Customer Reviews

Annoy-a-tron

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I purchased this product as part of a home-administered hearing test I wanted to perform on my wife and dog. Neither of them seemed to listen to a word I said; I could yammer on until I was blue in the uvula, with no response. Nothing but blank stares. So I decided to find out whether they'd actually gone clinically deaf or had just learned to tune me out, by making a series of loud and annoying noises and monitoring their responses.

This little gadget boops and squeals at random times, like a crazed robotic mouse or R2-D2 on a juma juice bender. Or my senior prom date.

First, I tested the dog, clipping the Annoy-A-Tron to her collar before a walk. Even with the outside distractions, she definitely responded to the intermittent noises -- trying desperately to twist around to find the Terminator that had apparently snuck up DIRECTLY BEHIND HER. So her hearing still works -- as long as it's not me doing the beeping. Just for that, I left the device on her collar for the whole walk -- or at least until the thing squealed down the block, and she backflipped into Mrs. Wilson's petunias trying to get at it. We scurried home pretty quickly after that; the mutt doesn't listen, but she still knows when to 'cheese it!'

For my wife, I needed a less obvious hiding place, but one where I could easily observe her reactions. So I snuck into the bedroom one night before she got home, pulled the buzzer out of her alarm clock and replaced it with the Annoy-A-Tron. For the next week, she'd set the alarm, and the clock would happily beep and shriek at her. Never at the time she wanted -- and often in the middle of the night -- but it still made about as much noise, on average, as before. And she could definitely hear it; I could tell by all of the tossing and turning and angry pounding on the clock. On the last night, I jokingly called it her 'alarming clock' and she threatened to beat me to death with my own pillow. 'Because it'll take longer'.

I think I've collected all the data I need, thanks.

I hid this in my husband's pen jar on his dresser. He came to bed after I was "asleep", gave me a quick kiss, and climbed in. Two minutes later, a quick beep from his dresser. He jumped up and and went in the general direction of his dresser and checked it out, finding nothing, so he went back to bed.
Five minutes later, another beep. He jumped up and yelled "Did you hear that?" "Hear what?" I replied. "That beep. It came from my dresser." "Honey, you have a cell phone, a PDA, a camera, a ham radio, and who knows what else? Probably a low battery on one of them."
He carefully moved all of the electronics off his dresser. Five minutes later "Beep!"
"It's on my dresser! I know it! What is it! It goes off every five minutes!"
"I don't hear a thing, just go to sleep."
By now he has the lights on and is standing beside his dresser, stopwatch in hand. "Beep!"
"See! There it goes again!"
By this time, although I'm trying to pretend to be asleep, I can't hold back the laughter anymore. I get up, take the Annoyatron out, hand it to him, and say "Here. Now get some sleep."
Of course, by this time, the adrenaline has him so pumped up he doesn't get to sleep until three. Oh my, I AM evil! I actually feel kind of bad. But not bad enough to keep from doing it again.

So I try it on the teenage girl, taping it under her clock right beside the head of her bed. Three days later I ask if she has heard any random sounds. "Yeah, I hear a beep in my room every now and then. You know what it is?"

This little thing is ALMOST perfect.

My intended victim is older.. and the unfortunate thing about old people is that they can't HEAR the high beeps and squeals this thing makes. So my target was immune, except for everybody around him. So all in all, still a win, but it would be better if it had a lower pitched beep option for those hard of hearing.

I had this in my boss' office across the hall for a (business) week. By day 2, he was asking other people if they heard that noise. By day 3 he was actively looking for it. When he finally found it on day 5, he hid it on my desk for retribution, and took me a day to find as well.

I made the mistake of showing this to my mom a few months ago. For my birthday, she broke into my apartment and hid it in my bedroom. It took me 3 days to figure out what was beeping so much (I have a lot of tech junk in my room...) until one night as I have the pillow stuffed over my head trying to get to sleep it dawns on me. Oh no she didn't... Well, she did. I spent over an hour ripping my room apart, finally got back to bed by 1am and had to be at work the next day at 630.

You need to find a person with an eccentric personality to use this on since the noise can be ignore by a calmer passive person. The magnetic back makes it handy to stash away on a standard issue office desk.

Perfect roving toy! 2 days here, 2 days there. Nobody ever located it, but a few figured out what it was and the cleverest of them even knew who was to blame for the annoying chirps. I have currently placed it on a rest cycle, but the annoyance will soon be revived. Inside a cpu case, above a flourescent light fixture, the side of an air vent...the hiding places are endless. Within the Air Force, I have learned that Finance folks are most accusational, Logistics people the most curious, and Aircraft Maintainers the most tone deaf. Up next? Personnel or Training...time will tell. Who says you can't have fun in Iraq?

I was the victim of an office prank by one of my friends so I needed to find a creative way to get revenge. I read about the annoy-o-tron and immediately ordered it. I then proceeded to stick it in a random corner of my friend's office and waited for the fun to begin. The thing that makes this device effective is the noise it ommits is not very loud and at first it not even really noticeable. But over time you start to notice it in the background and it becomes one of those, "what is that....do you hear that" type of noises. It sounds like it is coming from basically every direction and is impossible to pinpoint. To my great amusement I convinced my friend it was coming from his computer speakers and the look on his face when he disconnected the speakers only to hear the noise anyway was priceless. after a month I left him off the hook, but by then the damage had been done and revenge was mine. I will offer one word of warning though. If you stick this somewhere to..ahem..."annoy" someone, make sure you remember where you put it because the battery on this thing never seems to run out!

There are three tones you can select for this device. I couldn't tell the difference between two of them, but I always use the high pitched tone anyway. It seems that anyone 40 and older can't hear it. It is a short beep and high enough frequency that it is very difficult to tell exactly where its coming from.

The first victim blamed the noise on the monitor. It was working great and he was getting mad and was about to call IT to get a new monitor. I came in early the next morning and moved it to a different part of the office and he found it right away.

Great product. I drove a few of my co workers crazy in a short time. The shipping cost seemed excessive (60% of the product price, tiny item shipped in a giant box), but overall, I am very pleased.