Halo microchip scanner

Not true: the Halo reads EMs - albeit with a bug.

Interesting mine didn’t work so returned it.

Maybe they nuked the feature in newer models. How long ago was it?

I buy it when week ago

Couple months.

Interesting… What’s the version number / SN on yours?

This is mine:

image

I’m gonna do some digging around to see if the firmware dropped EM reading. It is quite possible that it could never be made to work quite right for some reason, and they got tired of people asking why.

Well I can’t find nothing. I’ve sent an email to the manufacturer to ask them.

I have version 7.2

Let’s see what Halo says.

Another option for you is a great @anon3825968 hack/exploit of the SureSense

Okay I might have an explanation here. This is what iD Porte (makers of the Halo scanners) replied:

My EM implant is a EM4305, and sure enough, 2 seconds of googling reveals it’s a commonly used tag for… pigeon racing rings. Maybe that explains why I like street food so much :slight_smile:

That would be the explanation. Although it contradicts this post from Vicarious that seems to indicate he successfully read 4200’s on his Halo. Or perhaps the bug he reports occurs with 4200s precisely because the Halo is not meant to read them but somehow does it successfully anyway for certain UIDs.

Anyhow, I’ll test this by presenting genuine EM41xx and EM42xx tags to my Halo scanner tonight. I think I might have some in my box of RFID doodads.

I tested with my xEM implants (T5577 chip in “EM mode”) and some LF keyfobs that came included with the xEM access controller v1.
My Halo reader has firmware version 6.4

Yeah, mine seems to read genuine EM4xxx tags and T5577 tags en EM mode just fine too. I wonder if the manufacturer knows exactly what their device can do. It’s entirely possible that they sourced the reader part of the device from a third-party and only test EM4305’s on it, because they only care about the animal tag market.

Okay you guys, this is way beyond cool so I just gotta share.

I’ve been in contact with the manufacturer of the Halo scanner to figure out the EM functionality. They say they’re gonna retest it because it may have changed for a variety of technical reasons that I won’t go into details here. So that’s one bit of cool.

But get this: since I was at it, I asked them if they wouldn’t mind sharing their API to turn the Halo reader into a PC reader. You never know… The worse thing that can happen when you ask is they say no.

Well, not only are they perfectly happy to give me the right USB commands, they’re even going to release a new version of the firmware that will send the temperature readings alongside the chip’s UID over USB.

Just like that. Just for us :slight_smile: This is a great company! Yeah iD Porte!

So, expect to see some software to exploit the Halo reader with a PC from yours truly very soon!

3 Likes

Rosco you’re the best. No one else would have asked… so Yeah iD Porte and Yeah Rosco!!!

2 Likes

Why not? It doesn’t cost a dime and you’d be surprised how many companies are in fact quite cool about that sort of thing.

The last company that really surprised me in that respect is Feitian: you’d think it’s yet another giant Chinese manufacturer that doesn’t give a shit about the little guys, but when I asked them if they could extend their firmware to let me control the field directly (that was to light up my flexNExT back when it still worked), they actually did it.

I shit you not! If you buy a R502 today, it has the functionality to control DT blinkies baked in :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Aargh I crashed my Halo. I had to open it and disconnect the battery.
This thing definitely needs a reset switch. Time to do some soldering…

It’s talking:

Yessiree. That’s how we ro-ro :slight_smile:

4 Likes

They didn’t mess about thats so cool great job rosco

2 Likes

I installed a reset switch on my Halo, so I can crash it again and recover it easily:

4 Likes