Live With It: Haikubox (Patreon)

Dr. Nicole Ackermans, the DTNS Science correspondent, shares her experience with the AI powered audio bird identifier Haikubox.

featuring Sarah Lane and Dr. Nicole Ackermans.

Dr. Ackermans notes:

What is it?

Haikubox is an easy-to-use smart device powered by artificial intelligence which automatically and continuously identifies your birds’ songs and calls.  The app and website provide recordings, audio spectrograms, and loads of information so you can learn more about your birds’ behaviors and migration patterns.  And with customizable bird alerts, you’ll never miss a bird!

Cool anecdote: The small 4-person team of scientists developed this tech using a Natural Science Foundation grant (public funds). Which is a lot of work so kudos for that.

Note: currently sold out but there is a waitlist

Why would you want it?

If you’re a nature enthusiast, a bird watcher, or you just want to find our what hangs out in your backyard, this could be for you. The main thing is constant recording without you having to do anything. I can imagine this would also be really useful for nature centers if it were more accurate. More about that in a bit.

How I tested it?

I had the unique opportunity to test the haikubox both in an urban and suburban environment. I’ll note that DTNS paid for this product, so we get to say whatever we want about it.

For the whole month of December, I set up the Haikubox outside my tiny Manhattan apartment, on my fire escape directly above 2nd avenue. For people who have never been to New York, it’s a loud road, I measured the decibels and it was constantly going from around 60-90db.

Then, it just so happened that I was moving, I brought the haikubox along with me and set it up outside my new townhouse in Alabama, which has a small strip of forest next to it and a smaller road. Ideal testing contexts if you ask me!

Test overview

· Outdoor vs indoor plug - annoying

· The database they use definitely does not take non-bird noises into account (car horns, sirens, helicopters, people talking, dogs barking) and all of those examples were a problem at some point. This is its biggest flaw in my opinion but it is relatively easy to fix if they wanted to.

· Error rate about 80% in the city vs about 25% in the suburbs

· Obviously not designed with city customers in mind at all. Which is a shame because there’s wildlife in the city too

· Novelty wears off after a while, the app is not engaging enough

How the app works

· It shows you a rolling list of all the birds it identified for up to 24h with low, medium, and high accuracy. You can go through them and listen to the recordings to identify them as correct or not, and compare them to a linked merlin sound library if you don’t trust your own ears enough. Here is where my pet peeves start: if you do not manually identify them it automatically assumes they are correct. Considering the rate of error I talked about earlier, that is concerning if you are relying on this box for accurate data. Let’s say if one of these was owned by a nature preserve for example. That really bugged my scientific data collection side.

· Second problem with the app is if you do go through it and manually identify the calls as correct, incorrect, unsure or something else, it records the data but doesn’t change anything in what you see in the app. So if you close it and come back it looks like you haven’t done anything. That was super frustrating for me as a user because not only am I fixing your AI dataset for free but I feel like my progress isn’t being recorded (even though, thankfully it is).

· Third problem that affects data nerds and bird watchers alike: if you mark a recording as

false, which I had to do many times when the app thought for sure the sound of car breaks was a hawk screeching, it does not correct the data, so you still have 149 hawk calls allegedly recorded in your backyard when in fact you very well know it’s the garbage man that comes by every morning. If you are someone who we call a “lister” in the birdwatching community, ie you collect bird sightings like pokemon, you now can’t rely on this $400 device for accuracy. Same thing if you’re collecting data for any kind of scientific project, which is a shame and a lost market for this device IMO.

· Examples

New York white-throated sparrow (correct): https://haikubox.social/whtspa_46_2022-10-10T11:22:07.630418Z.html

Alabama tufted titmouse (correct): https://haikubox.social/tuftit_95_2023-01-08T14:51:07.560979Z.html

“Raven”/drunk person: https://haikubox.social/comrav_60_2022-11-04T02:32:43.553483Z.html

“peregrine falcon”/ Squeaky gate from Jurassic park:  https://haikubox.social/perfal_35_2022-11-04T08:53:39.358327Z.html

· Final problem: they advertise the alert function of the app that sends you a push notification when a new bird call is recorded so that you can run out of your house and find out what it is. I have found these alerts to be really inconsistent. Sometimes they tell me about a bird I’ve head 100 times already, sometimes I only find out later that it didn’t alert me to something rare. On top of the fact that I don’t 100% trust the accuracy so I’m less prone to get excited about it.

· There is a page on the app where they list how many species you have identified in total, your streak etc. I like this beause I like seeing my stats, but once again I’m frustrated because it is inaccurate since that hawk wasn’t actually in my backyard.

Specs?

· Wifi and Bluetooth connected

· Relatively simple app, But it feels unfinished (I’m on Android)

· Hard wired, short cable

· Good mic, good connectivity, good range

· Buy once ($399) vs annual membership ($190 box + $59/y = $249 total)

• You can choose to share data or not to improve the AI if you’re concerned about it overhearing your conversation

Cons

· Not accurate enough. BIGGEST CON (we know it is possible because ebird does it well)

· Novelty wears off after a while, the app is not engaging enough. They need to gamify it more.

· Price. I understand these things cost money to make and they are a small company. But $400 for essentially a beta project is what makes this go on the CON list..

Pros

· Small business but SUPER RESPONSIVE. Best part of this whole experience. I asked for downloadable data so I could do my own data analysis, and they implemented it within days of that email. They’re still working on the other app problems I brought up.

· It is the only product on the market as far as I’m aware that does continuous identification. The Merlin app only does it when you press play on your app and runs for 15min max, even though it is much more accurate.
This is also great for people with reduced mobility. It can also give you an idea of when to start going birdwatching, if you start to hear more spring birds more frequently for example.

· No complaints about any of the hardware, mic probably better than merlin since it uses your phone mic.

• It has made me better at recognizing bird calls. This is a big plus for birdwatchers community.

· Huge potential for the scientific community if they improve the app and AI accuracy. It is definitely fixable since the hardware is good! I imagine you could prove a rare bird frequents a certain area and get it protected using this device!

Recommendation?

3 out of 5

I would say, as it stands I would not recommend this product, even though I’m really rooting for them! Lucky for you it’s out of stock anyway.

For what it currently offers I would recommend it as a fun novelty for $50 without blinking, and maaaaybe even stretch it to $100. But at what is essentially luxury pricing they need their app to be much nicer and the AI to be much more reliable. Because of how responsive they were to my emails I have hope that they will be able to improve the product to reach its full potential.