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Comment by HardwareLust | Hacker News Reader

My only question is, why would all refrigeration be under the remote control of DECA? That seems unnecessarily complicated.

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The article posits that they may just have centralized monitoring, not control. Since this didn't affect every location, I would assume it was a shared default password or something

> The article posits that they may just have centralized monitoring, not control.

… the article does posit this … nonsensically. TFA also establishes that "RMCS" stands for "Remote monitoring and control system". I would think the "and control" portion of the acronym would indicate that it is centralized monitoring … and control.

Because they’re prefabbed walk-in coolers or freezers (at minimum, they could be purpose built cold storage warehouses) with multiple condensers, evaporators, pumps, temperature sensors, and humidity sensors. The refrigeration equipment needs some sort of control system and direct digital control is the usual way to do that these days.

This is food storage for a commissary, aka a store. They don’t use residential refrigerators.

Do regular grocery stores use a similar system? Or are locally controlled, simpler systems?

I've noticed stores going to central coolant lines going to cold cases more and more lately. Its all still industrial control. Ideally.

You can stick with local control and no internet access, all of the major BAS integrators offer completely offline systems. A BAS system is pretty simple, there are microcontrollers with binary and analog inputs and outputs that get networked together (RS-485, Ethernet, ARCnet), sensors and relays get wired to the microcontrollers. The microcontroller network is usually connected to a control panel that orchestrates the controllers, this is what you can connect to via the internet or a local pc not attached to the internet.

But pretty much any grocery store with multiple refrigerated/freezer cases is going to have an automation system that runs it.

This _IS_ the U.S. Government.

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