Batteries Not Included, or Required, for These Smart Home Sensors

Post by drfloyd51 » Thu, May 07, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #57

dn3500 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children too. My own hearing extended to about 23 kHz until I was in my early 20s, and I don't think I was exceptional. There was a jewelry store in my town that I couldn't go in to because the "ultrasonic" motion detector was so painfully loud. But I doubt these devices would be a problem for children or pets because the pulse is so short.

I mean, TV. Kids were definitely a market for it, throughout its history, but until the flat panel era nobody cared that the flyback transformer in most CRTs made a deafening whine in the 20khz range. I could walk into a house and hear a soundless TV three rooms away, and I know I wasn’t alone in that.

Post by robocat » Thu, May 07, 2026, 8:13 AM UTC

anVlad11 wrote: post #17

It's research, not a product. Even with that, framing it as a smart home sensor in the press release is a stretch. 1) 93.75% success rate in controlled conditions, 92.1% in a somewhat-realistic deployment scenario - too low for reliability. I wouldn't use something like that to trigger smart home automations. 2) Range hardcapped at ~1m due to how ultrasound works, you can't centralize detection. Their answer is to gi…

  inherently private

Post by Ajoha » Thu, May 07, 2026, 11:06 AM UTC

dn3500 wrote: post #25

xoa wrote: post #24

For a brief, beautiful moment from the headline I thought "oh good, more PoE sensors finally happening!" doho. But no not just about battery but any power at all, and an interesting approach for further research. Of course to actually get data from still requires powered devices but in a lot of cases it'd be much easier to have that be a single or small number of more easily placed central units vs every single senso…

Children too. My own hearing extended to about 23 kHz until I was in my early 20s, and I don't think I was exceptional. There was a jewelry store in my town that I couldn't go in to because the "ultrasonic" motion detector was so painfully loud. But I doubt these devices would be a problem for children or pets because the pulse is so short.

Post by Neywiny » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:09 PM UTC

Ajoha wrote: post #95

dn3500 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children too. My own hearing extended to about 23 kHz until I was in my early 20s, and I don't think I was exceptional. There was a jewelry store in my town that I couldn't go in to because the "ultrasonic" motion detector was so painfully loud. But I doubt these devices would be a problem for children or pets because the pulse is so short.

Sorry, humans cannot hear up to 23kHz. Our hearing ends at 20kHz. Point. After a decade on earth your loss is already at 18kHz or less. (Loss means not: you hear nothing but you do not hear as good as when you where born).

Post by kaikai » Thu, May 07, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

ZaoLahma wrote: post #38

xoa wrote: post #24

For a brief, beautiful moment from the headline I thought "oh good, more PoE sensors finally happening!" doho. But no not just about battery but any power at all, and an interesting approach for further research. Of course to actually get data from still requires powered devices but in a lot of cases it'd be much easier to have that be a single or small number of more easily placed central units vs every single senso…

From the article: > And they don’t travel very far, so only nearby microphones would “hear” the tag. That makes the devices inherently private, Deng said, because other people wouldn’t detect any activity unless they were within a meter or so. It would seem these things don't really produce loud noises, so probably not adding much to the noise pollution that already exists in our environments. At the same time it see…