Yes, indeed. The principle that Big Clive didn't describe very well is called a "Cat' Eye Reflection". Light that is focused by the lens on to the sensor, part is reflected in a cross-over fashion. So it's kind of like a corner cube reflection - the light will return on the in path. You don't need anything fancy to detect a camera - just your cell phone flashlight held close inline with your eye.
Great video! Thanks. FYI, a dichroic filter isn't 1 wavelength thick, it's actually 1/2 wavelength, but double that wavelength is constructively interfered, and all the rest reflected.
@@you-dont-know-me You can tell it's a dichro because the reflected color is the complement of the transmitted color. You can also tell because the colors change as you tilt it. Only dichroic filters exhibit those characteristics.
That was cool. The part around 8:10 when you were tilting the lens you could see the 2 projected spots slightly change color. One became more red, the other golden.
The reflection is very subtle and it has to be pretty much perpendicular to the camera lens, you might as well just look around with your eyes and find it. Just another gimmicky gimmick. lol
@@BillAnt The idea with these is to help you find cameras that are just not visible to the naked eye, such as ones behind tinted/mirrored glass or located in dark crevices (for example, deep inside the holes of electrical outlets). I've heard varying reports of how well they actually work at that, but in _theory_ there are situations where they could be actually better than "just a gimmick"...
Funnily enough just watched a video on RU-vid about road line painting, apparently its not thermoplastic they use but resin from trees. It has to be non toxic due to the fact the markings wear and wash away down drains into the environment.
Never saw those before. Immediately I checked eBay here in The States, found several to choose from. Not that I’m looking to buy one. Fun little device to see you take apart.
The LEDs' leads don't look "cropped and folded" but rather "folded and cropped". They didn't even bother to crop them at the solder joints, but just went right around the board edge almost as if cut out with scissors.
One resistor on one of CC lines - that is right. For non-Emarker cable plug side does have one of CC lines connected, receptacle side - both of those have to be connected. This device does have a Type-C plug, not a receptacle therefore only one resistor is what should be used.
wrt USB-C resistors: for a device with a plug (like a flash drive) you only need one resistor. they probably added footprints for both and then realised they only need one (actually, some hosts might act weirdly if there are two- usually they can only see one because there's only one CC wire through the cable, for orientation detection)
Exactly this. If it had been a socket, 2 R's would have been right. In some ways a socket plus a cable might have been easier to use. However I don't think that any plugs and sockets have compatible footprints, so it's probably just ineptitude.
I've got one a bit more "up-market"....With RF detection up to 6Ghz and a set of 8 antennas for different bands...It DOES work though....Tested it by letting people hide a pinpoint camera anywhere in the room, found it every single time...Same goes for "bugs", eavesdropping devices and all kinds of radiotransmitters too......BUT....What you cannot detect, you don't know is there. That is a blatant hole in the/all sweeping systems like that.
Isnt it bad practice to put LEDs in parallel behind a single resistor like that? If i recall correctly it's because it may cause imbalance in the currents passing through each LED due to manufacturing tolerances
0:50 - That's pretty cool how that lens does that! Even looking directly thru the red lens, you can still see cyan reflected off the black frame. . . . or maybe I just smoked too much this afternoon! ;)
Engineer Mitchell; could you make a video? where you explain the differences between North American vs. UK, European or International Electronics conventions especially with regard to schematics, color codes (I note you using Blue for return or DC ground or negative compared to Green). If you had made a video on these differences let me know the link (I have not searched your archive). best regards and many thanks for your excellent content, John. eTechnologist (1979/1983 graduations)
Why would that need to flash in the 1st place ?? I tried something like that a while ago just using an infrared light and the handheld Device Camera to see the Eyes of Critters in the Woods..
The flashing effect would make it easier to see the small dots of reflected light. Reflections from ambient light sources like lamps will stay constant, but the flashing effect will make the dots produced by reflected light from camera lenses more noticeable.
I was excited when you said there'd be "flashing" in this video, but disappointed to find out it was only about lights, and not getting to see Clive's bare chest.
The Ipcress file is A movie, starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. He is subjected to flashing red lights to programme him as an assassin Great movie
@@ifination Sure. The actual risk of either is of course statistically near nonexistent. But a far more probable one I still somehow managed to forget: 😂 The device could be a very bad design.
