Gadget Exposed a Spy Camera [video] | Hacker News Reader

Gadget Exposed a Spy Camera [video]

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77 pointsrib3ye47 comments

For those that don’t know Project Farm, and are ready to hit ‘back’ after hearing him talk for 2 seconds, stick it out.

He’s incredibly thorough and detailed in how he tests and ranks things. And he tests all kinds of things, from drill bits and bed liner paints to portable battery banks.

Exactly, I was initially put off by how weird his videos are, but dude has serious conviction to presenting pure content with no fluff. He pays for all the stuff himself, and reviews kinda weird things you wouldn't expect.

I've bought a few things based off of his recommendations, like bungee straps and wrenches. Not always his top pick because I don't always agree with his weightings, but he flashes the raw data so you can make your own calls.

...and when you're ready to up the skookum level by a couple notches - for similar content - check out AvE.

Eh. AvE was amusing for a while, but the shtick grew old to me and it all feels much more theatrical and artificial (not necessarily artificial as in faking data, but artificial as in the entire process designed to be amusing rather than useful) as opposed to the no-nonsense "here's the methodology and the data" of project farm.

AvE was a big supporter of the truck convoy in Toronto which I find very off-putting

It's hard to find unbiased information on that. Care to elaborate? I feel that all the news articles are missing some critical context.

A bunch of truckers illegally parked in downtown ottowa and annoyed the residents for weeks.

But what's the other side of the story?

I don’t agree with canadian oilmen’s politics generally but I defend their (and everyone’s) right to protest loudly about whatever grievances they may have.

AvE is ok in my book. His channel is more posturing and fluff and in-jokes than useful content, but supporting legitimate political protests (even if you don’t share their political views) isn’t cancel-worthy.

The ottowa truck convoy went well past reasonable protesting into being a public nuisance.

Protests that aren’t a nuisance aren’t really effective protests.

Would YOU have been happy with one of the trucks parked outside your home idling and honking for weeks? I strongly doubt it.

I got bored with his shtick. He could condense each of his videos to the 3 or so graphs that he puts up, in the middle and at the end. Sometimes I fast foward to those if it's something I'm interested in. But he's usually too superficial anyway.

Torque Test Channel is a lot better and more watchable imho.

Luckily, we can enjoy multiple channels. Thanks for the recc!

Some of his videos are result of testing things for a couple of years, like headlight restorers.

Also, some of the things he shows are pretty through. If it was a wall-of-text sans videos or images, it'd not have this kind of details and information.

Because as everyone and their horse say, while he has a ranking and weighing, you can decide what to buy (if you need it) through the video by seeing how it's applied/works/fails/excels. This is hard to convey with text only.

I appreciate that TTC goes the extra mile with the continually updated global rankings spreadsheet[1]. It’s a lot easier to poke back at the recommendations from TTC than it is from PF. It’s also another clever source of revenue to keep the channel running cleanly.

[1] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1152216140/torque-test-channel-...

Yup. He lays things out in a way that gives you power to make a decision. Perhaps you don't like his methodology or his weights, totally fine, you can understand what's important to you and feel pretty happy with a different pick.

Style wise, he's like a product reviewer version of kipkay lol. I do think that I'd prefer an NPR whisper version of his reviews though.

NPR whispering every video seems like a great app for AI.

No, sorry. I just can't listen to him for more than a few seconds, it's something about the way he speaks, the fast cuts, the flashing, it's simply too much for me.

I hate that all content that would be better off as text has to be presented as videos now. Thanks for nothing, big tech.

My issue is that a large share of what he tests are Amazon products with alphabet soup brand names, where QA is likely nonexistent and the conclusions are often based on a sample size of N=1. Even if you wanted to buy the "winner", the exact same product may be sold under a different name a week later.

I also find his testing methodology inconsistent. In some cases he takes manufacturer specs at face value without actually verifying them, in others he goes out of his way to comprehensively measure things that don’t matter much (to me anyways), while skipping things that seem genuinely important (self-discharge of jump starter packs for example).

That said, he's doing this with his own time and money, and makes it available for free to anyone. A lot of this also comes down to personal preference in what you value in a test.

I’m honestly curious what drives this kind of response. You’re aiming a lot of negativity at someone who’s voluntarily spending his own time and money to do something that, until recently, simply didn’t exist at this level of detail. Yes, there are scientific limitations and fair critiques to be made—but the tone here feels less like constructive criticism and more like punishing the effort itself. That pattern is exactly what drains the internet of anything generous or experimental: people stop sharing when every imperfect attempt is met with hostility. It’s a bit like being stranded in the desert, dying of thirst, finally offered water, and rejecting it because it isn’t cold enough. You don’t have to call the work perfect to acknowledge that it’s valuable, imperfect progress rather than something deserving of contempt.

I don't know if the parent comment has been edited, but in its current form I read it much differently from you! It seems like fair criticism without any added snark or contempt. I don't want hostility or gratuitous negativity, but IMHO it's just not present here in the way you describe.

