Noise Detection Update

6/30/2025

Why You Might See More Reported Events

We recently made a small update to our detection system that helps identify loud sounds like fireworks or explosions. The system assigns a detection score to each sound, which reflects how likely it is to be a real event.

Previously, we only reported events with very high scores. We've now slightly lowered that threshold —from 0.85 to 0.80— to catch more real incidents that might have gone unnoticed. As a result, you may notice an increase in the number of reported events. This helps us respond more effectively and build a more complete picture of what's happening in the community.

Technical Details on Detection Scores

The detection system evaluates each audio event and assigns it a detection score between 0.0 and 1.0. This score represents how closely the sound matches known acoustic profiles, such as fireworks, explosions, or other impulse events. The score is based on various features including frequency characteristics, duration, and energy spikes.

Previously, the system only reported events with a detection score of 0.85 or higher, which helped reduce false positives but also filtered out some real events with lower clarity. After testing and analysis, we've adjusted the threshold to 0.80, which increases sensitivity without significantly compromising accuracy.

Key impacts:

• More events are now visible on the system.
• Each event still includes its detection score, so future filtering or tuning remains possible.
• This change supports more comprehensive data collection, which is especially useful for long-term community safety insights and model improvement.