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Important Announcement: Free Shipping Policy Adjustment and Service Enhancements

By: Rachel

Thank you for your continued support! To further enhance your shopping experience, we are rolling out a series of new features designed to provide more efficient and localized services. Additionally, we will be updating our current free shipping policy. Please take note of the following important updates:


Recent Logistics Enhancements

Between June and October 2024, we implemented several key logistics upgrades to enhance service quality and lay the groundwork for upcoming policy adjustments:

1. Expanded Shipping Options

  • US Warehouse: Added UPS-2 Day, FedEx, and UPS-Ground for more fast shipping choices.
  • CN Warehouse: Introduced Airtransport Direct Line small package service, reducing delivery times from 20-35 days to just 7-10 days.

2. Optimized Small Parcel Shipping and Cost Control

  • Adjusted packaging specifications for CN warehouse shipments, significantly lowering costs while improving shipping efficiency.

3. Accelerated Overall Delivery Times

  • Streamlined export customs clearance from Shenzhen and synchronized handoffs with European and American couriers, reducing delivery times to just 3.5 days.

Enhanced Local Services for a Better Shopping Experience

To meet the diverse needs of our global users, we’ve implemented several improvements in local purchasing, logistics, and tax services:

1. Local Warehouse Pre-Order

  • Launch Date: Already Live
  • Highlights: Pre-order popular products from our US Warehouse and DE Warehouse. If immediate stock is needed, you can switch to the CN Warehouse for purchase.

2. Enhanced VAT Services for EU Customers

  • Launch Date: Already Live
  • Highlights: New VAT ID verification feature allows EU customers to shop tax-free with a valid VAT ID.

3. US Warehouse Sales Tax Implementation

  • Launch Date: January 1, 2025
  • Highlights: Automatic calculation of sales tax to comply with US local tax regulations.

Free Shipping Policy Adjustment

Starting December 31, 2024, our current free shipping policy (CN warehouse orders over $150, US & DE warehouse orders over $100) will no longer apply.

We understand that this change may cause some inconvenience in the short term. However, our aim is to offer more flexible and efficient shipping options, ensuring your shopping experience is more personalized and seamless.


Listening to Your Suggestions for Continuous Improvement

We understand that excellent logistics service stems from listening to every customer’s needs. During the optimization process, we received valuable suggestions, such as:

  • Adding a local warehouse in Australia to provide faster delivery for customers in that region.
  • Improving packaging designs to enhance protection during transit.
  • Supporting flexible delivery schedules, allowing customers to choose delivery times that work best for them.

We welcome your continued input! Starting today, submit your feedback via our Feedback Form, and receive coupon rewards for all adopted suggestions.


Important Reminder: Free Shipping Policy End Date

  • Current free shipping policy will officially end on December 31, 2024.
  • Plan your purchases in advance to enjoy the remaining free shipping benefits!

We are also working on future logistics enhancements and may introduce region-specific free shipping or special holiday promotions, so stay tuned!


Thank You for Your Support

Your trust and support inspire Seeed Studio to keep innovating. We remain focused on improving localized services, listening to your needs, and delivering a more convenient and efficient shopping experience.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our customer support team. Together, let’s move towards a smarter, more efficient future!

The post Important Announcement: Free Shipping Policy Adjustment and Service Enhancements appeared first on Latest Open Tech From Seeed.

SenseCAP T1000-E: Available Now with Flexible Shipping Options

By: Rachel

At Seeed Studio, we know how frustrating it can be to deal with stock shortages and long shipping times. That’s why we’re excited to announce major improvements to the availability of the SenseCAP T1000-E, our compact and powerful tracker designed for Meshtastic users.

With its pocket-sized design, low-power performance, and integration of Semtech’s LR1110 (863-928 MHz), Nordic’s nRF52840, and Mediatek’s AG3335 GPS module, the T1000-E delivers precise positioning and reliable communication for adventurers and professionals alike.

Now with Local Warehouse Pre-Order Options

We’ve listened to your feedback and worked hard to ensure that availability is no longer an obstacle. Here’s how you can get your hands on the T1000-E faster:

  • Local Warehouse Pre-Orders: View stock arrival times at our US or DE warehouses, place a pre-order, and secure your product before it sells out.
  • CN Warehouse for Immediate Shipping: Need it right away? Order from our CN warehouse, which ships immediately. For US customers, orders under $800 do not require customs clearance, making this option even more convenient.

If shipping costs seem high due to your location, you can also explore alternative purchase channels such as Amazon or AliExpress for more options.

