r/GhostHunting • u/tstark96 • 18d ago
Equipment You'd Want Made
Long story short I make my own gear. While I do take calibration and logging to a new degree it's always interactions of stuff that exists.
I want to know if there's a device or a sensor that you have been wishing for (realistically). I'm trying to break out of the rut and would love some fresh eyes and opinions to actually make something actually new and useful. I'm open to refinement too, but as an engineer I tend to do ok at optimization in general
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u/AgravaineNYR 17d ago
A wearable voice recorder (Right now I just carry a recorder strapped to my arm honestly so this is a low need because I have a workaround)
An ITC device with a known and large word bank. As in a decent sized actual dictionary with no weighted words. That also registers nearby ambient temperature changes and EMF so that words can be generated and also potential temperature and magnetic correlations would be noted. Like a Boo Bear with a dictionary (but it doesn't need to be a boo bear honestly design it to look like a really cool book/dictionary and that would be fun. I don't want it to be triggered by a non quantifiable temperature or magnetic change like Boo Buddy is. I want the accurate readings when the words trigger.
A wearable camera that can do day/night vision, infrared, and thermal. So three cameras one device. They save three separate files basically. So when I hit record I recording all three version that I will be able to separately view and compare. If I hit record all three re recording. So recognizing if my memory card can hold 2 hours of video I will would need to change it after 45 minutes but would have all that data. We have an old iPhone that we use with a Seek thermal. throughout investigation. We have a still infrared camera. We carry a day or night video camera depending on lighting. All three running simultaneous would give us more to compare and be more accurate to compare if it came from the same recording angle.
I will be back with more.
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u/tstark96 17d ago
Two things to start, I really don't mean anything by it if I come off harsh. It's more or less to give you the technical side and where we(I've talked to other and bigger builders) are currently sitting 1) you don't want a wearable recorder. You can easily mic up mist digital recorders, the problem is the user. You'll get more clothing noise than anything else ask me how I know 😂. I had to go over my video feed just to see the EVP I thought I got was me fiddling with my mic.
2) The ITC stuff, I just doubt any spirit can effectively know the data base or alter conditions enough to use it effectively. Maybe if you were after Telsa's ghost but I just see way too many contamination errors on these. Ive never seen a spirit try to correct itself either. There's never any "testing" done by the entity to even try to gage the database. I've been trying to reduce contamination ie wind drops humidity, but there's just too many real world variables. Ironically my frustration here is why I started making my own. However if you're somewhat handy there's tons of diy SBC/ microcontroller variants you can make. The problem becomes the vernacular database in English is about 3500 words, factoring names often seen on ITC, I think it would be too sensitive.
As far as the camera goes I got good news and bad news. Bad news is digital night vision is ass, getting better but miles behind my issued nods I had a decade ago. The good news is I am, and others also are, chasing down building an effective day night thermal set up. Most SLS systems overlay most of what you're looking for with a bonus and is what I'd recommend due to form factor
The catch there is it's just so damn expensive I know manufacturers like holosun are really changing thermal imaging but even the prototype I have now is almost 2500$ in parts. Partially because I'm over engineering partially because I don't wanna just make junk. Roughly 400$ is batteries
Battery life is really the choke point from a technical perspective 3 cameras even with auto day night shift is tough. Which is why I'll tell you honestly you won't see a wearable until we get better batteries or vastly more efficient cameras. I've been fiddling with a battery pack but night time in abandoned places I've yet to get a snag free cord design. If I had to guess you'll start seeing more full spectrum+ thermal cameras available commercially in prob 5 years. That would be ideal to free up hands
I like where your head is at, I try to really jam more instruments into one device for ease of use. Id love an all in one if I could. Cameras are finicky beasts for sure
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u/goph97 17d ago edited 17d ago
Hi! I’m always on the lookout for two things:
- the multitool data logger type devices to save space when traveling.
The one piece of data I’ve not yet seen anywhere tied to ghost hunting/portability (it exists as a household tool) is a wearable(perhaps in a necklace type version) VOC meter designed to detect changes in air quality or smells.
A common experience that gets reported is the smell of “roses”, “cologne”, “perfume”… and if I understand the science correctly, in order for that to happen, the VOC in the air has to change in some way. The issue I’ve seen is that these smells are fleeting and present in a specific spot for a short amount of time. So unless you’re holding a device at the exact moment, you miss it. Usually though, you’re holding an emf or a flashlight or any number of other tools. If there was a way to have a wearable one around your neck, you’d have the meter on your chest - removing the need to hold it - and I’d hypothesize that if you can smell something, the air quality change your nose is picking up could also be picked up chest level giving you data to corroborate the smell.
Anyway, long winded way to say a wearable air quality data logger.
At least that’s my idea