Comment by jmpman
2 days ago
I despise these wheels. About 15 years ago, my wife and I went to Target and first went to lunch at the far end of the parking lot. After lunch we headed into the store, grabbed a cart, now loaded with our newborn in his car seat, and our two year old sitting in the cart. A quick shopping trip later, we headed back to the car. When crossing the Target parking lot, the wheels locked up, in the middle of the road. Cart wouldn’t budge. Traffic all over the place, and now I have to pull both my children out, along with the shopping, and carry them all to my car. Pissed is an understatement. After my wife and kids were secured back in the car, I retuned to Target, complaining to the manager. A shrug was the best I received. Why did they need to put the wire in the middle of the road???
I hope someone attaches Bluetooth speakers to their shoes and locks every cart in target, so they have to remove the system.
> I hope someone attaches Bluetooth speakers to their shoes and locks every cart in target, so they have to remove the system.
Friends did this college in like 2005. Cambridge area, Shaws Market I think. I imagine the hardware setup was a bit different. All the details are hazy but I recall their lock transmission signal had a huge range and locked all carts in a wide area.
Based on what's still around, likely the one (now rebranded a Star Market, same holding company) in Porter Square, right by Porter Square station.
Based on what I recall, I believe there was one on the southeastern end of Green Street, a bit between Central and Kendall Square, barely northwest of MIT's primary campus area on the corner Massachusetts Ave and Vassar Street. That location has apparently closed in recent years.
Around that year, or maybe even earlier, I remember reading an article about how to DIY one of those devices with a PIC microcontroller and wreck havoc on the store. It might have been something very similar to this:
https://www.instructables.com/EMP-shopping-cart-locker/
It might been the same text that somebody copy/pasted there, sounds vaguely familiar.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=croc+speaker
whaaa!?
Huh, I wonder if it works if you play it over the PA system.
https://hackaday.com/2016/03/04/social-engineering-your-way-...
Edit: looks like an Ardunio can do this with PWM too
No. That won't work. It needs the electromagnetic / rf field. It can work if your phone is nearby becaause of the " parasitic EMF from your phone's speaker to "transmit" a similar code by playing a crafted audio file" according to the article and the DEFCON talk
A market near me included the car park within their geofence, but did not include the (distant) bike racks or the route to them. Sigh... Never before has bringing a full load of groceries home been such an awkward hassle.
Avoiding these stupid wheels is probably the biggest reason I shop at Costco