Special Offers You Don’t Want to Miss

To make your shopping experience even better, we’re offering exciting promotions:

  • Buy 2, Get 2 Free: Add 2 T1000-E Trackers and 2 Snap Hooks to your cart, and the snap hooks are FREE at checkout (a $3.98 value).
  • Thanksgiving Deals: Over 200 products are on sale with discounts, Buy 2 Get 1 Free offers, and flash sales happening now!

Your Feedback Shapes Our Service

Your suggestions have inspired many of these changes. From addressing concerns about stock availability to offering pre-order options, we’ve taken your input seriously and will continue improving our services.

We’re always here to assist you. If you encounter any issues or have questions about the T1000-E, feel free to reach out:

Shop the SenseCAP T1000-E today and enjoy the convenience of our enhanced availability and exclusive offers. Your support drives us to do better, and we’re excited to help you take your projects to the next level!

The post SenseCAP T1000-E: Available Now with Flexible Shipping Options appeared first on Latest Open Tech From Seeed.

Up to 90%off——Grab Deals Now or Wait Until Next Year!

By: Rachel

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and we’re launching amazing deals across the Seeed Studio website to power up your next project! Enjoy flash sales, big discounts, exclusive perks, and even special service upgrades—all for our loyal maker community. Now’s the time to grab everything you need!

New Features for Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, we’re excited to show our appreciation for you with an extended return policy of up to 30 days (previously 5 days). We want you to shop confidently, knowing you have more time to make decisions and enjoy your purchases. Additionally, we’re introducing fast shipping options that can deliver in as little as 3 days—thanks to our strategically located local warehouses. This allows us to get your orders to you quickly, because your satisfaction and convenience are our top priorities.

Sale Timeline and Key Deals

Pre-Sale (Nov 11 – Nov 27)
Kick things off with our Pre-Sale to catch these awesome deals:

  • Mega Discounts on Popular Products: Get markdowns on Grove sensors, Seeeduino boards, Wio Terminals, and more top choices.
  • Buy 2, Get 1 Free: Buy any two items from a special collection and get the third free! Perfect for building your workshop or stocking up.
  • $10 Loyalty Reward: Returning customers, check your account for a $10 coupon! Spend $30 or more and apply it to your next order.
  • Big Spender Bonus: Spend over $200, and receive a $30 coupon for a future purchase—perfect for holiday shopping!

Flash Sale (Nov 28 – Nov 29)
This is the biggest sale of the year, with unbeatable prices on top products!

  • Flash Deals on Hot Items: Huge discounts on bestsellers in limited quantities. Don’t miss out!
  • Pre-Sale Offers Extended: Buy 2, Get 1 Free, and loyalty rewards are still active, so you can save even more.

Extended Sale (Nov 30 – Dec 9)
Missed the Flash Sale? No problem! Thanksgiving deals continue through December 9, so you still have time to grab big discounts on Seeed essentials like IoT devices and environmental sensors.


Want to Win a $30 Coupon? Share Your Seeed Story!

From November 11 to December 9, share your Seeed experience for a chance to win a $30 coupon!

  1. Post & Tag: Share a photo or video of your Seeed product with your thoughts using #ThankfulForSeeed on Facebook, X, Instagram, or Reddit.
  2. Submit Your Entry: Upload a screenshot and post link to our Google Form.
  3. Winners Announced: We’ll notify all lucky winners by email on December 10. Each winner gets a $30 no-minimum coupon valid through December 31.

Special Discounts for Educators!

As a thank you to all educators, we’re offering exclusive discounts to help support educational programs. Reach out to us to learn more!


Tips for Maximum Thanksgiving Savings

  1. Catch Us Live! 📺 Join our live streams on November 22 for a closer look at top products, demos, and insider tips on the best deals this season.
  2. Set Alarms for Flash Sales ⏰ Don’t miss out on the Flash Sales on the 28th and 29th! Stock is limited, so be ready!
  3. Check Your Email for Extra Savings 📬 Returning customers, look out for a $10 thank-you coupon in your inbox, good on any $30+ order. Plus, orders over $200 will earn you a $30 coupon for future orders, which you’ll receive by email on December 10.

🍂 Join our Thanksgiving Mega Sale and get everything you need for your next DIY adventure. From new kits to top electronics, we’ve got you covered. Dive into the sale and start creating!

The post Up to 90%off——Grab Deals Now or Wait Until Next Year! appeared first on Latest Open Tech From Seeed.

Important Update: ZBT-1 USB Device Free Replacement Program

By: Rachel

ZBT-1 USB Device Now Available! We are pleased to announce that we have received the latest batch of quality-approved ZBT-1 USB devices from Nabu Casa.
Updated on October 23


You may have heard about Nabu Casa’s announcement regarding a non-conforming part in the ZBT-1 USB device. As a partner of Nabu Casa, Seeed Studio is committed to quickly addressing this issue. We are working closely with the official team to provide effective after-sales support. Once we receive your returned product, we will arrange for a replacement device to be shipped to you at no additional cost or offer you a refund.

