My local store uses these but they lock up if you bring them out to the 2nd row of parking spaces out front. It's enough to get the cart to your car, then you go to return it and it's totally locked, so everyone just shoves them into the planters in a big pile of tipped over carts instead of physically lifting the whole thing and hefting it to the cart returns to return it. The store has signs everywhere now telling people not to throw carts into the planters, and the employees know the problem, and the city has evidently complained multiple times, but district management evidently refuses to believe it's got anything to do with the cart locks and I was told by an exasperated checker that they're apparently considering getting security guards to confront people and make them return carts?? lmaooo
some models use a wire in the ground that emits a low frequency radio signal... which can be also be transmitted by the speaker in a phone by simply playing these mp3 files: https://www.tmplab.org/2008/06/18/consumer-b-gone/ (!)
I’m not an expert in electricity and magnetism by any stretch of the imagination, but the way that I understand it is with any electrical current, there is an induced magnetic field, and vice versa. So the little parasites the article is referring to are the magnetic fields induced by the current to play the audio in the speaker. That magnetic field is the signal that triggers the antitheft device.
I think they mean that the electromagnetic field generated by sending an alternating current through a coil (or just a wire) induces a current and electrical field on the conductor. I've heard the term "parasitic losses" caused by reactance but I've never heard parasite or parasitic related to generation of EM radiation.
Given the current behavior of autocorrect, I’m assuming that’s not the author’s fault. My brain has reached the point that it skips over that and just reads “currents.” I don’t know how you get from a typo for currents to become parasites, but I’ve seen even worse corrections in my writing.
Why is that insane? The entire point of an mp3 file is to be able to reproduce signals with reasonable accuracy. Seems like the signal has a frequency of around 8khz, which is very much in the range of human hearing and should be preserved by an mp3.
Can you imagine what would happen if someone went into a crowded store with a device playing this. A short loop through the isles and til queues would wreak havoc.
Many grocery stores in my area have these wheel locks. If I recall from college, if you took the cart out of the parking lot by carrying it over the plant beds, the lock would not engage.
The safeway near my apartment is so ghetto the wheels lock as soon as you leave the store exit. You have to take everything in one trip or wait for your car to pull around to load.
The cart boy would easily find a solution to that weak level of protection. Couple of furniture dollies under a cart instantly restores the rollability and then he could disassemble the wheels back at the shed
Just more proof of how stingy we are here in England. But if I worked at a supermarket and people did this, I'd just put away the carts and pocket the cash everyday.
for the small price of a hex head wrench, you too
can be the owner of a proud new Walmart shopping cart…. I wonder if walmart sells replacement wheels.
It depends on the exact location of the store... pretty common in urban areas. Makes sense as carts cost hundreds of dollars and people will just walk off with them and ditch them once they get home, or of course homeless people often take them and use them for a while. First time I saw this was in Uptown Minneapolis about 20 years ago. Seen them all over since then. I found a brand new Safeway cart in the alley behind my house and was 'great!'. I wheeled it into my yard and then wondered wtf I was planning to do with it exactly. Apparently, if you call them they have someone who goes around picking up carts, so I let them know and someone from the store came and got it.
I've only ever seen these in malls so you don't take the carts to other places in the mall. Do they really use these for carts going out to the parking lot too? How're you supposed to get your groceries out of the store?
I've only seen these in action by accident. Happened to me when I tried to go around a planter to reach the eating area at a Whole Foods. Apparently that was beyond the perimeter and I got stuck.
I saw one just last week lock up right at the door of Safeway when a lady was trying to go out to her car (it's not supposed to block you from exiting the store). She was stuck in the door, cart half outside.
But people who actually do want to take the carts away know exactly how to avoid the mechanism.
Probably an electrical fence type deal. When the signal gets too weak the pins pop out to prevent the wheel from rotating. Didn't park near the edge of the property to test it lol
My grocery store just got these and I didn't know about it. Mine went off as I was going out the door and I was like "wtf is happening here" until the self checkout girl saw and came over to release it.
You ever seen those invisible dog fences? Once it crosses an electrical barrier it triggers an alarm of sorts and in this case I assume it engages some sort of brake mechanism.
Locking or not, at least the American buggies don’t have rotating back wheels. I don’t know what Australia & England were thinking, but these bad ideas got imported where I live nom & they are needlessly difficult to maneuver.