A plastic prank device that can be purchased on Amazon for $13.97 was the cause of the problem.
Paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/wFcbt
What was the device?
Probably this, going off of the price and description in the article.
Probably right because they said it sounded like a cricket.
Sounds like an annoyatron or a clone. A tiny device that randomly beeps with a time interval just long enough to be hard to find and annoying. They’ve been around for a couple decades.
The good ones don’t even use the same time interval each time. They’re all over a minute or two, but sometimes like 5 or 6 minutes. They’re truly diabolical.
I’ve seen ones that also have a photosensor so you can set it to only make noise if the lights are out.
Once upon a time I wired up a tiny little audio mux and attached it to my boss’s speakers, along with a bluetooth receiver. I was able to use my phone to inject random Mario sound effects into his music stream all day.
He was convinced he had a virus so he unplugged his audio from the computer, and to his surprise the speakers kept playing sounds sporadically.
No the elders of the Internet would never trust him with it. It’s too risky
I love that this happened.
If they are so afraid of being overheard, I wonder what probably illegal scheme that were cooking up.
