|
|
Post by rmc on May 26, 2023 2:00:35 GMT
The joy of modern technology in the hands of a pip squeak, mediocre landlord wannabe type, eager to collect up property for the purposes of building up his intended rental empire; a person who is not against the idea of illegally driving others off their property in order for him to obtain his.
Imagine being this guy's mark.
...
Some of these can hear right through concrete, can tune out other noises that you're not interested in, and can pick out great detail in the sounds you are listening for.
But, what if you made the big mistake of purchasing an apartment type condo, one where your neighbor owned one of these high-powered listening devices?
Image the fun you could have, having a neighbor who can join you inside your condo any damn time, simply by way of an incredibly powerful microphone.
He listens at his convenience. Tunes in when he suspects you're asleep. Once he confirms you are making genuine sleeping sounds, or at least suspects that you are based upon all the previous time he spent studying you sleeping, he raps once upon your place, only as loudly as is necessary according to previous visits with you, listening intently as to how you might respond this time. If you stir, he's quiet. You awake, but don't understand why. Everything is so quiet. And, then, ultimately, you are asleep again. Just as dreams start for you, you awake again (to another thump that you don't remember).
Imagine trying to explain to friends and family that you are being harassed and stalked, once you figure out that it is actually this sort of noise that awakens you.
How do you set about proving it?
Recording it?
They have motion detection cameras, date and time stamped, some even able to record a few seconds before the triggering action. But, those require motion, not sound. They also have voice-activated type mp4 recorders, able to awaken once a pattern of noise emerges. But, those record after the "Wham", and then are recording silence.
So what do you do about a single tap or thump that is done to the other side of your wall? How do you record that?
You could record the whole night. And, then devote a good deal of time the next day, each day, reviewing footage for its audio, possibly at tripple speed.. but still taking hours just to review it, not including editing it and saving it!
Or, to help save editing time, you could use a motion detection camera able to record a few seconds before the triggering action (the cache recording style mentioned before), and in order to have a motion for it to detect, you could set up a sound-activated toy. Once a thump happens, the toy starts moving, and the motion detection camera then captures both the thump and the toy that started moving around because of the thump, the camera utilizing its Pre-Motion recording feature to capture everything.
Whoa. What a lot of "stuff" to do just to try and point out what is happening to you. In order to illustrate that it isn't "building noise" as some insist.
Why can't SOUND-activated recording devices (known colloquially as "voice-activated") also have cache recording like some of the video systems available today!? That way you could get the seconds leading upto the audio event you want to record.
It's currently an invention yet to be.
|
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on May 26, 2023 3:27:00 GMT
The water detector microphones concentrate on the ultrasonic band. So unless you have a really high voice or a bad set of false teeth with a whistle, I don’t think I wouldn’t worry about it.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on May 26, 2023 13:31:07 GMT
I'm working way too many hours to have the focus to dive down rabbit holes right now, but it occurred to me that the surveillance market or the "ghost hunting" market might have a sound activated recorder with that sort of capability.
|
|
|
|
Post by rmc on May 26, 2023 15:52:21 GMT
Ghost hunters. Interesting. I'll start researching those guys next.
In the meantime, I figure a fairly quiet sound-activated toy like this one could be used to get a motion detect camera chasing after obtrusive noises.
Trouble is, this toy isn't listed in the video as to where to get one! Furthermore, researching other toys of this type always gives some toy that sings or makes a lot of other unnecessary noise.
Any sound-activated toys come to mind that you've seen and KNOW where to get one that is relatively QUIET and large enough to trigger a motion detect camera?
|
|
|
|
Post by wvengineer on May 26, 2023 16:30:50 GMT
If you find a toy with the right sound activation, you can always remove any speakers or motors from them and just use the microphone circuit.
