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Boltgolt | 7 months ago

But highly susceptible to unauthorized use. The app version can also alert drivers directly with an audible alert that an emergency vehicle is close by

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epiccoleman|7 months ago

Long ago I used to read i-hacked.com with great interest. They had an article about a DIY "MIRT" which produced the right infrared signal to trigger these:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060317013200/http://www.i-hack...

Of course this article came with many disclaimers that to actually do this would be very illegal.

I was more than a little sad when I typed i-hacked.com into the browser and got redirected to some etsy page. Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine, I guess.

cadamsdotcom|7 months ago

Fixable by taking a picture of every opticom user?

0_____0|7 months ago

Or by doing even a slight amount of encoding of the IR signal. Transmitting a single byte as a key (set by region, same as fire dept. elevator keys) would be enough to prevent people from using their TV remote controls or whatever to trip the preempt sensors.

That being said, this is kind of a non-issue already, I have heard a story about someone abusing the preempt sensors like 10 years ago and never since then. Maybe there already exists an encoding scheme.

LadyCailin|7 months ago

Not really a real problem that actually happens, but you could fix it by only making it work with visible light pulses. Sure, people still might use it illegally, but you couldn’t be very subtle about it.