In light of all the mass shootings and since I live in an area where we hear a lot of gunshots, Would it be possible to develop an audio AI trigger for gunshots? It would be a great feature if gunshots could be detected to activate video recording and notifications?
This would be difficult. Even among highly sophisticated systems employed by municipalities I’ve heard it is a challenging environment. Gunshots sound different based on many variables. The type of weapon, the direction of fire relative to the observer (you shooting at me or away from me), the rate of fire, the sound environment (other noise, echos, absorption, etc).
Could these challenges be overcome with auto-magical AI and excellent microphone technology? Probably, but the cost would likely be high and the reliability mediocre.
When it comes to gunshots, you probably want really high reliability and not getting an alert for every wrench drop, car backfire, steel bar dropped, or nail-gun.
In the commercial systems, I’ve heard about they use multiple microphones in an environment to help them identify the sound.
Do I think machine learning could get pretty good at identifying rifles being fired on a firing range? Sure, but that’s not what we’d be looking for.
For now, Wyze sound recording setting will have to do.
All that said, I don’t work for Wyze… who knows.
We have a kid in the neighborhood who modified their car’s exhaust to make sounds just like gunshots. The first time he went by, I ducked, even though our neighborhood is relatively quiet. The second time I heard it, I found a video of the car going by making the noise. Called the sheriff and haven’t heard it since.
That is wild but not unheard of when it comes to teens pushing boundaries.
I should emphasize for the OP that I think it’s a good question. Brainstorming about ideas is important and worthwhile. And, for example, I think “Percussive Noise Alert” would be a lot easier to implement.
Sure you’d likely catch many loud noises that aren’t gunfire (neighbor practicing drums or hammering), you’d also catch most high-power gunfire, especially if you set the decibel detection level high and were only interested in local alerts.
If that level of notification is acceptable then I think Wyze could rather ‘easily’ implement that. You could not call it a “gunshot detector” but “percussive noise detector” or “loud bang detector” or some variation should be totally possible.