When my kids were small, there were some toys that they loved to play with but were loud and annoying. Several meet with unfortunate accidents involving wire cutters and the speaker wires. Kids didn't know any better, still had their favorite toys, but were far less annoying.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on May 27, 2023 1:17:10 GMT
occurred to me, today, that a digital recorder with a graphical display would let you do a continuous recording and then visually see any spikes and edit down to those; eliminating the listening for hours part.
|
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on May 27, 2023 1:23:42 GMT
occurred to me, today, that a digital recorder with a graphical display would let you do a continuous recording and then visually see any spikes and edit down to those; eliminating the listening for hours part. You can view any digital audio file in an audio workstation program, such as Audacity, and do the same thing. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on May 27, 2023 2:06:00 GMT
occurred to me, today, that a digital recorder with a graphical display would let you do a continuous recording and then visually see any spikes and edit down to those; eliminating the listening for hours part. You can view any digital audio file in an audio workstation program, such as Audacity, and do the same thing. that's probably where I've seen it. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on May 27, 2023 8:00:45 GMT
When I analyze the audio tracks they look like a haze of noise. You can hear the spike easily enough when listening to the audio itself. Seeing that spike on a graph of the audio remains difficult for some reason. The HVAC kicking on also produces a false visual.
I know it's more "rabbit hole" type stuff, but everything I've experienced points to the people who are causing the impact noises obtaining feedback from me.
To put it bluntly, it's effectively the same thing as their being in the room with me, observing how I respond to various noises.
The result: they've minimized the impacts to just that necessary to get me to stir over time.
Initially, when this crap first started, the impacts were very sharp. Producing fragmented sleep patterns or outright waking. Back then picking it out on a graph would have been easy. But now, since I quickly react to this noise, much less is required.
I know the idea of their using a pipe leak detector microphone has been tossed out due to it listening in the ultrasonic range, where they'd have to be listening for high pitched squealing. But, geophone type equipment and pipe leak microphones also can pick up vibration, walking around, or water thumping, etc.
Maybe they listen for the vibration of movement of me turning over? Maybe they can hear the fluid sounds of my heart beating? Hearing how it changes pace? Would ultrasonic listening or geophone pick up that?
Anyway, the point is that it's definitely not a loud, blast of some sort. It's just whatever it takes to break my sleep in various situations. The least amount necessary to actually do that. This apparently increases the chance that I won't "remember" the sounds that aroused my wakefulness. And increases the likelihood of it sounding like "building noises", pops and cracks. I mean I do hear those, and have since the moment I first lived here. But, "building noise" only more recently decided to start being sharp enough to actually wake me. And, the recording of a building noise sounds different. More of a "Flumpf". While impact noises are "Twack!". Plus, "building noise" occurs toward sunset as the sun hits that side of the building. By midnight, building noise is gone.
You can hear the moment on the recording. But, looking for it on the "scope" remains difficult to pick out "quickly". Microphone quality or location could explain some of that.
The other eerie aspect (and it makes sense, in order to make the limited impact stand out as much as it is able) is that there is lead time involving the other condo being as quiet as possible beforehand.
This SHOULD make a graph of the audio clean and easy to visualize as a weak signal, up until the impact, but it doesn't seem to go like that. Because the impact is minimized for one, and there is ambient "hissing" or HVAC background noise making the quiet period surprisingly scratchy on a graph.
It's hard to explain. But who ever it is, they seem to understand that less is more. As long as I "help them" that is.
|
|
|
|
Post by WhutScreenName on May 30, 2023 19:15:08 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by rmc on May 30, 2023 22:54:01 GMT
Thank you! I did see that back when searching sound and or voice activated camera systems. I called the tech support lines for each of these and confirmed that they act very similar to "voice activated" handheld audio recorders in that they are triggered by sound, and then quickly start recording, possibly truncating the initial stuff. Worse, they require a subscription in order to keep or even get a stored recording. (I use ReoLink, no subscription needed). To properly capture something as brief as a lone, short-lengthed hammer impact, the recording system needs to be constantly collecting signals, holding them briefly in a short-term duration memory, like cache recording. The shortest scenario these "sound activated" cameras will apparently succeed in capturing is glass or windows breaking. But, again, you won't have any lead time. Just most of the crash and whatever comes next. Glass breaking generally being just a little bit longer than "Thwack!" (The brief sort of noise I'm trying to capture) We're going to try a sound-activated Halloween ghost decoration. One that hangs in view of our motion-detect camera (a camera having Pre-Motion Recording, allowing four to fifteen seconds lead time). By the way, for anyone wanting to peer into the rabbit hole just a bit more, there is a discussion I found online of another apartment dweller having almost equally aggravating circumstances: www.city-data.com/forum/renting/1455710-i-swear-my-upstairs-neighbor-spying.html?page=1 |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jun 6, 2023 19:44:18 GMT
Major new information and possibly a major setback, unless any of you can help. Me. Please!
