Recent content by wtimothyholman

I would much rather see a 730nm or warm white light version of the -Z12E camera. A friend of mine has tested the built-in ANPR function in the Dahua ITC413-PW4D-Z3, and found that external LPR software (i.e. Rekor Scout) did a much better job of reading plates. He was completely unimpressed...

I think the reason Amazon stopped this program was because it wasn't working. Residents had to agree to allow the police access. I'll bet only a very tiny fraction of Ring users ever bothered to grant that permission. Plus, as a cop I spoke to explained to me, there was no point. He'd just...

And of course, who you go hunting, it has to be in person. :)

He's a professor at Harvard. It goes with the territory. :) Most of his colleagues in astrophysics completely disagree with his opinions, but they can't outright dismiss someone from Harvard. Loeb absolutely believes that earth is at least being surveilled by extraterrestrials, and his...

The last thing you should be concerned about is being thought of as "that guy". First of all, most people won't even notice the cameras in the trees. Second, the people who may think you are a bit weird are also the same people who will come to you for help when they are victimized. Embrace...

"Yet" being the operative word. I think the use of 3M printed plates is a growing trend in a lot of states. Even if Texas plates are still readable at 850nm, you'll still find yourself missing plates from other states. I think that 730/740nm IR, or warm white light illumination, is the wave...

As it turns out, a fellow resident here in Nashville has purchased two -Z3 cameras to set up a custom LPR system for his neighborhood. He has the budget and know-how to install them, and I've been providing some advice to him. He has promised to provide me with some images once they're up and...

Then I can only assume that he has his own internal web server running, and Rekor Scout doesn't phone home otherwise.

You may fool the agent into working on a PC, but the agent uploads license and thumbnail metadata from your cameras into Rekor's servers. They would know in an instant if you have an unauthorized camera running. Of course, you could run your own web server and point your agent at that server...

I contacted the Assistant DA who prosecuted the case to find out exactly why the gun charge was dropped, and why the felonies were reduced to misdemeanors. Here's what he told me: (1) The "Felon in Possession of a Gun" charge was dropped because his felony charge in Kentucky was resolved as a...

What is particularly frustrating is that that one of them was a convicted felon carrying a gun when they were arrested with my neighbor's catalytic converter. That should have resulted in a mandatory prison sentence. What happened instead was that the gun charge was dropped, and the felony...

A final report on this crime: today the District Attorney's office allowed the two catalytic converter thieves to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of theft and vandalism. Both received a one-year suspended sentence, with restitution for my neighbor's out of pocket expenses. My neighbor...

I've been using Rekor Scout for a few years. The original developer of OpenALPR (Matt Hill) left Rekor last year, and seems to be semi-retired and working on open source projects. Despite that, Rekor has been upgrading Scout. The latest client (4.1.7) definitely has improved accuracy...

Not only would this feature save power, it would also provide much better nighttime images with reduced (or eliminated) motion blurring. Even discrete LEDs can easily be strobed at tens of kilohertz, well beyond what would be needed for a security camera. It would be a very simple and obvious...

You are correct, but it's a self-defeating tactic. Any type of cover over a license plate is strictly illegal where I live. So these people who think they're being clever, and outwitting the "man" by obscuring their plates, are doing nothing more than giving the police all the justification...