Week long recording + discrete device

[jakobite123]

Hello,

First thanks for all the tips and sharing, I really appreciate this website.

I'm fairly new to this, my upstairs neighbors are fairly loud however its fairly tricky to get "long" decent recordings with my wife making sound around in the house (I don't let her know about my hobby...).

We are leaving for a couple of weeks on holidays and I was wondering if I could leave a mic behind to record while we are away.

The thing is I don't want it to need to be plugged, that wouldn't be very stealth, and it needs to be able to record for the whole time.
Also the sensitivity should be decent, has its not super loud either...
Does the tool I'm looking for even exist?

Any tip would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks a lot

[mjj9994]

Welcome to the forum!

I know of zero devices that have the type of power consumption you are seeking (i.e. operating 24/7 for 1 week). Top of my head can only think of 2 methods. 1 would be hook up an external mic to your computer (desktop/laptop) that has power plugged in and use that to record. Other method would be a recorder with a battery bank attached for power, but this would be limited by the device's max file size. 1 week continuous would be about 11000 minutes or you could try "voice activated" but more than likely that will not activate from noises upstairs.

[yeppie]

Welcome jakobite123,

there are devices that claim to be able to do what you asked for, this one for example:

https://voicerecorder.shop/product/comp ... B0CT5QRPVK

I can't tell if this is any worth but at least I once bought two devices which should run for over a week continuously. But they were a lot more expensive and one of them destroyed itself during its first recording session by getting too hot. So there are devices that can record a long time without needing a plug.

[jakobite123]

Thanks both for the welcome and the help!

mjj, the option to have a laptop plugged in my work but I'm not sure i'd have this option. Do you have any experience with "voice activated"? Is that tweakable? (to start on a noise threshold for example rather than voice).

Yeppie, thanks for the tip! That looks promising, though I wonder how such a device would behave I recording non-stop for the said 500 hours... And I'd definitely be worried about fire hazard...

[mjj9994]

Sorry but no, never really tried any voice activated devices myself so cannot comment on how user-friendly they may be as far as different threshold settings and whatnot. Good luck and hope you can find a device that fits your situation.

[sndprv]

Voice-activated recorders are useless for our purposes. Don't buy them.

I bought a small one and experimented with it once in a hotel. The device couldn't pick up anything
going on inside the room I planted it next to; only a series of sounds made by people walking past it
in the corridor.

So, no way could such a device capture any sounds of upstairs/downstairs or next door neighbours.
The device has got to be literally in the same room as the people you're recording for it to work.

Your best bet would be a continuously-recording device that has a low bitrate setting (so that the
recorded file isn't too big). An added bonus would be a device that has the ability to automatically
partition the recording into smaller files.