Official Indiegogo page here It’s a cool little sci-fi idea, but it’s unfortunately also a major safety concern. Anything that can vaporise mosquito wings can also vaporise small chunks of your...
It’s a cool little sci-fi idea, but it’s unfortunately also a major safety concern. Anything that can vaporise mosquito wings can also vaporise small chunks of your retina, and the FAQ suggests that their solution is pretty much “trust me bro, our large object detection is 100% accurate at all times and will never ever fail under any circumstances” - which makes me way, way more nervous than if they’d actually talked about the plausible failure modes and how they’ve mitigated them as far as practicable.
If they’d acknowledged the possibility of failure and put some solid numbers on how unlikely it is, I’d be healthy skeptical but willing to listen. Since they apparently think infallible systems are a thing that can be built (and built in a consumer retail device, no less) I have to assume incompetence on their part.
They also don’t appear to say anything about the wattage, wavelength, or pulse duration of the high power laser being used, which means I can’t calibrate how worried to be on a scale from “this is a bad idea and you shouldn’t buy it” to “we should all be wearing laser safety googles whenever we leave the house in case there’s one of these within a mile or so, and any spotted in the wild should be immediately smashed with a brick”.
I'm in the same place. The concept is awesome and my inner child is dying to get one. OTOH there is a noticeable and huge deficit of information about safety. The embedded video is partially AI...
I'm in the same place. The concept is awesome and my inner child is dying to get one. OTOH there is a noticeable and huge deficit of information about safety. The embedded video is partially AI generated and voiced, and also shows it being casually installed in a living room, sitting on a patio table, just anywhere and everywhere with no regard to the possibility of it hitting a human either directly or by reflection off nearby objects.
Would I buy this for sport and personal amusement? Maybe.
Would I buy this and leave it running around children or pets, or unattended? Absolutely fucking not.
Yeah, I’ve actually got a 2W diode laser on my desk at the moment, and it at least has the decency to come with an interlock key and big yellow stickers and a general sense of “this will make your...
Yeah, I’ve actually got a 2W diode laser on my desk at the moment, and it at least has the decency to come with an interlock key and big yellow stickers and a general sense of “this will make your eyeballs explode and you probably shouldn’t own it in the first place”.
The fact that this doesn’t look scary worries me a lot more…
It seems like a strange risk has been accepted to possible take someones eye out with this. I would propose a design that lures mosquitos into an enclosed space and then laser them inside that....
It seems like a strange risk has been accepted to possible take someones eye out with this.
I would propose a design that lures mosquitos into an enclosed space and then laser them inside that. Like maybe you make a cool black sphere with a hole in the top, and there is some mosquito attractant in there, and you laser them when they enter. Yes I understand that then people have to buy mosquito bait and dump the carcasses out, but mosquito bait is a recurring revenue stream :)
I’d only use one placed above or below eye height. One 2 ft off the ground and one 8 ft off the ground would probably do a good job at reducing mosquito counts and would hopefully not be able to...
I’d only use one placed above or below eye height. One 2 ft off the ground and one 8 ft off the ground would probably do a good job at reducing mosquito counts and would hopefully not be able to hit your face.
Luckily they’re also selling a rotating base that they suggest placing on a table firing upwards, presumably to make sure it gets a good clear shot at everyone in the room 🤦 But yeah, that’s one...
Luckily they’re also selling a rotating base that they suggest placing on a table firing upwards, presumably to make sure it gets a good clear shot at everyone in the room 🤦
But yeah, that’s one of the reasons I was interested in the actual laser specs. If it’s sensible-ish for the job then like you say, you could probably do a lot just by ignoring their instructions and placing it safely. Problem is I’ve seen a few styropyro tear downs of eBay laser devices that were orders of magnitude more powerful than they should have been, so I’m definitely not taking it on faith that this won’t be risky even from relatively diffuse reflections.
