Don't Buy an Electric Mosquito Swatter with an "Auto Mosquito Catch" Feature to Avoid Fire Accidents

As the hot summer arrives, mosquitoes appearing in the home environment in the evening come like black snow. Especially during this period, with rainfall rarely seen in recent years, the already unwelcome mosquitoes and insects spread even more freely and happily under people’s noses.

I believe everyone has recently started preparing various anti-mosquito battle methods for this year.

Mosquito coils, liquid electric mosquito coils, and mosquito traps are almost essential items for citizens living on subtropical islands.

Whether you live on the island of Taiwan, the Penghu archipelago, the Kinmen archipelago, the Matsu islands, or other islands, unless you can retreat to a mountain of 3,000 meters or higher, you will surely have the trouble of mosquitoes biting you in summer.

Setting aside chemical mosquito repellent and killing methods, there are also several common physical mosquito-killing methods with less impact on the body, including:

1. The almighty hands
2. Electronic mosquito swatter (electric mosquito swatter)
3. Mosquito trap (electric shock, air drying, etc.)
4. Ultrasonic mosquito repeller
5. Mosquito net

Among the physical mosquito-killing methods above, the ultrasonic mosquito repeller is definitely the biggest rip-off product. In the article “White Noise Machine,” it was mentioned that sound waves themselves have the properties of dispersion and attenuation. Even if mosquitoes really dislike a certain specific frequency band of sound waves, that could only be a conclusion obtained after high-energy-density experiments in a laboratory, and definitely not something we can achieve by placing a hundred-dollar low-power electronic toy in an open space.

To put it another way, this kind of mosquito repeller even advertises that it can repel mice, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. Such a great all-purpose tool would be a bargain even at ten thousand dollars.

Below I will discuss the focus of today’s article, namely the electronic mosquito swatter (electric mosquito swatter), the newest mosquito-killing tool that has risen in recent years.

From the early version that amazed people with the thrill of swinging and killing, to the second generation with a safety isolation net, to later versions with more and more built-in functions, there has emerged a function that vendors strongly recommend but that I suggest not buying: “auto mosquito catch.”

So-called auto mosquito catch means standing the mosquito swatter upright on a table or floor and keeping the power on, so that any unlucky mosquito 🦟 that accidentally passes through the swatter surface will be automatically electrocuted.

Electric mosquito swatter and mosquito challenge (Designed by Jin-liang, Lin)

The key point here is that word “unlucky.” In an indoor space that is tidy and well sealed, the number of mosquitoes that can invade is actually not that many, and there is simply no need to spend more money on a useless function for the sake of a tiny probability.

And just like all electrical appliances, the more functions, the easier it is to break.

Then there is a more serious problem. Because the electric mosquito swatter must be stood upright on a table or floor, from a physical standpoint, this shape with a big head and small body, still in the form of a stick, is not stable enough. A single earthquake, a slight bump against the corner of a table, or even resonance caused by a truck passing by outside could make it fall over.

But when the auto mosquito catch function is kept on while there is no sufficiently safe placement design, at the moment it tips over, it may accidentally touch some metal object, causing sparks, or the high temperature generated by contact may cause an accidental fire.

In fact, this is a real case that happened to a friend of mine: after the electric mosquito swatter fell over, it got stuck on the metal piece at the edge of a lighter, and because of the auto mosquito catch function, it caught fire while no one was paying attention.

Based on all the above reasons, I sincerely suggest that if you plan to enjoy the thrill of swinging and killing, do not buy an electric mosquito swatter with a built-in auto mosquito catch function. Instead, additionally buy an indoor-specific mosquito trap, which is the safer and correct approach.