It's not movement that triggers the Pre-Motion Recording of the ReoLink camera system. It's a HEAT SIGNATURE that also MOVES.
Such that Reolink utilizes the good 'ol PIR (Passive IR motion sensor) and if you want to trigger recording artificially, the moving object needs to be something warm, basically.
In other words, turning on a hot, incandescent lightbulb actually ISN'T going to trigger recording if that suddenly switched on incandescent lightbulb isn't also moving around within the field of view of the camera's PIR sensor.
So, a sound-activated toy that moves around within the field of view isn't going to make ReoLink start "Pre-Motion" recording either.
Plus, even if it did, I've discovered that the motors used to move such a toy are generally just too noisy.
Now, I have a couple of ideas on how I could get a quiet, moving IR emitter acting up once a certain noise is heard. But, the idea has some technical issues currently, that I need help resolving.
Anyone interested in hearing my plan and it's issues?
Or, do you want to offer ideas of your own?
Any input?
Thank you!
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jun 6, 2023 23:29:52 GMT
Major new information and possibly a major setback, unless any of you can help. Me. Please! It's not movement that triggers the Pre-Motion Recording of the ReoLink camera system. It's a HEAT SIGNATURE that also MOVES. Such that Reolink utilizes the good 'ol PIR (Passive IR motion sensor) and if you want to trigger recording artificially, the moving object needs to be something warm, basically. In other words, turning on a hot, incandescent lightbulb actually ISN'T going to trigger recording if that suddenly switched on incandescent lightbulb isn't also moving around within the field of view of the camera's PIR sensor. So, a sound-activated toy that moves around within the field of view isn't going to make ReoLink start "Pre-Motion" recording either. Plus, even if it did, I've discovered that the motors used to move such a toy are generally just too noisy. Now, I have a couple of ideas on how I could get a quiet, moving IR emitter acting up once a certain noise is heard. But, the idea has some technical issues currently, that I need help resolving. Anyone interested in hearing my plan and it's issues? Or, do you want to offer ideas of your own? Any input? Thank you! my next thought is these video recorders often have a manual "record" button - at least dashcams do. if you have a sound sensor that can trigger something, have it trigger something that presses the button. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jun 6, 2023 23:54:50 GMT
TLW, hitting record the instant an offending noise is heard turns out to be less effective than you'd think when dealing with short offensive noises.
In my case, the audio/video evidence needs to have a bit of lead time recorded too, leading upto the offending noise.
When the noise you want to record is very brief, like a lone hammer strike, "Sound-activated" cameras and audio recorders at best gives you only the noise itself and then a period afterward. If you also need the period just before the noise, "sound-activated" isn't going to do that.