One should also consider the possibility of stupid people putting their eyeballs near the laser--gun intentionally. That is not necessarily an issue with the equipment, but lots of people are...
One should also consider the possibility of stupid people putting their eyeballs near the laser--gun intentionally. That is not necessarily an issue with the equipment, but lots of people are stupid. Not to mention kids. That can easily become some kind of "dare".
Looks neat, although I do feel like a lot of it is more rule of cool than anything practical. There is the danger of retina damage, but the way I’d actually use it is I’d put it in a room where...
Looks neat, although I do feel like a lot of it is more rule of cool than anything practical. There is the danger of retina damage, but the way I’d actually use it is I’d put it in a room where flying insects accidentally got in, turn it on and leave.
That being said, you can just use a misting spray with some soapy water. But lasers are cool.
Honestly, what I’d want is something that could kill larger insects, like roaches or something. Those are much more annoying to manually kill.
Yeah, let me know when it's in production and I can see an independent breakdown/test of the device. At the moment this is nothing but marketing claims to support a fundraising campaign.
Yeah, let me know when it's in production and I can see an independent breakdown/test of the device. At the moment this is nothing but marketing claims to support a fundraising campaign.
Not a new concept, you can build one yourself from the specs on github, hackaday wrote an article w/ a video on the project a few years back. We (humanity) has been building them for much larger...
Not a new concept, you can build one yourself from the specs on github, hackaday wrote an article w/ a video on the project a few years back.
We (humanity) has been building them for much larger ranges, around 100ft+ since 2010, a lot has been made smaller and cheaper in the last 15 years, especially lidar and lasers.
This isn't the first of it's type, just the latest product version, Bzigo has been around since 2016(?) iirc.
also going to use this space to say:
mostly posted this because the article title is incredible
They've been working on it since ~2010. "The current prototype idea being pursued is a perimeter based implementation known as the Photonic Fence. However, a device that can kill mosquitoes at a...
They've been working on it since ~2010. "The current prototype idea being pursued is a perimeter based implementation known as the Photonic Fence. However, a device that can kill mosquitoes at a long enough range to make it practical has never been implemented."
Bzigo and the github/hackaday project use low powered laser pointers so you can swat the mosquito. The github specifically points out using a higher powered laser is a bad idea™.
A high powered laser reflecting off a window, or a watch, or glasses, or a phone, or anything, and partially blinding someone is a ridiculously complex problem to solve. They say they use presence detection to simply not fire if a human/pet is in the area, but that's not going to be foolproof either. It would be very easy to be around a corner and catch a stray shot to the eye from a reflection.
Official Indiegogo page here
It’s a cool little sci-fi idea, but it’s unfortunately also a major safety concern. Anything that can vaporise mosquito wings can also vaporise small chunks of your retina, and the FAQ suggests that their solution is pretty much “trust me bro, our large object detection is 100% accurate at all times and will never ever fail under any circumstances” - which makes me way, way more nervous than if they’d actually talked about the plausible failure modes and how they’ve mitigated them as far as practicable.
If they’d acknowledged the possibility of failure and put some solid numbers on how unlikely it is, I’d be healthy skeptical but willing to listen. Since they apparently think infallible systems are a thing that can be built (and built in a consumer retail device, no less) I have to assume incompetence on their part.
They also don’t appear to say anything about the wattage, wavelength, or pulse duration of the high power laser being used, which means I can’t calibrate how worried to be on a scale from “this is a bad idea and you shouldn’t buy it” to “we should all be wearing laser safety googles whenever we leave the house in case there’s one of these within a mile or so, and any spotted in the wild should be immediately smashed with a brick”.
I'm in the same place. The concept is awesome and my inner child is dying to get one. OTOH there is a noticeable and huge deficit of information about safety. The embedded video is partially AI generated and voiced, and also shows it being casually installed in a living room, sitting on a patio table, just anywhere and everywhere with no regard to the possibility of it hitting a human either directly or by reflection off nearby objects.
