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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."
From the article...
"The controller receives weather information on a daily basis and then sends commands to watering mechanisms to reflect the weather change. "
This is an interesting resource for arid areas that have shrinking water resources.
lol: You see no door there!
Not just for those areas. For anywhere. It's a shame that water shortages were needed to force people to design systems that are smart. Here they still have to put up signs to warn people not to water during winter storms! All that ice on the road is apparently dangerous.
There are lots of things that would benefit from some kind of additional smart control. Personally, I'd like a few more items in my house to be remotely operable, and thus also be able to alert me remotely of changing circumstances. I use Alarm.com and get an x-10 interface there, but I think there is much more that we can do. I'd like to know if the socket in the bathroom is still drawing electricity after I've left for work. That means my wife has left her hair appliance machinery plugged in etc.
Smart electrical outlets could tell us things like increased current use over time for appliances like your fridge or pc etc. It's amazing what a billion points of tiny data per month can tell you about life. I'd like to see that.
This topic needs as much thought and discussion as data center power conservation does.
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And for devices under several thousand dollars, i'll make a fortune selling fake antennas and stickers that say "this device is protected by gps and will alert the authorities if it is moved", and "smile for the camera" :)
Actually, that's not a great idea. At least down here (and if this flies in Texas I'm sure it flies everywhere in the US), you can be held seriously liable for claiming that you have surveillance video when you don't, if a crime occurs on your property. It may sound odd, but it actually makes sense, since businesses were basically creating a false sense of security for their customers.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
They can just remove the battery or hit the reset switch to remove the Wireless reporting.
Stolen equipment gets recovered via cell phone signals all them time. The whole thing sounds like a PR fluff piece.
The real tidbit of interest here is this:
Smart controller 'internet' technology, first patented in 2003 by Rain Master, automatically adjusts water usage via a 2-way wireless communication system.
The company has a patent on controlling the sprinkler system remotely. This kind of patent is stupid and evil.
But how's this for an idea: geo-locking hardware like this? "Here's your GPS coordinates. Stray outside of this area, you stop working." Thieves will soon learn that taking something like this will brick it.
GRM...Geographic Rights Management.
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Here in South Africa satellite tracking of cars is a huge business. There are four or more huge companies that place a hidden tracker device in your car.
They also have armed response teams, up to and including helicopters that will follow stolen or hijacked cars (a big problem down here), and recover them for you.
Unfortunately in most cases the police will not be able to recover a stolen car, because there are just so many of them.
See this article:
A quote from it:
"Over the years we've recovered vehicles from a number of weird places... parked in holes underground, next to large electrical generators, wrapped in tin foil, painted in tribal muti and even one case last year where the vehicle was being stripped in the back of a moving truck.
"However, a fake living room with a wall on a hinge, is a first for us," Crocker said."
Muti is like shaman medicine: you kow, monkey testicles and the like.
Actually there is a very good competition. X10 was just first out of the gate. Try http://www.zigbee.org/en/index.asp
Apparently, I have more time to type a response? No, they were not forced, and the processor probably is an ARM processor or similar. This particular manufacturer makes some cool toys, I have one of their systems installed. Zigbee is definitely better than X10, and you should see it in more appliances soon.
Imagine your next new house, where the light switches are electronic remotes for the actual switch in the light fixture. Now imagine you can move it anywhere, stick it to the wall where ever you want. Perhaps you want that single switch by the front door to ensure that ALL lights are turned off when you leave for the day? Zigbee or others will help make that a reality.
I can see a day not long from now when you can get online and see your home in 3D (not unlike secondlife et al) and see all the things that work remotely. Lights that are on etc.
A billion little data points a month is peanuts, but can give us so much data. Think of water flow sensors on each shower/toilet/sink etc. Once the sensor devices drop below 19.99/ea you can put them anywhere/everywhere. The electric company and water/gas companies are not the only people that want to know how much I use. I also want to know where/why.
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Implanting the growing green stuff where it was not before could be beneficial for everyone indeed. The only problem is that the type of green that maybe beneficial in such places is not good on the golf field for instance.
While I am here - anybody else think TFA looks like commercial? I wonder also what internet has to do with the mobile network positioning systems that actually detected the 'stolen' item. Only I wonder how 'stolen' it really was as it moved back miraculously after a while.
TFA offers also insights into how police should not work I suppose - OTOH they achieved the goal of getting the stuff back without involving expensive judiciary etc so maybe it made sense to do it that way?