via The Internet!
"The "RME Eagle" can measure flow and take corrective action for station breaks, main line failures, or unscheduled flow. It supports either normally open or normally closed master valve operation, pump operations independent of the master valve, cycle and soak or conventional programming, and a flow totalizer to monitor total water used. The "Eagle" watches your prestigious landscapes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, providing insurance and protection from catastrophic field related failures."
All it doesn't do is yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
Satnavs already do this. Turn the device on, enter the PIN. If you don't know the PIN, you can't use the device. If you forget the PIN, you can reset it, but only at the device's home location.
"Here's your GPS coordinates. Stray outside of this area, you stop working."
Shopping carts at some of the supermarkets around here work kinda like that. They have some kind of invisible fence thing around the perimeter of the parking lot, and if you cross it with one of the store's shopping carts, the wheels lock up.
Like a previous reply to you mentioned, some GPS units do this... unless they are powered on in the 'home location' they require a PIN.
I also like the idea of equipping cars with wireless stuff like this. The owner reports it missing, the car starts reporting its location to the cops and they can nab the perps.
LoJack works like that, and I assume OnStar offers the feature as well. From what I hear, cops love LoJack because many times retrieving one stolen LoJacked car has led them to a chop shop with many stolen cars.
~Philly
That's the stupidist thing I ever heard to sue someone over. It can't possibly be illegal to put up fake cameras - they do this all over the world...Only in Texas could you possibly be held liable when some other person is the one committing a crime. Geez.
I think you're missing the point; first of all, civilly liable is not the same thing as criminally liable, so it's not "illegal." And you're only going to be civilly liable in circumstances where there's some sort of duty existing between the person who put up the fake cameras and the one who's injured. If I own an apartment building in a high-crime area, and tell you those cameras are real and monitored, and then you, a tenant, get mugged in front of them, you might be able to sue me. If I have a camera out on the street and you, a pedestrian I don't know, gets mugged in front of one, you're not going to be able to sue successfully.
fail to see how the tenant could successfully sue the apartment building owner. What grounds? Sure he created a false sense of security *maybe* but he certainly didn't create an unsafe condition. It's no more unsafe than if the fake camera was not there.
Well the difference if the fake camera was not there is that the tenant would not have relied on it in that case. Anyway to show negligence you have to show a duty existed, the defendant breached that duty, the breach was a proximate (which doesn't mean only) cause of the injury, and the injury caused damage to the plaintiff. The law mandates that landlords take a reasonable effort to ensure the safety of their residents. In a high crime area, a fake camera might not be considered "reasonable," especially if a similar crime happened before and the fake camera didn't do anything to prevent it.
You can't just open up a building, advertise for tenants, and then assume your sole job is to collect the rent.
Phony alarm signs are just stupid. A few years back, I was walking by a house near me and saw water coming out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the gutter. Nobody answered the door. They had a big sign for an alarm company, so I called the number on the sign. The alarm company told me they'd never had service there. One window had a sticker for a different alarm company. That, too, was phony. They even had a "Protected by ELECTRONIC alarm system" sticker, the one you can buy at Radio Shack.
I called the water utility emergency service number; they cut off all water to the house and left a note on the door.
I lived in Continental Ranch for 5 years in the late '90's. The developer previously used solar panels to power the irrigation controllers for the common areas, but most (panels and controllers) were stolen by the time I moved on. I moved to CR from Simi Valley. I had no idea Rain Bird had a plant there. Prolly after my time.
BTW, belated kudos to thousands of screwed senior citizens for the fine Continental Ranch flood control system Charles Keating built with your nest eggs, before his house of cards fell down.
Luke, help me take this mask off