@@u2bear377more likely they are mandated to do so by their nation's "security" agencies. Back last century routers from a well known US company were sold to China, and were subsequently found to have hardware added to make them useful to CIA or whoever. It wasn't the manufacturer: they were told to deliver the export order to one of the three letter agencies and to keep quiet about doing so. Similar laws exist now in the US that could be being used to force manufacturers to keep open back doors in operating systems. Are those laws actually being used? It would be a federal offence for a manufacturer to say so if they were. No reason to suspect the Chinese are less sneaky than the US agencies.
3:30 can you come to Canada to tell our road work ministries to do this. I hate our road markings at night on black pavement in the rain...they just disappear.
Lol, it's even cheaper than I thought, no fancy UV LEDs, just some crappy red ones. You can literally wear sunglasses and shine around UV flashlight 🔦 to get a better effect
Imagine yourself in a room all walls covered with black velvet with expensive Swarofsky Christals on it, some disco ball with mirrors in the centre and UV-lights, and then look for hidden cameras, good luck.
All these tandom chips that draw a blank... Have you thought of ways that might 'de-obsccure' the codes and or know how a eastern manuf. Would makes these vodes known? Specific books given to certain factories etc like what happens here just much less firewalled?
Fun thing with that retroreflective material is that it works well well down into the IR range. Try it with some and any sort of IR no touch sensor, and it will operate them from quite a distance away. Did find that when wearing some, and went past an automatic water dispenser, which operated the tap from nearly a metre away, and the same for some no touch exit buttons on doors.
It was fun to watch all the taps go on in order in a service station loo as a guy with a (retro) reflective hi viz walked past :) took me a few seconds to figure out what was causing it!
@@thedave7760 One of my pet hates is the sensor toilets in airports that don't allow for broad shoulders. It just flushes continually while you're sitting on it.
@@Cyberguy42 Wikipedia says he was Hubert and the other guy was Rupert, theoretically they were Bean's best friends but they only appeared in that episode...
I’ve got something a bit more advanced than this with a much bigger observation window. But if I spot LED’s or potential camera’s I cover them, not fussed about audio, but being uploaded to xHamster and the likes of is t going to happen, not easily anyway.
I was under the impression that these type of “detectors” primarily work due to the thin film IR filter on most camera lenses. That would jive with the red color of the filter which would let you see near-IR and red reflecting back pretty easily.
This is partly true, but mostly only increases the effect. I haven't tested the effect myself, but according to the description, the detectors detect the bright spot that comes from the focusing lens of a camera, and not just the reflection of the IR coating (even without coating it would reflect, because IR cameras exist too).
The easiest, most low-tech way to find a camera is to turn off all the lights, sweep your phone flashlight around the room, and look for reflections that might indicate a lens then just stick a temporary bit of black tape or something similar over it.
One handy tip if you want to block yourself from infrared cameras at night, is wear a hat with infrared LEDs in the brim of the cap. They dont show in visible light but to a camera the LEDs wash out your face with bright light.
"Some guy I know" did this for years in California, avoiding toll cameras all up and down the 101. 4 blackout drive headlight modules from some retired Army vehicles all pointed right at the license plates, (2 front and 2 rear) from inside the bumper. Looked like a big spotlight through my phone's camera.
Streamlight has a flex-head mil spec LED flashlight that's switchable to IR (also white, red, and blue) that's handy in this regard. A few mounting options. Good piece of gear, rather pricey. (Or "free" with your enlistment!) 🫡✌️😎
A critical note to all viewers - ALWAYS virus scan any software that comes with these online products. I have found a pattern of virus/malware laden apps being included. Sadly it often renders the product useless. Also watch for ones that automatically update their software without notification. They can start benign and add the nasties on a subsequent update IF your antivirus is not up to the task.
Yep… got an awesome custom keyboard as a gift and it’s basically a useless toy now that I’ve taken a look at the firmware that I would have to install to use it (it’s literally supplied as a Google drive link and shows up as a rootkit when scanned) 😢
LED Flasher chips. Reminds me of the venerable LM3909 which was discontinued many years ago, sadly. It could make an LED blink using one 1.5V battery and one capacitor. Famously used in Pink Floyd's early 'Pulse' CD sleeves.
