267
Maker uses Raspberry Pi and AI to block noisy neighbor's music by hacking nearby Bluetooth speakers
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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Idk maybe go over and knock on the door and have a conversation about it?
Seems easier.
From my experience, people this noisy are unlikely to be cooperative about it. Or anything else
This has been my experience too. A random party w/ friends that rages until the next morning after 2 months of silence? Sorry, didn't mean to be that loud. We'll keep it down next time, let you know in advance, & even extend an invite. An every 3rd day blasting of music at whatever hour? Fuck you, I pay rent, I don't care if it bothers you.
I've found the opposite.
A lot of people don't understand just how paperthin those walls are or they come from an environment of "there will be noise". If someone actually, politely, asks them to keep it down during reasonable hours, then people usually will.
The issue is when people pound on the door as though the noise maker is the greatest asshole ever. That triggers spite. Same with unreasonable demands.
Like, if someone asks me to keep it down at 10 PM? I will apologize like hell and turn it down. You ask me to keep it down at 9 am? I will probably tell you to go fuck yourself and explain that you live in an apartment building and there is going to be noise.
Fun story time! One of my exes was very much "the loud neighbor". Clomping around in heavy slippers at all hours of the night, playing loud music, turning up her tv, having a subwoofer in an apartment, etc. After I realized and felt bad I had an awkward talk like "hey... have any of your neighbors ever complained? Because if this were my apartment they would hear this god awful lawyer show from the lobby". She didn't believe me so I told her to just step out into the hallway and then she was MORTIFIED. Immediately turned down everything and unplugged the sub. Even wrote up a nice letter that she taped on all her neighbors' doors to apologize.
Within a week there had been a complaint filed against her for "vandalizing" someone's door... by taping an apology note on there.
Good times.
Ah yes, YTA then.
I know it is fun to sleep in on a weekend but 9 am is very much "waking hours". It is also when kids are up and bouncing around because saturday morning cartoons are on (... do kids still watch digimon? probably not) and people are getting started on the long projects that take all day.
Because they are just as entitled to live in their space as you are.
I dunno. I was raised that 2200-0800 are "quiet time", regardless of the day of the week. Outside of that? Try not to be an asshole but... people gotta live. That said, if I know a neighbor just had a kid or something I tend to make that closer to 2100-0800. But people got stuff to do.
If you need more than that? I have seen an increasing number of "quiet" apartment complexes where everyone is expected to wear headphones and... those sound miserable to me but you do you. Also, sound insulation is not THAT expensive and is a potentially good choice for the people who want to sleep until noon.
Property developers will do literally anything but invest 2 €/m² in decent sound insulation. What the hell.
Soundproofing should be just as mandatory as fireproofing, it's such a stupid problem to be having and it's one of the main drivers causing people to flee to single family homes which is a whole environmental and socioeconomic catastrophe.
The issue is that insulated walls make everything harder. Piping, wiring, etc. So any upgrade gets a lot more tedious (so expensive) and any repair similarly costs more. I also imagine a lot of property developers/construction firms are still wary after Asbestos and are just waiting for the shoe to drop on "Little Timmy poked a hole in the wall and started eating the cotton candy and died".
It also matters a lot less because of global warming but insulation also has strong implications on climate control where the idea is for the sunny side to diffuse heat to the shaded side of the building and so forth.
And I still generally don't think it is a major issue. Maybe it was city living for a few years but people generally are good about not being loud outside of "waking hours". Sure you might hear some moaning and creaking through the wall but most people aren't into vigorous tantric sex so that lasts 30 minutes at the worst. Yes, sometimes you do get that obnoxious asshole who spends every night composing a symphony. But most people who are loud just genuinely don't know they are being loud because nobody has ever talked to them.
The one time I did live near a hell neighbor? I just went down to the hardware store and bought some sound baffling and put it up in my bedroom with bluetack. Didn't cost much and I assume it has gotten even cheaper now that everyone and their mother is A Streamer.
Yet your attitude to this is to tell anyone who dares approach you to "go fuck themselves". Huh
9am isn't early.