Furthermore, what you've suggested, hitting the button then also requires the camera to fire up, likely lobbing off the offensive sound altogether. In fact, I'd say that approach guarantees lobbing off the hammer strike for certain.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jun 7, 2023 0:36:12 GMT
TLW, hitting record the instant an offending noise is heard turns out to be less effective than you'd think when dealing with short offensive noises. In my case, the audio/video evidence needs to have a bit of lead time recorded too, leading upto the offending noise. When the noise you want to record is very brief, like a lone hammer strike, "Sound-activated" cameras and audio recorders at best gives you only the noise itself and then a period afterward. If you also need the period just before the noise, "sound-activated" isn't going to do that. Furthermore, what you've suggested, hitting the button then also requires the camera to fire up, likely lobbing off the offensive sound altogether. In fact, I'd say that approach guarantees lobbing off the hammer strike for certain. I was referring to the cameras with the "start 5 seconds ago" feature. dashcams do that, and at least some have a manual button. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jun 7, 2023 1:03:51 GMT
TLW, hitting record the instant an offending noise is heard turns out to be less effective than you'd think when dealing with short offensive noises. In my case, the audio/video evidence needs to have a bit of lead time recorded too, leading upto the offending noise. When the noise you want to record is very brief, like a lone hammer strike, "Sound-activated" cameras and audio recorders at best gives you only the noise itself and then a period afterward. If you also need the period just before the noise, "sound-activated" isn't going to do that. Furthermore, what you've suggested, hitting the button then also requires the camera to fire up, likely lobbing off the offensive sound altogether. In fact, I'd say that approach guarantees lobbing off the hammer strike for certain. I was referring to the cameras with the "start 5 seconds ago" feature. dashcams do that, and at least some have a manual button. Great! I didn't know dashcam had that feature. It's still not quite what I'm after. In order to "push a button" it seems like that might involve a motor. Mechanisms involving motors are too noisy it seems. www.cobra.com/blogs/news/what-is-continuous-loop-recording-on-a-dash-camReoLink offers the same thing basically. But not using hitting a button, but rather having someone "warm" pass into view. In both cases, apparently, that's a way of automatically gathering a clip and storing something interesting. So, rather than a mechanism that pushes a button, a mechanism to move or sway a simple IR emitter into view. Well, I suppose there's an argument to be made that either mechanism suggested here presents a certain amount of cleaver engineering. I'm already familiar with ReoLink. And, the toy that senses and reacts to the offensive noise seems more inclined to what I have in mind. The sound sensor trips a circuit that sends around 9 volts to a motor that causes off balance spinning that lasts something like a solid minute. I just hung an incandescent lightbulb under it, and the warm light wobbling around would start the ReoLink when someone thumped loud enough. To prevent having the glowing light in the shot all the time, I put it just outside the frame of the shot; it wobbling into the frame if the toy started wobbling. But the spinning motor was actually too noisy. (Such that a motor to "push a button" seems unwanted also) So, rather than use a motor to wobble the toy, or push a button, remove the motor altogether and have the electrical current power a small, electromagnetic coil (Voice Coil like) instead. Such that the tiny electromagnet is drawn toward a rare earth magnet when the power flows. That should move through the frame, be quiet enough, and the coil could be warmed enough to act as its own IR emitter. If not, parallel rig an IR emitter onto the coil thing. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jun 7, 2023 1:36:00 GMT
I was referring to the cameras with the "start 5 seconds ago" feature. dashcams do that, and at least some have a manual button. Great! I didn't know dashcam had that feature. It's still not quite what I'm after. In order to "push a button" it seems like that might involve a motor. Mechanisms involving motors are too noisy it seems. www.cobra.com/blogs/news/what-is-continuous-loop-recording-on-a-dash-camReoLink offers the same thing basically. But not using hitting a button, but rather having someone "warm" pass into view. In both cases, apparently, that's a way of automatically gathering a clip and storing something interesting. So, rather than a mechanism that pushes a button, a mechanism to move or sway a simple IR emitter into view. Well, I suppose there's an argument to be made that either mechanism suggested here presents a certain amount of cleaver engineering. I'm already familiar with ReoLink. And, the toy that senses and reacts to the offensive noise seems more inclined to what I have in mind. The sound sensor trips a circuit that sends around 9 volts to a motor that causes off balance spinning that lasts something like a solid minute. I just hung an incandescent lightbulb under it, and the warm light wobbling around would start the ReoLink when someone thumped loud enough. To prevent having the glowing light in the shot all the time, I put it just outside the frame of the shot; it wobbling into the frame if the toy started wobbling. But the spinning motor was actually too noisy. (Such that a motor to "push a button" seems unwanted also) So, rather than use a motor to wobble the toy, or push a button, remove the motor altogether and have the electrical current power a small, electromagnetic coil (Voice Coil like) instead. Such that the tiny electromagnet is drawn toward a rare earth magnet when the power flows. That should move through the frame, be quiet enough, and the coil could be warmed enough to act as its own IR emitter. If not, parallel rig an IR emitter onto the coil thing. fair point that hacking a toy risks less than hacking the camera system. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jun 7, 2023 2:47:27 GMT
So now I need help identifying the current (amps), voltage, what sort of coil I could use (solenoid or voice coil, etc) how to pick the right size coil, if any IR emitters exist besides incandescent lightbulbs... if I even need such an emitter since maybe the coil itself warms up enough...
