Outside In

As you might have noticed, we enjoy the birds in our yard. Part of that enjoyment is hearing their songs. Alas, for much of the year it is too cold to have the windows open. And thus the birds are, to our ears, silent.

But last summer we visited our friend Edie at her place in the Poconos. And she had a speaker on her kitchen windowsill, with a microphone attached on a long wire. The microphone was placed outside, resulting in birdsong inside.

And lucky us, as Santa brought us one of those special speakers for Christmas. It is the tall black device in the image below.

I hooked the speaker up in the kitchen near an electrical outlet and a window. Curiously, the window frame had a notch the perfect size for the wire. I wonder what it had been used for?

This setup works fine ... except we don't really spend much time in the kitchen. Thus the small square device in the right of the image. This is a Bluetooth transmitter. The speaker has a line out RCA jack in the back which supplies the signal to the transmitter. Which then sends to the third device in the image, the one labeled "Tribit".

This is a Bluetooth speaker. Which is shown on a bookcase above my desk. The speaker and transmitter are through the doors at the far wall. We're looking through the office, dining room, and kitchen. And the signal comes through just fine.

It is very nice to hear the sounds of the yard while I'm at my desk working.

🎤  📡  📻

Birding is very popular in the US and a number of other countries, so one might think there would be a number of products to choose from to bring birdsong inside. One would be disappointed. I had looked and found nothing. We had tried to use a baby monitor, but were not successful.

Here's info on the kit I assembled, should you want to try this at home.

The speaker is called "Nature's Window" and can be found here. I, err ... I mean Santa! ... ordered it with the line out option. The line out allowed me to hook it up to the Bluetooth transmitter.

The transmitter is a MaedHawk X5, which I ordered via Amazon (link). There are quite a few Bluetooth transmitters to choose from. I selected this one because of the signal range. And it reaches any room in our house.

The speaker is a Tribit X Sound Go, which I had also purchased at Amazon (link). An excellent speaker for the money, I purchased it when I was at my parent's place during my dad's recovery from his broken hip, playing music form my laptop.