Full on heavy duty power tools at 9AM are perfectly valid and it's impossible for anyone but the person complaining to be the asshole.
I've seen tape rip paint off when it's removed. The door has to be removed, sanded back (the entire door, not just where the tape was... because door paint fades and you can't match the color). A door needs three coats of hard wearing slow drying paint - has to dry overnight between coats... making it a four day job.
Worst of all, the door has to be horizontal while the paint dries - so that's four days with no front door. Not an option. They will usually just replace the door and that can cost thousands (but at least it won't leave you without a front door for days).
If you want to leave a note for someone - use the letterbox.
Yeah see that shit just isn't worth it. I had a neighbour threaten to pour milk into a work colleague's car door once. Car doors are full of noise insulation material that would have soaked up the milk and gone mouldy/started to stink. Costs a fortune to fix that.
Best thing to do in my opinion is call the police, anonymously. If it's not worth a formal complaint then it's not worth complaining at all.
I put a note on a neighbors door about her dog that was scratching at the door, and making the door wobble, which made the whole building shake. She put a note taped to her own door rambling about abuse and how she would call the police, etc.
When she was eventually evicted, they had to tear up the entire place, leaving the windows open to air out for over a month before they could rent it again.
Might be. Wouldn't know until you try, though.
I have a schizophrenic alcoholic 60y troll of a woman (like troll, physically) living upstairs. Always banging, screaming, listening to shitty drinking songs on a loop.
But I went over. Several times.
Now I just wear earplugs, take benzos and occasionally think about picking up my hammer and going for another "talk". I thought about milder options as well. Superglue in her keyhole? Then she'd have to call a locksmith, and she's not capable of holding a conversation long enough to convey she needs one.
Wish she had bt speakers I could hack, but that'd probably just make her scream more.
And the landlord won't do shit after years of me sending videos of this loony.
Get your own speakers. Point them up. Play the Doom OST.
This can be everyone's problem, not just yours.
Oh I have them. I don't think she's ever heard them over the sound of her drinking songs, screeching and the demons screeching in her head.
I thought if some official person ever saw her, she'd fly out. So that's why I thought glue in the keyhole, so she has to call a locksmith (which I'm sure she won't manage) and then that person will see into her apartment. Where I don't know what the shit she does, bangs and drills and jumps all day. It's like she's woodworking or something every wednesday.
Landlord doesn't give a shit. I've sent videos and doesn't even go check her.
I'd love to get my subwoofer screwed tightly to the roof and then just turn that on for lulz when she gets crazy. Which is pretty much everyday. But then when will I have peace?
Haven't read a single book while living in this apartment.
Dude in my apartment complex was murdered for asking his neighbor to turn their music down. The civil option doesn't work when the other party isn't civil, unfortunately.
I tried this, once.
There was 3 gunshots from what sounded like inside the place before my knuckles hit the door, and I turned around and ran the fuck back home.
This isnt the 1950s. Asking assholes to have some consideration, no matter how polite, is a good way to get dead.
(for the record,later found out the gunshots were from the back yard, turns out they were also drunk and shooting guns into the air for... reasons?)
Perhaps for you Americans.
I live literally in the worst area of my city in Finland, and I don't need to fear anything like that.
In my last apartment, my downstairs neighbour was a guy who had sat 14 years for 1st degree murder and he hustled meth. He was actually pretty chill, and I was never even the slightest bit worried about him.
I've driven a taxi on weekends and evenings, driving bikers from their clubhouses. One guy jumped in literally yelling "were gonna go kill people" into his phone "no I don't have any money" and whatnot. I didn't challenge him, thought it easier to just drive him where he wants to. Ended up going to his brother, who was a very normal family man, he talked the face tattooed biker down, then gave him money. It ended up being the best fare of my night.
All this because we have gun control. I really don't have to be afraid. I mean, I have been, several times, as a younger person. But at least here in Finland, you don't actually need to fear much more than perhaps getting a fist in the face.
So yeah, please tell me more about how hacking your possibly armed and unreasonable neighbour would be less upsetting to him than just asking them to? Or writing a polite letter?
