The Neewer NL660-2.4 Video Keylight has a handy remote control, which for [Tom Clement] has a major flaw in that it can’t restore the light to the state it had during its last power-on. He’s thus taken the trouble to reverse engineer it and create his own remote using a suitably-equipped Arduino clone.
The write-up is a step through primer for the would-be RF remote hacker, identifying the brains as an STM8 and the radio as an NRF24 clone before attempting to dump the firmware of the STM8. As might be expected the STM is protected, which only leaves the option of sniffing the connection between the two chips. The SPI pins are duly probed with a logic analyser, and the codes used by Neweer are extracted. As luck would have it there is a handy board called the RF Nano which is an Arduino Nano and an NRF24 in an Arduino Nano form factor, so a proof of concept remote could be written on an all-in-one module. You can find the result as a GitHub Gist, should you be curious.
We’ve seen Tom a few times before, particularly in his European BadgeLife work, as part of which he’s put a lot of effort into bringing browser-based WebUSB and WebSerial development to his work.
I feel that! Things like this are super annoying.
It’s the same with all those “EDC” flashlights. 9 modes incl. strobing, SOS, dimming, whatnot.
But most of them don’t do their basic task, giving you the amount of light you used last time you switched it off.
People are complaining, manufacturers don’t listen…
In that case, just jump onto /r/flashlights on reddit and look at the recommended lights and/or just ask.
There are lots of cheap EDC lights, e.g. Convoy, which will memorize your last level and don’t include stupid strobe modes or have the possibility of them being locked.
Wow…
r/flashlights has been banned from Reddit
This community has been banned for violating the Reddit rules.
Oh, my bad. it’s /r/flashlight without the s at the end -.-
Manufacturers do listen, you just have to choose the right manufacturer, generally listening, along with a use of quality components, and reasonable life-time, costs more.
Reverse engineering FW is harder than checking protocol.
Any place in the US have RF Nano’s in stock? Amazon is out and everything else is shipped from China. This would help me a lot on a project that I am working on, but I have a deadline in the middle of October.