Review of ANNKE NC800 Smart IP camera with color night vision – Part 1: unboxing

ANNKE NightChroma NC800 Review

ANNKE NC800 is a 4K security camera with people and vehicle detection, and other AI features as tested in our Annke CZ400 review. The main differentiating factor is support for “true full color” night vision that does not rely on a spotlight, but instead a “soft light”, a BSI sensor, and f/1.0 aperture as we’ll explain in a bit more detail below. The company sent me a sample for evaluation, and today I’ll check out the specifications of the “NightChroma NC800” camera and the content of the package, before installing and focusing testing on night capture in the second part of the review. ANNKE NC800 (I91BQ) specifications Camera Image Sensor – 1/1.2″ Progressive Scan CMOS Video Codec Main stream – H.265+/H.265/H.264+/H.264 Sub-stream – H.265/H.264/MJPEG Third stream – H.265/H.264 Framerate and Video Resolution 20 fps @ 3840×2160, 3072×1728 50 Hz: 25 fps @ 2688×1520, 1920×1080, 1280×720 60 Hz: 30 fps @ […]

Android 13 developer preview released with privacy, security, and productivity improvements

Android 13 themes icons

Android 12 was only released in October 2021 and Google has already released the first developer preview of Android 13 with better privacy and security, efforts to improve developer productivity, and more work on better support for larger screens like tablets or Chromebooks building on the work done on Android 12L. Android 13 privacy and security features Google announces two new features related to privacy and security: Photo picker and APIs – Android 13 adds a system photo picker to share both local and cloud-based photos securely. Apps can use the photo picker APIs to access shared photos and videos without needing permission to view all media files on the device. So if an app just needs to access photos or videos, there’s no need to request full storage access. The photo picker will also be brought to through Google Play system updates on devices running Android 11 and higher, […]

Lantronix G520 cellular gateways target industrial communication, cybersecurity, and transportation

Lantronix G520

Lantronix G520-series 4G LTE Cat 4 and 5G cellular gateways are designed to address challenges in Industry 4.0, security, and transportation markets with three/four separate gateways all based on an unnamed ARM926EJ-S-based CPU running at 600 MHz that’s most likely Microchip SAM9X60 processor introduced in 2020. All gateways are from the same base with variation for specific markets: G526 Industrial Gateway with LTE Cat 4 Ethernet, Serial, I/O, Fieldbus conversion, and other industrial protocols G527/G528 Security Gateway with LTE Cat 13 or 5G, built-in cryptographic secure element and PSE-PoE G528 Transportation Gateway (coming soon) with LTE Cat 4, GNSS, accelerometer, CAN Bus reading, and other tracking features Lantronix G520-series specifications: SoC – ARM926EJ-S-based processor running at 600 MHz with 32 KB instruction cache and 32KB data cache System Memory – 256MB DDR2 SDRAM Storage – 8MB SPI flash for OS,  256MB parallel NAND flash, MicroSD slot, or USB flash drive […]

FOSDEM 2022 schedule with embedded Linux, IoT, automotive… sessions

FOSDEM 2022

While typically taking place in Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM 2022 will take place online just like FOSDEM 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. The good news is that it means anybody can attend it live from anywhere in the world, and makes it more like “FOSDIM”, replacing European with International, in “Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting”. FOSDEM 2022 will take place on February 5-6 with 637 speakers, 718 events, and 103 tracks. I’ve made my own little virtual schedule below mostly with sessions from the Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom, but also other devrooms including “Computer Aided Modeling and Design”, “FOSS on Mobile Devices”, “Libre-Open VLSI and FPGA”, and others.   Saturday, February 5, 2022 12:30 – 13:00 – Five mysteries in Embedded Linux by Josef Holzmayr Once you start out in embedded Linux, there is a lot to do. Some things are obvious, some less so. First and foremost, […]

5-minute Cybersecurity Survey for IoT Device Manufacturers (Sponsored)

Cybersecurity survey IoT

Calling all software developers, hardware designers, product security engineers, QA, engineering managers, and executives in the field to participate in a global, industry-wide survey. With nearly 50 new CVEs found every day in 2021, 90% of hospitals hacked, and cybersecurity attacks constantly in the headlines, it’s time to take stock of security preparedness in IoT. Timesys, an industry pioneer in embedded software and cybersecurity for embedded, is taking on that challenge. And to get a better understanding of where IoT device manufacturers are in their cybersecurity journey, Timesys has launched a global, industry-wide survey. The entire survey is only ten questions and should take under five minutes to answer. The survey includes driving factors for security, security processes being implemented, specific technologies being used, security challenges companies are facing, and more. It’s designed to be a broad survey, geared toward developers, security teams, and engineering managers. Take the survey here. […]

Reolink Go Plus 4G review – Part 2: A Solar-powered 4G LTE security camera with person & vehicle detection

Reolink Go Plus 4G Review

Last month, I received Reolink Go Plus 4G smart security camera with 4G LTE connectivity, vehicle/human detection support, and powered by a solar panel. In the first part of the review, I did an unboxing, added the camera to the Reolink Android app, and confirmed it worked with my DTAC SIM card. I’ve now installed the camera and had time to test more of its features, so I can report my experience with the security camera. Reolink Go Plus 4G camera and solar panel installation I wanted to use the camera near the gate that’s outside of (reliable) WiFi range. So I found a piece of hardwood to which I attached the mounts of the camera and solar panel… … and attached it to the wall. My current installation works for testing, but it’s not the most secure as the camera is quite visible and only placed a little over […]

(Some) TP-Link routers enable hidden networks by default. Is that an issue?

TP-Link Hidden Networks Onemesh

There are plenty of security issues with many routers including firmware that is seldom upgraded, opened (telnet) port with the default password, and the list could go on. But Jahed Ahmed recently wrote about an issue I had not heard of before: his TP-Link router shows two hidden networks in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands that he only discovered after running WiFi Analyzer on his phone. He did not enable those networks, so that was the default configuration from the firmware. That could potentially pose a security risk, contributes to WiFi spam, and Jahed also mentions a waste of energy although the extra power consumption is probably limited, even when scaled to millions of users. So why is TP-Link doing this? Apparently for their OneMesh mesh wireless network system and device including range and powerline extenders that users may want to use. Other users have been reporting this issue […]

Reolink Go Plus 4G smart security camera with solar panel – Unboxing and first setup

Reolink Go Plus 4G LTE IP Camera

I’ve received several Reolink IP cameras either connected over WiFi or Ethernet, but the company has just sent me Reolink Go Plus 4G security camera together with a solar panel that would let me access the camera from anywhere with cellular network connectivity. Reolink Go Plus integrates a 4MP camera and supports person and vehicle detection, just like Reolink RLC-810A model I reviewed earlier this year. I have three Reolink cameras, and I’m somewhat satisfied except that the connection to WiFi cameras is often unreliable, and I have to rely on Cloud backup to play video captures most of the time. The Ethernet-connected Reolink RLC-810A has a much more reliable connection. So I’ll have to see if the Reolink Go Plus camera is more accessible over 4G LTE than WiFi cameras. I’ll start the review by checking out the packages and going through the initial setup for the Reolink Go […]