June 4, 2026, 1:01 pm | Read time: 2 minutes
Summer season means mosquito season. That’s when the pesky and potentially dangerous pests swarm the air, just waiting for their next blood meal on two legs. Many people have likely lost sleep due to the annoying buzzing at night. A resourceful tech expert had enough of it and simply invented his own machine to repel mosquitoes.
Repelling Mosquitoes with Lasers Made Easy
Actually, “repelling mosquitoes” isn’t quite accurate. Robotics expert Steven Cheng refers to it in his posts on X (formerly Twitter) as nothing less than the “ultimate mosquito killer” and an “artillery cannon.” Pretty martial descriptions for a homemade mosquito-hunting device.
But Cheng has declared war on insects with his development, spending four months tinkering, gathering information, and improving. He also had to endure countless bites. The result is an AI-supported laser system that, according to him, can detect, track, and eliminate mosquitoes in real time. This is aided by computer vision and thermal optics.
Protection Against Humans Integrated
The laser system rolls through the apartment on wheels. Later, Cheng added multisensor tracking, revamped the high-speed gimbal, and even included a rotating toy barrel in the style of a Gatling gun. This helps with mosquito elimination but is also meant to encourage children to join the mosquito hunt playfully.
To prevent people from being mistakenly identified and eliminated as mosquitoes, a wide-angle camera is supposed to recognize humans early in its field of view. Then, the system is designed to cut the power supply.
Whether Cheng’s bulky yet useful invention will ever reach market maturity remains to be seen. Meanwhile, as a possible alternative, there’s a portable system by Chinese inventor Jim Wong available on the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. It also promises to reliably repel mosquitoes and is available in two versions starting at the equivalent of 400 euros.