I’d want to see some third-party testing around eye safety before putting this in my home.
Instead of laser, they should have made a mechanical hand with fly zapper, fragile/soft enough to not injure people and pets, yet strong enough to kill mosquito. Or even like in that movie where kung-fu master catches a fly using chopsticks :)
This isn't the best example, how is it supposed to hit your retina if your eyes are closed?
> "Importantly, the device additionally uses millimeter-wave radar to scan its field of view for larger objects such as people and pets. If any of these are detected, its mosquito-zapping laser will not fire."
I note the startup doesn't actually disclose the laser output power anywhere, or what regulatory class that power level falls in. It's federal law[0] that commercially-sold lasers are labelled with this information.
and there are things that can be done.
heat and motion detectors that disarm the system if people/pets are present fields of fire that are above 99.999 % of peoples eyes fields of fire very close to walls, where mosquitos alight, but it is almost impossible to get in the way for humans multiple laser turrets that indivualy dont have the power to hurt a human badly, but can zap a bug through co ordinated action.....perhaps set up outdoors with artificial breath and infra red bait traps to bring the mosquitos above a crowd. more robust systems to be used in agricultural contexts. this will be about comfort and protecting vulnerable populations, mosquitos/other bugs wont be going anywhere, chemical control has proven to cause ecological probelms worse than the bugs, and the attempts at useing biological methods is only a partial solution.
A human eye being transparent up to the fragile retina, yes, a laser would penetrate the eye and be concentrated in an extremely small spot on the retina. That's exactly the reason why we have safety around lasers, and why everything above 5mw is strictly for enclosed use. 40 watts shot at random in the void is definitely dangerous by all measures.
A retina being easier to burn than a mosquito is the fundamental reason why we haven’t seen that tech deployed. LiDAR detection with a 2D goniometer + high power laser has been available commercially for a while. There just never was someone to create something so deceptive as to sell a 40watts device as possibly safe.
As incorrect as it is misspelled. Reflections are inherently coherent.
> if it was very focused UV it could cause temporary blindness
The wavelength being UV (which it certainly is not) is irrelevant. Blindness can result from any visible spectrum laser, or from thermal IR damage.
You've lost all credibility to me at this point.
> 5 milliwatts is wimpy. We can do better.
A 1-watt laser is an extremely dangerous thing. It’s not just powerful enough to blind you—it’s capable of burning skin and setting things on fire. Obviously, they’re not legal for consumer purchase in the US.
Just kidding! You can pick one up for $300[1].
Microsoft alum fights malaria by zapping mosquitoes with lasers | ZDNET https://share.google/qd3yWi72Zk9yRyxoh
"The concept of a laser-based mosquito defence system took off back in 2007, when astrophysicist Lowell Wood (one of the architects of the USA's famous Reagan-era "Star Wars" missile defence initiative) raised the idea of a smaller, mosquito-targeting laser system at a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation brainstorming session on eliminating malaria.
Over the following years, prototypes were built, using freely available parts from cell phones and laser printers. A device was patented and demonstrated by a company called Intellectual Ventures, which was more interested in owning the patent than making a product. "
I really hope that after copyright protections (insanely long, IMO) get revamped in the LLM aftermath, we start focusing on patent law. Patents were always in my mind a way to protect small_inventor from big_bad_corp, and give them a breathing room to get a product to market. We should really focus on this, and make patents moot as long as a) a working prototype is not demonstrated, b) the patent holder doesn't pursue the tech, c) a small domain-specific timeframe (less for medicine for example) and d) it's really really generic (i.e. a method to have LLM agents work in a loop - no, bobby, everyone can do that.)
The fact it doesn't do houseflies is a huge downer though.
Say you need to deliver at least M joules of energy at the wavelength of the laser to the mosquito over at most T seconds in order to kill it, and suppose and eyes must receive less than E joules of energy at the wavelength over that same timeframe to not be damaged.
Encircle the area you want to protect with at least M/E lasers each individually each with low enough output power to not damage an eye if they hit is directly. Control all these lasers with a common controller which picks out a target and fires all the lasers at it simultaneously.
The target gets hit with all the lasers receiving a fatal rapid influx in energy. Anyplace else in the area that gets hit by any beams that miss the target should only get hit by one and so be safe.
Add a suitable safety margin by increasing the number of lasers and decreasing their individual power so that even if a person or animal gets a direct hit from one beam plus reflections from a couple more they will be safe.
That should be safe for almost all normal rooms. Train the installers to refuse to install in places with a lot of curved reflective surfaces, such as mirror coated elliptical room where a miss trying to zap a mosquito at one focus could be bad news for a human at the other focus.
40 watts / 5 milliwatts (safety threshold) = 8000 lasers needed in the system you propose
1. this is NOT a product is an Indiegogo fund raising:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/worlds-first-portable-mos...
the product estimated shipment should be * october 2025*
2. In the Indiegogo page, they assert it will use a Lidar ( laser based) and not a mm radar ( based on radio signals );
3. Can a Lidar track something big as a mosquito ? apparently NO:
https://dronelife.com/2025/04/15/sony-launches-worlds-smalle...
the small Lidar for commercial use like the Sony AS-DT1 , advertised like the "World’s Smallest and Lightest Precision LiDAR Sensor" available today hare a resolution of * ±5 centimeters* that is good for an Xenomorph but not for a mosquito and, anyway , for Xenomorph there are better options :-) , see : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS2PtmM9mwU
4. The video of the company on youtube seems just another computer graphic gimmick to sell vaporware, IMHO. There is a prototype someone can independently test ?
They write "Relying on the advancement of lidar detection technology, this sci-fi and magical product will soon truly become a reality", I have to say no, not for now.
Please tell me if I'm wrong.
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