Updated 2025/01/12: Added go-haystack link and AirTag + IMU Proof of Concept

In 2022, I spent a week working with a small team analyzing how Bluetooth item trackers (eg: Apple AirTags, Tile) can be covertly used for malicious purposes, and developing processes and tools to detect them, as a part of GeekWeek 7.5, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s (CCCS) annual cybersecurity workshop. I wrote about my experience here: /exploring-bluetooth-trackers-at-geekweek-7-5/.

The Call with Problem Statement

I got a call over my lunch hour one Thursday from my daughter:

I have an art project. I need a part of it to light up, in purple, on a timer, in sync with a video. The lighting has to fit in a space that’s 24" x 10" x 3". I need it for Monday.

Having seen installations everywhere, and many projects online, I’d been wanting to play around with programmable lighting, but had never found an application, and I just got the call. There are a ton of colour LED systems out there. Seemingly all of them driven are driven by phone apps or smart home ecosystems. My expectation was that most of these apps would have pre-programmed effects, and wouldn’t be able to run a timed pattern - it was hard to tell without buying them and testing their capabilities.

The featured image is a mash-up of the BWM C1 and Piaggio MP3 scooters, generated by OpenAI’s Dall-e 3.

I think cycling is a great way to get around the city, but not everyone can ride them, only the most determined will ride them through the winter, and sharing space with cars is sub-optimal from a safety perspective.

For personal mobility, I sometimes thought it would be cool to combine a BMW C1 scooter (some crash protection, seat belt, some enclosure, helmet optional) with a Piaggio MP3 scooter, which has 3 wheels for stability. Ideally, add doors for weather protection and make it electric.

I am not an audio person, but I have occasionally had to edit audio, and I’ve always used Audacity - it’s a great tool. Some time ago, I had to normalize sound levels on hundreds of voice recordings. A podcaster asked how I did it, I wrote it up in an email, and, thinking back, I decided it might be useful to others, so I’m posting it here. As I review the problem today, I think I would probably explore Audacity’s macro functionality to solve this type of problem - I don’t know why I jumped to scripting solution at the time. I did try the PyAudacity library, and found it was easier to interface directly though pipes.

Introduction

My daughter wanted to take photos at camp this summer, which incorporated a multi-day portaging/canoe trip, and no phones allowed. I picked up a cheap action camera on Amazon, an Akaso EK7000: Amazon link, Akaso link. When she got back, she dumped all her photos from its MicroSD card, and then it was available for me to play with!

It has a wi-fi mode, and sets itself up as a wi-fi hot spot - it is designed such that you connect to it with your phone, and control it with the “Akaso Go” app. Connecting to it with my laptop, I could guess some basic controls (192.72.1.1 is its IP, /index.html reveals some basic information). But I can’t see or guess any useful controls. Ultimately, I want to download photos and view live video on my laptop - like I can with the phone app.

I built a simple Meshtastic Discord Bridge bot, which enables sending and receiving Meshtastic messages through Discord.

I keep my Meshtastic node on all the time at home. This bot his allows me to exchange messages with the mesh in my neighbourhood using my home node through Discord wherever I am. Never again will I miss a “Can you see this?” message. It’s in a “just got it working” state - pretty primitive, missing message delivery confirmation, but I’ve been using it for a few days and it works as designed.