I remember having a little PCB with an AA battery holder and a single LED on it that flashed one of the early red LEDs. Worked great with otherwise dead battery's
The best camera detectors were the ones they used in Thunderbirds. Whenever the Hood started taking photos of Thunderbird 1 or whatever, the alarms would go off. Worked with film cameras as well. Amazing retro technology.
@@darylcheshire1618 episode something like "The Mighty Atom". And it was programmed to photograph what the person in view was looking at. Fabulous episode. I loved that they felt everything in the house would have micro atomic piles in for power.
Excellent video, I'm glad that you showed this type of device because of the need to use it a certain way for it to be functional. There are too many things that look simple to use but turn out to be useless to the average Joe.
I’m a retired pentester, but still take my WEGA-i camera detector with me to rental properties - not found anything since retiring….yet! When working I did have a worrying find in the office of a senior manager. In the centre of a ceiling tile directly over their desk there was a clear return - bright reflection. It turned out they’d taken some tiles out to do some electrical work on the fire alarm in the ceiling void; they'd put the removed tiles on the floor and someone had a piece of broken car window glass on their shoe that came off and got pushed into the tile - that did get my heart going for a moment. I did find several “items of interest” in toilets and changing rooms over the years. Caught one guy by hanging a dead fly on some spider web in front of the wireless camera lens. He came to remove it as it was obscuring his view…
Yeah.... That flashing was wicked. I don't suffer from epilepsy, or at least, never shown any signs of it, but that flash gave me a weird, unpleasant, sensation. Even now, some minutes afterwards, I'm not feeling great. That thing has messed with my head.
If you have feelings like strong Deja vu , talk to your doctor. I had no idea that was a symptom of partial seizures until after I had a complex seizure. Then it just went away…
@@NitFlickwick Just right now, I feel a bit travel sick, but that's about all. Thing is, it's over an hour later, so I'm guessing it could just as easily be anything else.
@@whitesapphire5865 It can take days to get over even a small event. Symptoms you describe sounds just like mine and if I'd watched all of Clive's video I would be really unwell. Thank you Clive for being responsible with your family of electrickery fans. You might want to be careful until you find out for sure as a full blown episode can literally un-alive you. Even tiny ones are horrible. If you felt well before the strobing and don't now. It's kinda obvious. Get checked, it can come on at any stage of life and really isn't a problem if you are careful. Hope this helps.
A helmet that alternates between red and blue flashing lights is how doctors reliably induce a seizure in photosensitive people (CD Projekt Red got in trouble for replicating that effect for the Braindance sequence in Cyberpunk 2077, so you really might want to check it.
I have found a potential alternative use for this: a spider detector. Every time I am down in my basement inspecting things, my light gets reflected by spider eyes. Or there's hundreds of spider shaped minicams down there.
@@teslar1 Spiders don't make their nests near threats, they more likely think it's the reflections of other insect eyes and think there's a reliable food source nearby. Plus the camera gives off heat which is always welcome.
Easy method for night vision cameras, turn all the lights off and turn your phone camera on - everything night vision will show itself... Similar trick can be used to see if your remote still has battery power.
this better bitrate thing from youtube is kinda a scam no? cause the normal 1080p looks awefull in every "better bitrate" upload ive seen so far, feel like youtube does that so you see more of a difference when you have premium and do an a to b comparison
It would work the same if you could eliminate all other sources of light at the frequency of the LEDs... If you can't, the wavelength filtering property of the glass will be insufficient to distinguish reflected LED light from other sources. Blinking adds a temporal property allowing you to do that.
The physics would work the same, true. The flashing exploits the movement sensitive reaction built into the visual cortex of the human looking through the hole. Same reason as cyclists use flashing lights, to help drivers notice them, when their lights are so much dimmer than the lights on cars.
The 6 pin device could also be a watchdog tiner ic. I have played around some years ago and used it as led flashers since some of them produces reset pulses at a similar rate as your device when they don't detect a clock pulse from the uC on an input pin.
Like when I was walking home along a country road with a head torch on and I could see lots of spider eye reflections in the undergrowth on a very dry night.
