Nice find, but that's not a camera on the light. That's a photoelectric switch that turns the street light on at dusk and off at dawn.
L17-A != RPL17A
Edit: It's a part number/product code: https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5454&pos=6&pid=167933
Interesting.
I wonder which code came first.
I wonder which code came first.
The naming of proteins have nomenclature rules and standards which are decided by people who have much experience in such nomenclature structures. The lights got their product codes by some guys who work in that particular manufacturing company and probably have no standardization with other light manufacturers. They're not very creative and I'd put money on the "L" portion of the code representing LED and "17" being representative of the lamp size.
Having worked in the power industry prior to switching to programming, I can tell you the lights are cost optimized as much as possible since the city would need thousands of them to be installed. The electronics in them are very simple and just adequate enough for the lights to have a few years of service life. The light sensor that you can see in the video is an ancient feature. That particular form factor goes back many decades and it keeps on going because it is widely used on all street light variations and the compatibility is essential. Even with the most modern of photoelectric dusk/dawn switches, the part is cost optimized and I guarantee you that taking one apart will really disappoint you if you are expecting to find a microcontroller or other "smart" hardware in there for irradiating us with 5/6/7G death beams or photoactivation of (((vaxx))) components. Blame the (((shekel counters))) for that instead of the engineers.
Electrical engineers are funny people. If we were to discover anything unusual inside these lamps, we'd be making a huge noise about it because we don't like surprises that affect power characteristics of the things we work on. We also don't like things that are unsafe for people and animals. We would be barking about these things if they existed in lamps, cell towers, WiFi routers and anything else we design and work on. We're the canaries in the coal mine when it comes to hardware jew fuckery.
The thing about the legacy sensor might be true for some places where cost/efficiency is paramount. But most light arrays (on roads and highways are all turning on together at the exact same time. Such a sensor would have to be fine calibrated to a certain level for that to happen, which is technically not impossible but goes against the above mentioned cost limitation.
The newer streetlights run in network and get remotely powered on all at the exact same time, regardless of the dusk/dawn.
I’ve noticed that two decades ago when I encountered a full solar eclipse and the streets remained dark for the time being.
It’s still concerning that they would use a very similar code for two completely different things.
(post is archived)