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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

Lots of safety concerns are brought up, but I'm really curious how drones will play out in conjunction with noise and NIMBYism. Drones are loud, so I can't imagine that commercial drone activity (Especially at night) will happen without heavy pushback from locals.

NASA did a study and found that the noise drones make is perceived to be more annoying than those from cars [1]. They acknowledge noise-based pushback as an issue, even if they're no louder than cars.

[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201700...

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I don't think that's a NIMBY - pretty sure people not into drones will just be against the noise in their backyard or other peoples backyards.

Its such a minor and rare sound though. A car driving past you is so much louder and more annoying as well as being more common. In fact I can think of countless common and accepted sounds that we find acceptable.

A car driving past me doesn't sound like someone trying to destroy a power tool. [1]

Unless it's driven by one of those jerks who mod their exhaust, that is.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DYre_EZKU - I've heard more annoying sounds, but this is probably in my top ten, or fifteen.

Cars are becoming very quiet, especially electrical cars. But drones are basically flying vuvuzelas. They are not just loud - their sound is insufferable.

I live next to a fairly busy road AND under the approach to Dulles Airport (not the final, but what is effectively the "right pattern").

To my ears, drones are far more annoying than either the constant whoosh-whrrr of the road, or the occasional rumble of a heavy airliner (narrow bodies and GA planes make way less noise - it's the A380s and 747s that make enough noise to make me look up). The pitch of the quad rotors is higher, which to most people, is a more invasive sound.

In my neighborhood, a noisy drone would get shot out of the sky pretty quickly. Or even a not-so-noisy one, if it were spotted over someone else's property.

No they wouldn't. Have fun sending rounds into the sky hitting nothing but air. You can hit a randomly moving target at 1000 feet consistently?

It's probably not so hard to hit with a shotgun for someone used to dropping fast, randomly moving birds (doves) out of the sky. And even if it takes a couple shots, who's counting?

No way drones are louder than cars, so worst case scenario, they get restricted to flying over already established roadways. Not a brilliant solution, but better than nothing.

That being said NIMBYism isn't always logical. Even if you presented a plan that proves their would be no increase in noise, I could see a lot of people not believing it.

Yes way, and it's not the volume it's the pitch.

Drones emit a high pitch whine that is annoying and irritating, and ruins plenty of quite natural viewpoints with assholes trying to get that pullback shot for their vlog.

This isn't NIMBYism or Ludditeness - I'm pro drones for practical uses. I'm anti Drones X Instagram Influencer culture that permeates hikes, and stresses out my dog (who is even more sensitive to high pitched noises than I am)

You can barely hear (or even see) a small drone above about 100m.

It's like a bee. You know its there, you can barely hear it. I can see why people get annoyed by them

Not really. I have a drone, and if it's high enough, I can't hear it, and have trouble even seeing it.

I don't mean "barely hear" as in it's quiet, I mean "if you didn't specifically know where and when to look for it you'd never know it was there."

multiply that by many, many drones. Those "small" drones aren't what they will use for delivery services. They are not nearly powerful enough to carry more of a load much more than it's own weight. They are even louder taking off and landing. I own 2.

Larger drones tend to be more quiet, or at the very least are perceived to be so due to the lower pitch sound made by larger, more slowly rotating propellers.

Helicopters have lower pitch and larger, slower rotating blades as well. They're not quiet, and they've had a lot longer to perfect the blade tech. My block gets about 15 deliveries per day from UPS/USPS/FedEx/Amazon/etc. Have you been near a drone, of any size, taking off and landing? It's quite loud. They're not just going to drop the package from the sky. They're going to be constantly landing and taking off to deliver the package, right near you.

Helicopters have a large airframe directly under the blades. That is part of the problem with their noise generation.

On any given day, for most of the year, there's a good chance that someone in earshot of me is running a lawnmower, a string trimmer, or a leaf blower, all of which are louder than a drone. There's also a guy down the road who regularly leaves his loud diesel truck idling, motorcycles going down the road, and occasional jets flying overhead.

All of this annoys the hell out of me, but no one else seems to care. Certainly not enough to ban any of it.

  a lawnmower, a string trimmer, or a leaf blower

All of these are used in daytime almost exclusively.

We're talking about replacing/supplementing residential delivery trucks, which don't run at night.

>They're going to be constantly landing and taking off to deliver the package, right near you.

For delivery, would using a (possibly guided) parachute be an option sometimes? For example if there is a landing target left in someone's yard.

Already happened a few times to me that I could distinctly hear a drone's buzzing but couldn't pinpoint where it was because it was between 50 to 100 meters high and some 50 meters away. It was just an annoying sound because it was a quiet, non windy day.

They are loud for now. That will change.

Fans, helicopters etc have been around for decades and are still mostly loud.

You can't escape the physics that moving air causes noise.

Energy efficient buildings tend to handle noise pollution better with their extra insulation. Not ideal, but there's always a solution.

I don't think it is a good idea for the sanity of people to tell them to stay inside and have really good sound insulation. We have to remember that sound pollution is a health issue and impacts people's lives. I have my doubts how efficient insulation one can get against air traffic -- from personal experience, it doesn't work.

I'm speaking from experience, and I didn't intend to sound patronizing. I live really close to an airport. Have been for years. Lived in my home both before and after energy efficient improvements e.g. triple pane windows, more insulation, roofing, stormdoor, ... It works. If NIMBY lobbying fails, you have to take into account all tools available including smart earphones.

as if you're going to go put in earphones everytime someone flies a drone around your property ...

No, when you’re inside your energy efficient home, it’s fine; you are insulated from sound and even rumbling from airplanes (assuming you have good insulation on top of your house as well). Earphones are for going out and about. Wearing earphones all the time also has already become a trend...

Energy efficient buildings tend to handle noise pollution better with their extra insulation. Not ideal, but there's always a solution.

Translation: "You go inside if you want peace and quiet. The outside is only for the self-entitled now."

I'm speaking from experience. I live next to an airport. Also unlike an airport, if drones are being used for deliveries to residences, only hermits will be 'entitled'.

Sure but size matters. A helicopter that can carry a person weighs 1000 pounds or more. A drone can be less than 1 one thousandth the weight.

There are no cameras that would weight less than a pound (0.5kg) and be good at night at the same time.

Look up the Runcam Micro Eagle. It costs $35 and has a 1/4" low resolution sensor and is commonly used for night flying of FPV drones.

It does not look like something what would be suitable for surveillance. Quality is only good to catch that something is happening on the ground but I doubt that this is suitable to be reliable source of truth and I don't even speak about this being used as evidence in the court.

Just put wings on the damn thing and you can cut your power requirements down by an order of magnitude.

How? Helicopters are still obnoxiously loud after decades.

We'll all eventually go deaf from all the noise.

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