I made one handy tool to open these kind of things: get large stainless steel tweezers, meant for fish deboning. Split it to two parts. Then you got right and left handed pry tool that has a little kink that can be used as a lever. The thin spudger is often way too flimsy and you need something to get things started. Used as a combo, first the heavy tool to open just enough to get the flimsy tool in. It is more dangerous thou, since it has as sharp point and you can use a lot of force, so.. extra care has to be used so you don't stab yourself with it. Source: guess...
Your mention of your Doogee phone reminded me to thank you for introducing me to the world of rugged work phones, after your review of the s98 pro I wound up purchasing the OLED (and much better looking) variation, the V20Pro, and I'm so pleased with the quality and usefulness of all the sensors and it's construction.
why iphone grade? iphone (cameras) are actually far behind, looking at what their competitors models contain, although iphones being far more expensive (and way overpriced)
So, interesting fact Clive. Where I live, they do not actually add the reflective beads to road paint. I have no idea why, but as soon as it gets dark, it's every creature for themselves.
Another great video, good physics knowledge re the filter. But, why does this need to flash? Wouldn't a continuous light work without making people twitch?
The main selling point being "Anti Camer", I assume it is to prevent being recorded... those flashes in the dark, will make any camera's lighting compensation go crazy. Moral and/or legal uses... few or none come to mind.
It flashes just to make the reflection stand out a little more as it passes by the lens and catches your eye better than if it were just a static image.
Don't mention temporary accommodation 🤣 I've still not been able to move back since the first and I'm rather suspicious of the vent above the toilet, only there's no way in hell I'm going to get gloved up to take that nasty thing apart 🤣
I think your demonstration would be better if you looked at a greater distance. The point is that light from retroreflective surfaces will fall off less with distance.
I suspect that the dichroic filter is there to just eliminate other colors that might otherwise add ambiguity while looking through it. It also looks sophisticated. Dichroic filters will have a higher transmission versus the less expensive color filter. I would think that the camera sensor will reflect in any white light, however. Whatever the case, you'd need to be very close to on axis to the camera to get a reflection off the sensor.
I've seen an IR dichroic filter on camera modules I've take apart. Some have removed this filter in order to gain more sensitivity in IR during shooting. We'll then use a Wratten 87 IR bandpass to eliminate most visual light and pass IR. Used these when shooting with IR silver emulsions.@@chri-k
I got a similar deluxe unit and the filter is pretty fun. Looking through at a computer monitor it really does block the green and blue channels nearly completely.
I'd kill for a new set of waterproof halogen dichroic lights, used those inside all of my aquariums way back in the day and absolutely nothing compares to the way they make colors pop, without being harsh light. They were fantastic as accent lights behind rocks and stuff. No one makes them anymore, at least not that I've been able to find
Have you looked at submersible fountain lighting? Many are available as sealed units for 12V halogen bulbs which are thankfully still available in dichroic models.
We made our own dichroic filters at High End Systems in Austin. I'm not sure how much you're willing to pay for a filter to convert an existing light, but I know they are able to manufacture them!
@@elitearbor the few fountain lights I did see around were all like physically mr16 or gu10 size (like the size you'd see in a floor lamp or ceiling can), way too big and hot. The ones I liked were in small thick black housings no more than an inch in diameter and had a tiny little 8 watt halogen inside. You used to be able to find them in high end pet shops years ago but as LEDs came in and got good all that stuff went away. I'd be over the moon if I found a set of them. There were even analog lighting controllers for them you'd plug all your lamps into (they had standard barrel jacks) and would dim them individually to simulate cloud movement or day/night cycles. At one time they were just the bee's knees
A USB Type-C device with an attached cable or plug, must only populate one CC pulldown resistor. Populating two signals that is is a debugging probe of some kind, and the device its plugged into should present whatever the manufacturer considers important debug or progrsmming signals on whatever pins they feel like. Can be useful on chomebooks for example. USB C-to-C cables only carry one cc wire, the other cc pin can become a power source for emarker chips in the cable that have information about allowed speeds and currents (only needed for 5Amp charging, >20V charging, and thunderbolt 40Gbps) if you were to only connect one cc pulldown on a female jack, only obe cable orientation would receive power
I didn't really expect a 2-transistor oscillator, as the flashing seems to have a distinct rhythm. There are microcontrollers (such as the ATtiny10, but I don't think it's one of those) available in SOT-23-6 packages like that.
