A big-thinking Slovenian startup has created a curious smart security camera that doesn't just spy on your visitors, but will actively open fire on potential intruders with paintball pellets – or even tear gas rounds – with "ultra high precision." What could possibly go wrong?
Do-it-yourself home security systems are commonplace these days. They're clever and simple enough that more or less anyone can install one to keep watch on property when on vacation, check in on pets while at work, or to spy on Airbnb guests. The consumer market is saturated with similar gadgets, all of which tend to make this writer's eye glaze over every time a press release lobs into the inbox.
Not in this case. Meet PaintCam Eve – an armed home security camera with an itchy trigger finger.
The name is endearingly unassuming, but this smart home "guardian" has a far more mischievous (borderline evil) side. Part supersized arcade game, part Squid Game, PaintCam Eve uses automatic target marking, face recognition and AI-based decision making to identify unfamiliar visitors to your property, day or night.
It then gives an ED-209 style warning to anyone it doesn't know – and if they fail to comply and take off within the time limit, Eve will start firing off paintball pellets that'll mark the intruder for later police identification, while also hurting enough to make it highly likely they'll skedaddle rather than pressing the issue.
If pelting a potential intruder and splattering their clothes isn't quite dramatic enough for your tastes, Eve is very happy to step things up to another level altogether, with the option of frickin' tear gas projectiles. It's like having a trigger-happy squad of riot police on your porch.
Eve's creators call it "a vigilant guardian that doesn't sleep, blink, or miss a beat" and "a proactive participant in your safety." They stop short of calling it an insurance salesman-blaster, but that doesn't mean you or I have to.
Fun and potentially injurious games aside, Eve comes with your usual security camera features. There's remote access, with Eve promising to work "autonomously" if you lose internet connection to the system (again, what could possibly go wrong?).
You can also take personal responsibility for who gets peppered. For example, if someone unknown enters the camera's field, alongside a familiar visitor, the facial recognition software will notify you for instructions on what to do next. As if it wasn't already a brutal enough experience the first time you visited your partner's parents.
Some versions of the system will also identify familiar pets, implying that they'll happily open fire on the neighbor's cat or other local wildlife if you tick a box. That could certainly be handy for anyone that keeps chickens and lives near foxes.
The makers haven't provided a ton in the way of specs, but they do promise some standards you'd hope for in home security: live monitoring, customizable alerts, night vision, object tracking, movement detection and a reasonably slick and unobtrusive, easy-to-set-up design. There's also video storage and playback – and we can't imagine a security camera whose footage we'd me more interested in watching.
We have questions: Can we trust in the behavior of fellow humans to use technology as the creators intend it? (Precedent suggests absolutely not.) Could you turn Eve into a grown-up's 'knock and run' paintball game between neighborhood friends? Are burglars particularly fearful of having their clothing ruined?
Would it be morally unjust to teargas door-to-door salespeople, even if they'd so far ignored your "thanks, but no thanks" response on five earlier occasions? Should we really approach home security like modern day warfare?
If you were to test Eve's accuracy out on a late-arriving Uber food delivery driver who you witnessed dump your half-spilt, cold laksa on your doorstep, would that harm your star rating in a significant way? Asking for a friend.
And of course, would you be legally liable if this thing nailed a neighborhood kid or runaway pooch in the eyeball and caused some serious damage?
If you're as curious about this system as clearly we are, the PaintCam team launches a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign on April 23. Pricing, and hopefully more technical specs and epic videos (see below), will also come with this.
In the meantime, enjoy this prototype testing video, complete with slo-mo.
Source: PaintCam