Replacement Program Details:

Eligibility:
To qualify for the replacement program, please ensure the following:
● Your order was placed directly through the Seeed Studio online store.
● The order was made before October 1; any devices ordered after this date are unaffected, as the issue has already been resolved.
● The product in question is the Home Assistant ZBT-1, and not the Home Assistant SkyConnect.

SkyConnect (left) and ZBT-1 (right) branded devices, SkyConnect are unaffected by this issue.

All ZBT-1 branded devices produced, as of October 2024, are believed to have this fault. You can tell if your device is a ZBT-1 by checking the white label on the back for “ZBT-1”. There is no need to test if your device is affected by this fault.

Replacement Process:

If you wish to participate in the replacement program, kindly reach out to us by emailing techsupport@seeed.io.

  • Please include a photo of your product along with your order number in your email. This will help our team confirm if your product is part of the affected batch.
  • After confirmation, you will need to return the original ZBT-1 unit to us and Seeed Studio will cover all associated costs. Please note that you only need to return the blue USB device; there’s no need to return any other accessories or packaging.
  • Once we receive your returned product, we will arrange for a replacement device to be shipped to you at no additional cost or offer you a refund. However, due to customs policies, you may need to cover any applicable duties or taxes associated with the replacement. To support you, we will provide a coupon as compensation.

Extended Replacement Period:

Because the issues caused by the non-conforming part may only arise in certain setups, Nabu Casa will offer the replacement program for 60 months. This allows users who are currently using their ZBT-1 without problems to have peace of mind, knowing they can replace their affected device free of charge at any time within the next 60 months.

For more details, please refer to Nabu Casa’s official announcement here:Home Assistant Blog

Thank you for your understanding and continued support. We are here to assist you every step of the way!

The post Important Update: ZBT-1 USB Device Free Replacement Program appeared first on Latest Open Tech From Seeed.

Secure by Design for AI: Building Resilient Systems from the Ground Up

As artificial intelligence (AI) has erupted, Secure by Design for AI has emerged as a critical paradigm. AI is integrating into every aspect of our lives — from healthcare and finance to developers to autonomous vehicles and smart cities — and its integration into critical infrastructure has necessitated that we move quickly to understand and combat threats. 

Necessity of Secure by Design for AI

AI’s rapid integration into critical infrastructure has accelerated the need to understand and combat potential threats. Security measures must be embedded into AI products from the beginning and evolve as the model evolves. This proactive approach ensures that AI systems are resilient against emerging threats and can adapt to new challenges as they arise. In this article, we will explore two polarizing examples — the developer industry and the healthcare industry.

Black padlock on light blue digital background

Complexities of threat modeling in AI

AI brings forth new challenges and conundrums when working on an accurate threat model. Before reaching a state in which the data has simple edit and validation checks that can be programmed systematically, AI validation checks need to learn with the system and focus on data manipulation, corruption, and extraction. 

  • Data poisoning: Data poisoning is a significant risk in AI, where the integrity of the data used by the system can be compromised. This can happen intentionally or unintentionally and can lead to severe consequences. For example, bias and discrimination in AI systems have already led to issues, such as the wrongful arrest of a man in Detroit due to a false facial recognition match. Such incidents highlight the importance of unbiased models and diverse data sets. Testing for bias and involving a diverse workforce in the development process are critical steps in mitigating these risks.

In healthcare, for example, bias may be simpler to detect. You can examine data fields based on areas such as gender, race, etc. 

In development tools, bias is less clear-cut. Bias could result from the underrepresentation of certain development languages, such as Clojure. Bias may even result from code samples based on regional differences in coding preferences and teachings. In developer tools, you likely won’t have the information available to detect this bias. IP addresses may give you information about where a person is living currently, but not about where they grew up or learned to code. Therefore, detecting bias will be more difficult. 

  • Data manipulation: Attackers can manipulate data sets with malicious intent, altering how AI systems behave. 
  • Privacy violations: Without proper data controls, personal or sensitive information could unintentionally be introduced into the system, potentially leading to privacy violations. Establishing strong data management practices to prevent such scenarios is crucial.
  • Evasion and abuse: Malicious actors may attempt to alter inputs to manipulate how an AI system responds, thereby compromising its integrity. There’s also the potential for AI systems to be abused in ways developers did not anticipate. For example, AI-driven impersonation scams have led to significant financial losses, such as the case where an employee transferred $26 million to scammers impersonating the company’s CFO.