There are a bunch of extremely cheap sot23 LED flasher ICs made by Chinese manufacturers e.g. YUSIJIE. The overhead in programming a micro for this wouldn't be worth while.
Reminder to all to not plug something like this ordered from Temu of all places into your phones. These devices can contain trojan horses. So if you do want to use one you have ordered from China on the go, plug it into a powerbank instead. Don't let your phone become vulnerable.
Hi there. No, China is not trying to hack you via some cheap product from Temu. Modern phone OSs have many levels of security which prevent any "trojan horses" from affecting your device. The fact you call them "trojan horses" tells me your knowledge of computer security is very dated.
If you're not required to give root access for this to work, which I highly doubt, there's not much it could do. Besides, building secret security breaching devices inside consumer devices for global market is going to become a diplomatic nightmare real fast. There are far more viable and easier options. Like the ones that Meta, Alphabet etc. are using. People already gives all of their information for free to whoever asks for it.
So, ignoring the 50 cent army guy with the less than a year old account and the randomly generated user name, you seen like an actual person Elite. You should be wary of Temu and any products that plugs into something from them. Temu is owned by PDD Holdings a company out of Shanghai. PDD Holdings owns another company Pinduoduo which is basically Temu for China. Google has removed Pinduoduo from their play store because the app litterally contained malware. Temu is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and on the moral side of things, some of their products could very well be created by Uyghur slave labour, as determined in a repoort by the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party
Those detectors are a very nice idea, but there are still some open questions. How good is the detection angle with respect to a hidden camera? As far as I've seen in the video, you'd have to directly shine the light onto the camera from the front (you have to be in the center of the camera's view), so how good is the angle of detection? Another question would be how far into a room can you see with it? Let's assume we are staying at an Airbnb, so Is it enough to just turn all lights off and start looking around while standing in the middle of a room? Or do we have to go nearer, and how close do we have to be? It looses much of its practicality if we have to meticulously scan every furniture and every crack in the wall.
Speaking of the retroreflectors mentioned in this video (the cap and mentioned road markings); Technology Connections has a video on them: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Bi_Tp1H9CDs.html
8:00 dichroic glass does not have metallisation It uses multiple layer of transparent oxides. Metal reflects light really well, so you can't get the required thickness needed for dichroic mirrors with metals.
The problem is that it's working on short distance. What about if you need to detect trailer camera or hunter camera in a wood? Would not help much... Even at all. For such case, I see only one resolution atm; Night run with NVD device, with preference to optoelectronic Image intensifier tube. Expensive, isn't it.
Hey Clive! Greetings from Greece! My router recently exploded through the telephone line due to a lightning strike next to my house. Would you be interested in it? It has blown quite a few components including an ic
I often wonder if it would be better to remove the IR filter from a regular phone/CCTV and just use that to identify any 'mystery cameras'. Not that it'd be much good during the day.
My mate worked with that molten plastic doing line marking. One of the new lads managed to get a compressed gas can in there. (Apparently as a joke?!) And my mate got half his face burnt off. That was a 6 figure claim... Still gives him issues 20 years later. 😢
How funny you put this up today. Only yesterday I was learning how to use my phone camera to find hidden cameras in hotel rooms for when I go travelling later this yearl..
If you have a LEP flashlight at hand, test it on that reflective material. I believe its 3M "Scotchlite", I have made a small reflective "floodlight" with it. Mounted in my backyard, shine the LEP onto it, whole garden lights up. Also works great on my moped, with many modern cars not seeing the small headlight, but their reflected high beams do the job.
i've been watching these for a while along with other electronic related youtube clips and i think this is the first time i understand a circuit that's not just a LED, battery, and resistor! Can you tell me please why there are two capacitors in parallel though? I know they are different capacities so each of them filter out different AC frequencies? Wouldn't they act as one like resistors?
Now what i am wondering about is, why it is flashing? If the LED's just burning continues it shows the lens of the camera too. The small pinhole camera's don't have any control in front of the lens.
What @SeanBZA said. LEDs just burning would work the same if you could eliminate all other sources of light at the frequency of the LEDs... If you can't, the wavelength filtering property of the glass will be insufficient to distinguish reflected LED light from other sources. Blinking adds a temporal property allowing you to do that.