Stuff like that... unless there is some other, better way to "move an IR emitter" through the field of view of the ReoLink camera.
I say I need help because I apparently burned out my Sperry SP-5A multimeter. It's just three AA batteries in the dumb toy. Somehow though, the meter was reading, I think 10 volts. Amps at .250 setting still pegged out, and burned out the meter.
I don't know how to do what I want. I kind of know what I want. But implementing it is apparently above my pay grade.
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jun 7, 2023 12:22:05 GMT
So now I need help identifying the current (amps), voltage, what sort of coil I could use (solenoid or voice coil, etc) how to pick the right size coil, if any IR emitters exist besides incandescent lightbulbs... if I even need such an emitter since maybe the coil itself warms up enough... Stuff like that... unless there is some other, better way to "move an IR emitter" through the field of view of the ReoLink camera. I say I need help because I apparently burned out my Sperry SP-5A multimeter. It's just three AA batteries in the dumb toy. Somehow though, the meter was reading, I think 10 volts. Amps at .250 setting still pegged out, and burned out the meter. I don't know how to do what I want. I kind of know what I want. But implementing it is apparently above my pay grade. believe it or not, I have no idea how to read amps with probes instead of an induction loop. I know that measuring across a voltage source in amps mode will blow the fuse in a multimeter, though. and I know at least some of them have replaceable fuses. I know standard batteries are rated for 1.5V per battery, but fully charged batteries have higher voltage. putting 10V to the motor probably means there is some kind of voltage transformer involved, but I don't do DC other than basic calculations, so I'm just taking your meter's word for it. as for the IR source, I doubt they are a literal dime a dozen, but IR LEDs are all over the place, so they should be easy to get. then I think I would start by seeing if there was some kind of sequencing flasher that you could connect two or more to, and see if just a flashing IR LED would be enough to trigger the recording. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jun 7, 2023 14:40:21 GMT
So now I need help identifying the current (amps), voltage, what sort of coil I could use (solenoid or voice coil, etc) how to pick the right size coil, if any IR emitters exist besides incandescent lightbulbs... if I even need such an emitter since maybe the coil itself warms up enough... Stuff like that... unless there is some other, better way to "move an IR emitter" through the field of view of the ReoLink camera. I say I need help because I apparently burned out my Sperry SP-5A multimeter. It's just three AA batteries in the dumb toy. Somehow though, the meter was reading, I think 10 volts. Amps at .250 setting still pegged out, and burned out the meter. I don't know how to do what I want. I kind of know what I want. But implementing it is apparently above my pay grade. believe it or not, I have no idea how to read amps with probes instead of an induction loop. I know that measuring across a voltage source in amps mode will blow the fuse in a multimeter, though. and I know at least some of them have replaceable fuses. I know standard batteries are rated for 1.5V per battery, but fully charged batteries have higher voltage. putting 10V to the motor probably means there is some kind of voltage transformer involved, but I don't do DC other than basic calculations, so I'm just taking your meter's word for it. as for the IR source, I doubt they are a literal dime a dozen, but IR LEDs are all over the place, so they should be easy to get. then I think I would start by seeing if there was some kind of sequencing flasher that you could connect two or more to, and see if just a flashing IR LED would be enough to trigger the recording. Any IR source that is stationary won't set off the PIR. Believe me I totally hoped and even expected having a heat lamp suddenly turn on and appear visible within view would wake up stupid ReoLink. Tested MANY ways, tested two different types of "hot lamps"... They MUST move. The camera's Passive IR sensor has bifocal viewing such that the distance between the two lines of sight MUST CHANGE (or the two images must change) for any given source of heat. A bulb turning on, flashing, turning off, all of that does nothing. I wish it weren't so. Thanks for IR LED. I'll look THAT UP!!! Do you think a "voice coil" would work as an "electromagnet", or should I use some sort of solenoid? Again, hoping to hang an electromagnet beneath the sound activated toy such that when power that was previously used to set off the toy's noisy motor will now instead power a tiny electromagnet to move an IR LED withing view of ReoLink. |
|