These examples underscore the need for controls at various points in the AI data lifecycle to identify and mitigate “bad data” and ensure the security and reliability of AI systems.

Key areas for implementing Secure by Design in AI

To effectively secure AI systems, implementing controls in three major areas is essential (Figure 1):

Illustration showing flow of data from Users to Data Management to Model Tuning to Model Maintenance.
Figure 1: Key areas for implementing security controls.

1. Data management

The key to data management is to understand what data needs to be collected to train the model, to identify the sensitive data fields, and to prevent the collection of unnecessary data. Data management also involves ensuring you have the correct checks and balances to prevent the collection of unneeded data or bad data.

In healthcare, sensitive data fields are easy to identify. Doctors offices often collect national identifiers, such as drivers licenses, passports, and social security numbers. They also collect date of birth, race, and many other sensitive data fields. If the tool is aimed at helping doctors identify potential conditions faster based on symptoms, you would need anonymized data but would still need to collect certain factors such as age and race. You would not need to collect national identifiers.

In developer tools, sensitive data may not be as clearly defined. For example, an environment variable may be used to pass secrets or pass confidential information, such as the image name from the developer to the AI tool. There may be secrets in fields you would not suspect. Data management in this scenario involves blocking the collection of fields where sensitive data could exist and/or ensuring there are mechanisms to scrub sensitive data built into the tool so that data does not make it to the model. 

Data management should include the following:

  • Implementing checks for unexpected data: In healthcare, this process may involve “allow” lists for certain data fields to prevent collecting irrelevant or harmful information. In developer tools, it’s about ensuring the model isn’t trained on malicious code, such as unsanitized inputs that could introduce vulnerabilities.
  • Evaluating the legitimacy of users and their activities: In healthcare tools, this step could mean verifying that users are licensed professionals, while in developer tools, it might involve detecting and mitigating the impact of bot accounts or spam users.
  • Continuous data auditing: This process ensures that unexpected data is not collected and that the data checks are updated as needed. 

2. Alerting and monitoring 

With AI, alerting and monitoring is imperative to ensuring the health of the data model. Controls must be both adaptive and configurable to detect anomalous and malicious activities. As AI systems grow and adapt, so too must the controls. Establish thresholds for data, automate adjustments where possible, and conduct manual reviews where necessary.

In a healthcare AI tool, you might set a threshold before new data is surfaced to ensure its accuracy. For example, if patients begin reporting a new symptom that is believed to be associated with diabetes, you may not report this to doctors until it is reported by a certain percentage (15%) of total patients. 

In a developer tool, this might involve determining when new code should be incorporated into the model as a prompt for other users. The model would need to be able to log and analyze user queries and feedback, track unhandled or poorly handled requests, and detect new patterns in usage. Data should be analyzed for high frequencies of unhandled prompts, and alerts should be generated to ensure that additional data sets are reviewed and added to the model.

3. Model tuning and maintenance

Producers of AI tools should regularly review and adjust AI models to ensure they remain secure. This includes monitoring for unexpected data, adjusting algorithms as needed, and ensuring that sensitive data is scrubbed or redacted appropriately.

For healthcare, model tuning may be more intensive. Results may be compared to published medical studies to ensure that patient conditions are in line with other baselines established across the world. Audits should also be conducted to ensure that doctors with reported malpractice claims or doctors whose medical license has been revoked are scrubbed from the system to ensure that potentially compromised data sets are not influencing the model. 

In a developer tool, model tuning will look very different. You may look at hyperparameter optimization using techniques such as grid search, random search, and Bayesian search. You may study subsets of data; for example, you may perform regular reviews of the most recent data looking for new programming languages, frameworks, or coding practices. 

Model tuning and maintenance should include the following:

  • Perform data audits to ensure data integrity and that unnecessary data is not inadvertently being collected. 
  • Review whether “allow” lists and “deny” lists need to be updated.
  • Regularly audit and monitor alerts for algorithms to determine if adjustments need to be made; consider the population of your user base and how the model is being trained when adjusting these parameters.
  • Ensure you have the controls in place to isolate data sets for removal if a source has become compromised; consider unique identifiers that allow you to identify a source without providing unnecessary sensitive data.
  • Regularly back up data models so you can return to a previous version without heavy loss of data if the source becomes compromised.

AI security begins with design

Security must be a foundational aspect of AI development, not an afterthought. By identifying data fields upfront, conducting thorough AI threat modeling, implementing robust data management controls, and continuously tuning and maintaining models, organizations can build AI systems that are secure by design. 

This approach protects against potential threats and ensures that AI systems remain reliable, trustworthy, and compliant with regulatory requirements as they evolve alongside their user base.

Learn more

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