(Also the guy has millions of subscribers and a consistent weekly posting schedule, and this video is on the front page of HN, so I don't think his channel falls into the category of obscure hobby projects where it might be rude to criticise them at all rather than just ignoring them.)

Having watched 5 minutes, my main thought was 'this would be a lot more suitable presented as a table.'

You can fast forward to the tables he will show if you keep watching. If you have an alternative source of reviews with better UX please share!

This guy is an absolute gem of a scientific reviewer. He tests real world use cases for damn near everything. Before I buy anything I search his channel. One of my all time best YouTube subscriptions.

> Brands: JMDHKK, KAXYUYA, JAXTIN, HUYNL, NAVFALCON, SMHAWK, AORDERN, Abyliee, Obsitwy, Suntony, SEVENPARK, PolesNow, MGMCM were tested.

Are there really zero reputable companies who make these products? I did some searching of my own too and all I can find are ones from ones from other trademark loophole alphabet soup brands like these.

Most of these alphabet soup brands are just reselling the same OEM/White label product from China.

Most of them time, they kind of works... but you can't find any meaningful review because they are white labels =/

> but you can't find any meaningful review because they are white labels

Which is one of the reasons they exist. You fortunately for more commons stuff have the original manufacturer+product name which gets rebranded into alphabetsoup as soon as it get's popular. If you can figure out the original name, or if it's advertised as, you can maybe lookup some reviews. Otherwise: stay away, but normal consumers tend no to know that because "it's on amazon" (or equivalent).

> Most of these alphabet soup brands

to extend on that

to some degree this alphabet soup brands are a direct consequence of well intended but not well working Amazon policies :/

Not only did Amazone more or less force all the OEM/White label seller to pretend to be "proper brands" instead of just being honest, it also made them realize that they can use this to doge all responsibility and most reviews and has not done anything (working) to fix that situation (or other problematic situations on it's side). To make that worse even if you search for "<brand> <product>" the first results might be from random cheap copies of companies which branding is all just a hollow make pretend, further pushing off brand clones. Amazone really does a bunch of harm in not so obvious ways in addition to all the more obvious issues :/

--------

Some clarifications:

- I'm not speaking about brands which pretend to create their own product but sell OEM, I mean companies which very obviously sell OEM

- I also don't have an issue that when searching for "<brand> <product>" I also get off brand alternatives, I have an issue with this alternatives being multiple of the first search results in combination with the intentional UI design of all sellers "looking the same" (as in you have product images but no seller theming/branding on product pages), in combination with the oft not so grate product "sheet" etc. That lead to Amazon effectively deceiving people (especially older ones) into buying products they do not want to buy. (E.g. a cheaper but very unreliable clone of a product instead of the more expensive but for the customer very affordable original product, and yes, sometimes the clones are better then the original, most times not).

To add to this, this is probably due to Amazon Brand Registry which promotes products from brands with a trademarked name. The sellers only care about the brand so far as it's trademarkable. Mashing on the keyboard is the simplest and quickest way to make that happen.

I bought a unique product that didn't have any branding in the pictures, but when I got it, it had their brand on it. The seller said that is due to Amazon's branding policy. Stupid policy.

I got my favorite one this week: WOTOBEUS.

Woe to be us who buy your products.

Don’t forget your DEVOPS undies!

https://www.amazon.com/stores/DEVOPS/page/BFDAAB27-038D-4630...

I actually have a DEVOPS cycling shirt!

The real devices are around $500+++ for rf survey analyzers and special near-field antenna.

How does a 'camera detector' (/hidden device detector) detect the hidden camera/device? (curious as to whether they give many false-positives when used in real settings, e.g. airbnb or hotel room).

It's an RF field strength meter. I watched about a half minute of the video then shut it off.

They are also near-IR lights with special filter viewing glass that produces a visible reflection from the camera optics.

If the camera can see you, you can see the flashing even if it's a pinpoint hidden recessed in a shadow behind a crack.

The good ones anyway.

RF or EMF detection, magnetic field detection and an IR light plus filtered lens for visually checking for camera lenses.

Ye old k18 is still the $50 go to for foiling airbnb perverts.

what other comments said + characteristic reflection of camera lenses observed through the snake-oil-looking dichroic sighting glass.

Oh Product Farm, I do love his videos. His testing methods are... interesting sometimes but always entertaining and very much "What do I have laying around that I could test this thing with".

While I don't always agree on the rankings that's absolutely fine because I can cherry-pick the stats I DO care about and see products used in different scenarios than you get from the product page alone.

The title of the video is "This Gadget exposed a Spy Camera". Without the word "this" I found the title on HN impossible to parse.

Also, just wondering, wouldn't it better to show the YouTube channel name, rather than just "youtube.com"?

This thing is great when traveling. I guess I'm gonna get one ($30 is just good enough I guess) just to scan my hotel/airbnb rooms.

a good spy cam doesnt have strong RF emitting output. Noway those cheap gadgets will detect those spycams.

I'd prefer to make my own, does anybody know a schematic I could use?

...in testing. Clickbait title IMO.

As are most of his videos. But the content is usually quality.

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