Kids these days will do everything to avoid social interaction, honestly.
Waking up at 9, putting on some reggaeton for your morning routine isn't that unreasonable and if no-one complains, how would you know you're bothering someone? And if your BT speaker just cuts out, you'd definitely try to figure out why, and perhaps even try getting a new one, so hacking won't actually solve the issue.
Yeah part of the problem you’re skipping past is that American apartments are built with twigs and paper. To maximize profits they’re built cheaply with minimal consideration for noise reduction, so you can hear your neighbor’s TV, fights, fucking, and their obnoxious music. If I could have found a way to shut off my neighbor’s TV blasting I absolutely would have, and you don’t need some asshole who already has broken the social contract of keeping noise at a reasonable level knowing where you live for potential harassment reasons.
People like this can be unstable. I had to live next door to someone like this. After another neighbor demanded that someone to turn down their music. That someone later on started throwing rocks at my house.
The schizophrenic makes so much noise upstairs that my drunken downstairs troll of a neighbour (but like, half-troll, compared to the upstairs one) came banging on my door one night while I was sleeping.
This building sucks but I haven’t the money to move.
Oh and "can be unstable"? No. She is. Very much. I'm not calling her schizophrenic. She is. Like I know that for a fact, I was once in the pharmacy when she got her pills, I know about meds, and you can't really get much stronger schizophrenia medication without being in a hospital.
You'd think so, but the same inconsiderate morons that loudly blast music at all times of the day and night tend not to take constructive criticism very well.
Sure, but this person apparently always plays the same music, at the same time of the day, in the morning.
Not "at all times of the day and night."
My B. They are just an inconsiderate moron in the morning.
Living in an apartment building means that there will be normal sounds of living.
Turning music on at 9am on the dot every morning hardly seems unreasonable. Some apartment buildings have such thin walls you can't even really talk to someone without someone hearing a bit of mumbling through.
So if you think there should be 100% silence everytime you'd like some, then I think you're being rather inconsiderate.
Whoa there friend, I'm not the one that made a Raspberry Pi powered interference device. I will stand by my statement that people that loudly blast music all hours of the day and night are morons. I'm also really happy to not live in an apartment anymore.
Yes, I would agree with that statement, but playing music every day at 9am, and similar, chill/energetic music implies that this person isn't in fact blasting music "all day".
I've lived in buildings with the worst people, and usually the morons who blast music like that, blast it at night.
I had a meth head murderer as a neighbour (he sat more than a decade for murder). He was a chill guy actually. I hung out with him a couple of times, not too stupid either.
Anyway then he got back into speed and meth and then he got better speakers and despite living two floors down from me, I could feel the bass at night.
I don't know why no-one called the cops. I couldn't, since I really didn't want to be in a position in which I'd have had to lie to a murderer about "snitching" on him, because calling the cops would've ofc meant they figure out the drugs.
Eventually someone did call the cops, after, like, weeks of every few days him having insane bass at all hours of the day, continuously. The cops had to use powertools to saw his door in half so they could even get in. (Gave him time to flush a half a kilo of speed.)
Now I don't mind talking about it because he's dead.
Anyway, in a situation in which it's more than likely a methhead high as fuck, no, I perhaps wouldn't engage. I'd just curse them silly.
But this article seems to be about a person with a nice morning schedule. Which I feel is very different as a situation.
Cool story.
You vs a group of drunk, inadequate people, at night. What can go wrong?
Tried that with my neighbor once. It escalated until I was calling cops on him at 3:30 in the morning. People are shit and don't care until someone finally has enough and retaliates.
Can't always do that, for example in condo buildings. If they live in another building you may not be able to get into it at all, and often getting to different floors isn't possible.
I have a neighbor 3 houses down that does this same shit with shitty rock music every single night from about 7pm to 6am. He's been talked to and had the police called on him multiple times but he doesn't give a shit and keeps doing it (going on maybe 2 years now) the guy directly across from him is even a state trooper and that hasn't made any impact either.
haha, somebody made this exact same comment on hacker news!