Man uses AI and a water gun to win the balcony war with pigeons
An X post by Om Patel showing an automated balcony pigeon defence system has gone viral. Users praised the AI-powered setup for shooing birds away without harming them.
For years, city dwellers have fought an endless war against pigeons using spikes, nets, fake owls, and desperate claps from balconies. But one tech enthusiast appears to have taken things to an entirely new level by building an AI-powered automated pigeon defence system complete with a water gun turret.
A post shared by X user Om Patel has gone viral after he showcased a homemade setup designed to harmlessly chase pigeons away from a balcony where they repeatedly nested.
“Pigeons kept nesting on his balcony so he engineered a full detection and deterrent system,” Patel wrote while explaining how the machine works.
According to the viral post, the system uses a camera to capture live video footage while an AI vision model identifies pigeons in real time. Once detected, a water gun mounted on servo motors automatically turns toward the bird and sprays water to scare it away.
The setup reportedly runs on an Orange Pi 5 and uses a disassembled battery-powered water gun, a USB camera, two servo motors, resistors, and a transistor. Patel explained that the detection system runs on “YOLO World V2” using the Rockchip 3588’s built-in neural processing unit.
What impressed many online users even more was the flexibility of the system. Since it uses open-vocabulary AI detection, the device can apparently be trained to identify and deter other unwanted visitors too. “Squirrels, cats, raccoons, whatever is messing with your balcony,” Patel noted.
See the post:
Importantly, the invention does not harm the birds and simply shoos them away using water sprays.
The post quickly struck a chord online, especially among urban residents who regularly deal with pigeons invading balconies, dirtying clothes, and building nests in apartments. Many users called the setup “peak engineer behaviour,” while others jokingly demanded a commercial version immediately.
For years, city dwellers have fought an endless war against pigeons using spikes, nets, fake owls, and desperate claps from balconies. But one tech enthusiast appears to have taken things to an entirely new level by building an AI-powered automated pigeon defence system complete with a water gun turret.
A post shared by X user Om Patel has gone viral after he showcased a homemade setup designed to harmlessly chase pigeons away from a balcony where they repeatedly nested.
“Pigeons kept nesting on his balcony so he engineered a full detection and deterrent system,” Patel wrote while explaining how the machine works.
According to the viral post, the system uses a camera to capture live video footage while an AI vision model identifies pigeons in real time. Once detected, a water gun mounted on servo motors automatically turns toward the bird and sprays water to scare it away.
The setup reportedly runs on an Orange Pi 5 and uses a disassembled battery-powered water gun, a USB camera, two servo motors, resistors, and a transistor. Patel explained that the detection system runs on “YOLO World V2” using the Rockchip 3588’s built-in neural processing unit.
What impressed many online users even more was the flexibility of the system. Since it uses open-vocabulary AI detection, the device can apparently be trained to identify and deter other unwanted visitors too. “Squirrels, cats, raccoons, whatever is messing with your balcony,” Patel noted.
See the post:
Importantly, the invention does not harm the birds and simply shoos them away using water sprays.
The post quickly struck a chord online, especially among urban residents who regularly deal with pigeons invading balconies, dirtying clothes, and building nests in apartments. Many users called the setup “peak engineer behaviour,” while others jokingly demanded a commercial version immediately.
