Recently, I went out to ThinkGeek.com and bought two of their Annoy-A-Tron gadgets for hiding in unsuspecting co-workers cubicles.

The Annoy-A-Tron is an extremely effective clandestine device for infuriating co-workers, friends, and family alike. Aside from the subtle, yet thoroughly obnoxious noises that this little slip of silicon produces, you also get the enjoyment of participating in a covert-op to install the gadget in the victim’s workspace.

Construction

The Annoy-A-Tron is about 1”x2.5”x3mm and is very easy to slide into tight spots. It weighs next to nothing, and has an embedded magnet to further simplify the hiding process. The battery is easily the largest part of the device, and thankfully is a standard CR2032 that you can get at almost any place that sells watch-size batteries (e.g. Radio Shack ).

The chip is decidedly bare and electronic in appearance; which in the end adds to the sneakiness, as the would-be target becomes increasingly suspicious of the device when-and-if they find it: “Is this a bomb? A spy device?? Have they finally found me??!”.

Packaging

The packaging is nice and simple, but effective (you’re going to throw it out anyway). They were bubble-wrapped which is always a nice touch to protect in shipping, and also ensures that no matter what came to you on the big brown truck (even if whatever it is sucks), you can still keep yourself busy for a few minutes, popping the bubble-wrap like a kitten with a new ball of string.

Sound

Once turned on, there are three settings on this little evil toy. Two of them are a simple 2KHz beep (seriously, think “Beep” and you’ve got the idea). One is noticeably louder than the other. The best setting, however, is the middle setting which is a 12KHz whistle. Whistle doesn’t accurately describe the sound, but it’s the best overall description. It is a constant whine, with a touch of mechanical gurgling. Combine that with the fact it is approaching the edge of your audio perception, and you have quite the obnoxious sound; and one that is very hard to track down!

What I didn’t really grasp the genius of when I bought these little monsters was the timing. None of the beeps last for more than, say, a half a second to a second. Once they are done beeping, they are totally silent for quite a while. The time that they choose to be silent is random as well. It goes anywhere from 2-8 minutes before it beeps again, and the next beep will be just as brief. Keep in mind, these sounds are at a frequency range that makes them very hard to pinpoint.

Long story short, when they go hidden, chances are they will stay hidden for longer than the victim would really care for. Think of it as auditory chinese-water-torture.

Experience

I recently bought two with the hopes of aggravating some co-workers, and one of the most enjoyable parts was sneaking around with others in on the prank trying to find the best place to hide the gadgets and hoping we didn’t get caught.

I had no idea, given the right target, how well this would actually work. As I said, I bought two. I originally placed one in two separate offices, relatively well spaced apart. One of the two test subjects originally came up with the idea for targeting another before we even knew these devices existed (he wanted to build one out of radio shack parts). The other was the original intended target, and he was the intended target because it is well known in our office that he has an over-keen high-frequency sense of hearing; and he is very quick to become aggravated if the noise is just right.

Make no mistake, although these are a personal form of arsenal, there is collateral damage. I sit within shouting distance of each cube, and I could hear both of these buggers discharge every single time.

The first of the two unwitting contestants guessed very quickly that he had been had (remember, he had devised this idea long prior). As such, it wasn’t much fun to leave him out of the loop, as he was already convinced it was our doing. However, the other poor patron of our office pool was not so quick to realize what was happening.

Unfortunately, he, like I, was hearing both of them go off, each at their own pre-destined semi-random times. Rather than deducing that it was some prank-with-duality, he was convinced there was a workspace-wide problem occurring. At first, he decided the sound was following him, and dismantled his brand-new cell-phone to get rid of the sound. After that didn’t work, he cleverly pointed the finger at our new Cisco IP Phones (just like the phones on The Office by NBC- Thursdays at 8:30pm, new episodes all spring.

The first day he operated fairly well with headphones on, ignoring the sound as much as possible, and for the most part just commiserating with the rest of us about how obnoxious it was. Now that he was convinced it wasn’t just him that was affected, and because the other individual was no longer a subject in the test, we moved both devices in to the main targets cube, and repositioned them insidiously close to his ears.

Ahh, the second day. No longer were headphones enough. No longer was the rest of the office hearing the sound. No longer were we all suffering along. Now the problem was all his.

It didn’t take long before he was out of his office screaming all kinds of expletives about the obnoxious sound caused by “those damn IP phones”:

“It’s like nails… no, razors on a chalkboard!!!”

“This sound is drilling into my brain”

“You can’t hear that? It must be my extra-sensitive ears… gawd why do I have these extra-sensitive ears?! I’ve had problems like this my whole life.”

“Are you going to eat those barbecue chips?”

Yes, the game was on. At one point I had recovered one of the squeaky circuits and had gone into his cube for a conversation about work (like he was able to get anything done at this point). While I was talking to him I set it off several times in succession. We spent time talking about the mysterious whine, and for some odd reason I could no longer hear it!

Unfortunately, we had to pull the plug when he started calling the company help-desk to have office services come dismantle his cube until they found the noise.

But the toll had been taken. The rings under his eyes, the headphones duct-taped to his melon, and the blood leaking out of his ears was all evidence that he had been fooled something fierce.

I planted a camera in his cubicle to record his experience - here it is:

Lasting Appeal

While I have only had these for a few days now, ThinkGeek.com reports 3-4 weeks life on one battery.

I suppose it could be said that these little bastards only downfall is that they work a bit too well. While 3-4 weeks is theoretically possible, no victim is going to last that long.

As detailed above, my victim of choice was far too annoyed to handle the sound for as long as was possible, and we weren’t willing to allow the prank to go on without escalating it to the next level (thereby shortening the half-life of his demise even more).

The prank was so enjoyable and so rich in its tapestry that pretty much everyone else on our team was in on the loop before the hapless soul discovered the reality of the situation. As such, no one else can play the target in our band of coworkers.

So, when it comes to lasting appeal, it really depends on how you measure it. In terms of sheer length of the prank itself - it is very short. But - the experience we all shared watching this poor guy run around like a chicken-sans-head will be talked about for months to come.