Lev, thanks for the reply. I’m only 1 voice on here and so my opinion doesn’t in any way mean that what I believe is the way forward, will be. The developers ultimately will make up their own minds from the pool of information and opinions on here.
To specifically, address your points made above about farming and gardening, actually I am a gardener and I have in the past pest controlled on several farms. To that end, I’d like to think I know a little. I don’t claim to know everything though or be a single voice.
Replies to your specifics kept bullet pointed for clarity and speed:
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Alarm function - some kind of alarm function is easily encompassed by eg an alarm triggered on your mobile by the app. The alternative would be a wireless sounder placed inside, your home, although the latter adds considerable expense to the overall cost.
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Siren - a 110db siren. Presumably you want this to scare human animals or larger animals. The issue with a siren is apart from annoying your neighbours, and possibly breaking nuisance laws during the day with frequent triggers and noise restriction laws / nuisance laws at night when it goes off, your neighbours will get used to looking out (assuming they even do), and seeing nothing wrong, especially if triggered by animals.
Experience with burglar alarms that frequently false alarm is after a while, no-one takes any notice. If you’re in your house, maybe you will. However, when you’re out don’t expect it to provide any protection above a plain camera. Even burglars will ignore sirens if they are able to see there’s no response, or can be hidden from view after triggering the siren but whilst breaking in.
They can also disable cameras / sirens in advance once they know they are there. A camera can discreet enough to not be seen until it’s too late and can capture a good facial picture (if mounted at the correct height) before anyone realises it’s there. Add a siren and any potential burglar can see the location from the road from triggers or previous experience eg triggers it, knocks at the door and asks directions or pretends to be a salesman etc, (ie something not actionable), then in the future takes action to avoid the camera or take it out of the picture in advance eg blindspot approach and hammer to the casing, air rifle from cover etc.
As for animal scaring, farmers have tried loud noises over decades. Gas guns have been routinely used to scare pigeons off crops. If you’re not familiar, they sound like shot guns or often really loud explosions depending on the size. The reality is, over time, animals become used to the noises and they become as useful as scarecrows are now. Again there is the nuisance factor to your neighbours which may get you in trouble with the law if you’re not entirely rural.
An example of both a scarecrow and gas gun having no effect after the animals become acclimatised:
- Deer mentioned above - Very hard to scare unless approached in person. A 6ft high perimeter fence can help although if you don’t want to live in a “prison” garden, young trees are best protected with deer mesh or bark protection sleeves.
eg of deer mesh fencing from random google result (not intended as a recommendation either for or against):
https://www.farmforestry.co.uk/fencing/deer-fencing
Tree Protection:
https://www.farmforestry.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=tree+protection
You can use mesh over fruits and veg as well.
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Animal sounds - these have the potential to be more effective although again there is a risk the animals targeted will over time learn to ignore the threat sound when there’s no visual sign of the predator to back it up. This is pretty much proven with gas guns. The noise of the shotgun scares them away until they realise there is no farmer with a gun and non of them are being attacked or dying, then the noise alone becomes ineffective. For birds, there are owl decoys that flap their wings or turn their heads, something like that maybe effective alongside a noise, although in the long run nothing is certain. I’m pretty sure this has been tested in the past and found ineffective in the long run.
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The best way to control pests is through physical barriers and lethal control where those barriers fail, (where permitted, lawful and possible and safe eg discharging a shotgun in a back garden apart from being unsafe is likely to land you in a whole host of trouble). There also might be non lethal alternatives for small pests that don’t like getting we such as those PIR triggered sprinklers: (random example not recommendation) Amazon.com : pest sprinkler Again though, the a very hungry animal or one that becomes acclimatised to being wet, will probably ignore it over time.
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Regarding the Ring Solar, if it already has everything you need, but doesn’t have a chime, the easiest way to achieve that is to ask the devs to add an alarm chime to the app, although I find it slightly puzzling it wouldn’t have some means of notifying you on activation.
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Price - although I’ve mentioned this several times in the feature coverage above, I’ll mention it here. The current Wyze costs $20. The Ring Solar costs $229. It’s in an entirely different market therefore. I doubt many Wyze buyers would be wanting the above added if it resulted in a $200 increase in price. However, as I also said above, I’m just one opinion in a whole pond of other users / posters.