Would I buy this for sport and personal amusement? Maybe.
Would I buy this and leave it running around children or pets, or unattended? Absolutely fucking not.
Yeah, I’ve actually got a 2W diode laser on my desk at the moment, and it at least has the decency to come with an interlock key and big yellow stickers and a general sense of “this will make your eyeballs explode and you probably shouldn’t own it in the first place”.
The fact that this doesn’t look scary worries me a lot more…
Used to be a sign in the laser lab in college that said, "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."
It seems like a strange risk has been accepted to possible take someones eye out with this.
I would propose a design that lures mosquitos into an enclosed space and then laser them inside that. Like maybe you make a cool black sphere with a hole in the top, and there is some mosquito attractant in there, and you laser them when they enter. Yes I understand that then people have to buy mosquito bait and dump the carcasses out, but mosquito bait is a recurring revenue stream :)
I’d only use one placed above or below eye height. One 2 ft off the ground and one 8 ft off the ground would probably do a good job at reducing mosquito counts and would hopefully not be able to hit your face.
Luckily they’re also selling a rotating base that they suggest placing on a table firing upwards, presumably to make sure it gets a good clear shot at everyone in the room 🤦
But yeah, that’s one of the reasons I was interested in the actual laser specs. If it’s sensible-ish for the job then like you say, you could probably do a lot just by ignoring their instructions and placing it safely. Problem is I’ve seen a few styropyro tear downs of eBay laser devices that were orders of magnitude more powerful than they should have been, so I’m definitely not taking it on faith that this won’t be risky even from relatively diffuse reflections.
Ah thanks for reminding me that Styropyro exists, he builds such cool (and scary!) stuff. I've no idea why I wasn't already subscribed.
Someone should send this to him. Perhaps we'll be able to see what new weapon of mass destruction he can make.
One should also consider the possibility of stupid people putting their eyeballs near the laser--gun intentionally. That is not necessarily an issue with the equipment, but lots of people are stupid. Not to mention kids. That can easily become some kind of "dare".
Looks neat, although I do feel like a lot of it is more rule of cool than anything practical. There is the danger of retina damage, but the way I’d actually use it is I’d put it in a room where flying insects accidentally got in, turn it on and leave.
That being said, you can just use a misting spray with some soapy water. But lasers are cool.
Honestly, what I’d want is something that could kill larger insects, like roaches or something. Those are much more annoying to manually kill.
...that is brilliant and I am disappointed that never occurred to me before. Thank you!
A fan also works quite well! Ceiling fans are best in my experience. I imagine that, to a mosquito, a ceiling fan on high is basically a tornado.
Yeah, let me know when it's in production and I can see an independent breakdown/test of the device. At the moment this is nothing but marketing claims to support a fundraising campaign.
Not a new concept, you can build one yourself from the specs on github, hackaday wrote an article w/ a video on the project a few years back.
We (humanity) has been building them for much larger ranges, around 100ft+ since 2010, a lot has been made smaller and cheaper in the last 15 years, especially lidar and lasers.
This isn't the first of it's type, just the latest product version, Bzigo has been around since 2016(?) iirc.
also going to use this space to say:
They've been working on it since ~2010. "The current prototype idea being pursued is a perimeter based implementation known as the Photonic Fence. However, a device that can kill mosquitoes at a long enough range to make it practical has never been implemented."
Bzigo and the github/hackaday project use low powered laser pointers so you can swat the mosquito. The github specifically points out using a higher powered laser is a bad idea™.
A high powered laser reflecting off a window, or a watch, or glasses, or a phone, or anything, and partially blinding someone is a ridiculously complex problem to solve. They say they use presence detection to simply not fire if a human/pet is in the area, but that's not going to be foolproof either. It would be very easy to be around a corner and catch a stray shot to the eye from a reflection.
Knife Party references will always get an upvote.
I'm not excited for new ways of automating death.