Fed up with his neighbor’s loud reggaeton, an Argentinian programmer decided to remedy the situation with an invention that went viral.
Argentinian programmer and artist Roni Bandini has a neighbor who loves reggaeton but usually plays it at odd hours with a Bluetooth speaker near his wall.
While many people might ask their neighbor to turn down the music, Bandini solved his problem in a different way: by inventing a machine called “Reggaeton Be Gone.”
It’s a box equipped with a microphone, a small computer and an algorithm that detects when a reggaeton song is on and interrupts the speaker it’s playing on.
Bandini shared her story in a video that went viral. He not only shows the device in action, but also explains how he built it, using readily available materials and a code he programmed himself.
He claims to have trained the first artificial intelligence (AI) model to specifically recognize reggaeton songs. To do this, he downloaded tracks representative of the genre and uploaded them to Edge Impulse, a machine learning development platform.
Once the AI was developed, it was time for the hardware. The programmer says he added a 3D-printed front and a small OLED screen to the metal box. Inside, he placed a Raspberry Pi 3 into which he loaded the AI model he had trained.
To detect the music, he added a microphone and wrote Python code to monitor it and send it to software that recognizes sounds.
So what happens if the machine detects reggaeton?
“If the estimate is higher than the recognition level, for example, 75 percent sure that this is my neighbor’s preferred gender, then the machine sends multiple requests and packets. [via Bluetooth] To the speaker, for which I have the MAC address, to turn it off or at least jam the audio,” Bandini explained in a video posted on social media.
Its inspiration came from TV-B-Gone, a universal remote control launched in 2004 capable of turning off TVs in public places such as shops, bars and waiting rooms. It was created by American hacker and inventor Mitch Altman.
“I understand that jamming a neighbor’s speakers may be illegal, but on the other hand listening to reggaeton at 9am every day should definitely be illegal,” Bandini added in his social media video.
His invention has gone viral, but he refuses to do business with it.
“I understand the huge commercial opportunity of making this stuff and mass selling it, but as Bartleby said, ‘I won’t do it,'” he wrote in a post. medium.
If you are into programming and want to make your own. [insert your most hated genre of music] Be Gone, Bandini has also posted one. Step by step guide.