A Global Sound Sensor Network – Powered by Home Assistant
What if Home Assistant users could help pinpoint gunshots, explosions, or other loud events in real time — and Nabu Casa could offer that data as a service to authorities around the world?
I’ve had this idea about this community-driven acoustic triangulation concept for a while, and now it’s time to toss it out there …
The idea
By placing low-cost rooftop sensors equipped with directional microphone arrays (ESP32 + 16 MEMS mics), users could anonymously share noise direction and timestamps via Home Assistant. With tens of thousands of units worldwide, sudden high-amplitude sounds could be localized within seconds — even across whole neighbourhoods or cities. The array itself will find out a direction, strength/volume at a synced time and given location, and centrally (at Nabu Casa?) the data could be combined with other sensors nearby to produce a specific point of origin. Perhaps it’s also possible to categorize the type of sound eventually (guns, loud party, thunder, car races etc).
Highlights
Directional sound detection in 22.5° steps
Real-time reporting via ESPHome/MQTT
Weatherproof, disc-shaped unit with perimeter microphones (3d printed case, or fabricated …)
Could probably be produced for less than 80 USD/EUR (perhaps NC would like to make a complete product of this like the voice assistant or HA Green)
With over 2 million Home Assistant installs globally, Nabu Casa could act as the central hub — collecting anonymized acoustic data and monetizing it for public safety applications. There are commercial versions out there, and they are really expensive …
(Sketch in CAD just for showing my thoughts so far. No real math or so behind it)
I would love to be able to create all this myself but my knowledge is very insufficient so I invite all of you to contribute with your particular skill, if you find it interesting:
hardware, software, transport protocols, sound engineering, PCB design, product design …
Below is also a hard earned concept image created by Copilot . Feedback welcome — especially from devs, makers, and data enthusiasts who want to help refine the hardware and signal processing logic!
Also… I don’t know where you live, but you’re making a lot of assumptions by proposing a “global” network.
In the UK there were around 6,000 gun crimes in the whole of last year. In most cases the gun was not fired. Police firearms officers were deployed about 17,000 times. They fired their weapons twice.
So, first, I live in Sweden - more like UK than US I believe - and might therefore be a bit naive about the misuse of this kind of thing
However I might not have been clear enough about one thing: I kind of want this for myself anyway since the surrounding area where I live has become more populated recently and there are like more late night parties with LOUD music, and I find it very difficult to pinpoint the direction it comes from. (Also there is a shooting range not far away, in the opposite direction, with quite restricted times that are sometimes not followed and that’s really loud as well.) So, frankly, I would like this to be able to “tell on people” (becoming a grumpy old man, I guess ) but not having good data to tell the Police (if that’s who I’m calling).
So, my thought was that if I collect that data anyway I could just as well let someone else (Nabu, that I don’t support in any other way) make use of the data, and there by make sure that the development of HA can go on, since I think it’s the best thing since the Internet.
Risk assessment has not been my first concern, no. And NOTHING in this is meant to be mandatory!!!
Highlights
. Feedback welcome — especially from devs, makers, and data enthusiasts who want to help refine the hardware and signal processing logic!
) but not having good data to tell the Police (if that’s who I’m calling).
