Review: Sound Grenade, A Portable SOS Alarm

Our Quick Take On The Sound Grenade: Light, loud and easy to carry, we feel that the extra ounce in your backpack and the $15 or so dollars out of your pocket are worth the extra measure of safety the Sound Grenade provides when you are enjoying the outdoors.
PROS: One ounce; Easy to attach to backpack; Easy to activate and deactivate
CONS: Not loud enough to truly immobilize or guarantee repelling something

Hiking in the woods or traveling down a city street, sometimes you just want to have something with you that provides a little extra security. One lightweight, easy to use method is to pick up a Sound Grenade device. When activated it puts out a 120 decibel alarm that loud enough to give a person pause or chase away any close and questioning wildlife that you may not want to have near you.

Light, Small And Easy To Carry
The Sound Grenade only weighs an ounce so it really doesn’t add much weight to a backpack, your keychain or any other place you might think to store this device. It seems to be weatherproof enough for backpacking and general usage and it has continued to work after joining me for several walks and hikes. Size wise, this is a small device that just under 3 inches in length, just over an inch in width and about a half an inch thick. If you put a carabiner on the Sound Grenade, it can easily attach to a pack clip within easy reach.

The battery for the Sound Grenade is rated to last a year or provide 30 minutes of continuous alarm. There doesn’t appear to be a way to change the battery, so when it does run out of juice, you’ll have to get a new Sound Grenade.

Just Pull The Pin!
Activation is really simple – just pull the pill, like a grenade. As soon as the pin is removed, the Sound Grenade begins emitting the 120db alarm siren. It’s not as loud as I thought it would be (I think I was imagine an immobilizing sound before I first pulled the pin), but it is more than loud enough to give someone pause, alert people nearby or chase away wildlife that has strayed too close to you. To turn it off, just reinsert the pin.

Experiences
Thankfully I do not have the opportunity to be scaring off would-be attackers or strange wildlife that often, so I haven’t had a chance for a real world test of the Sound Grenade (and hope I do not). However I can tell you that from being the person closest to it when activated, it is loud and it’s loud enough that in most situations, I think people would choose to leave you alone. As for wildlife, the various squirrels, chipmunks, birds, dogs and cats I’ve subjected to the alarm have all preferred to run the other way than stick around.

For The Outdoors
I have had these types of alarms in the past and I like to think of them as an example of one extra layer of preparedness when you are in the outdoors. It can help repel some wildlife and probably more importantly, gives you something loud to help others find you should you be in a bad situation or you are lost and others are looking for you. Given the light weight and durability of the Sound Grenade, it is so easy to include with your day packing or backpacking gear. That extra ounce could be the difference between a bad situation and an even worse one. I’ll keep the Sound Grenade with my gear and on my pack.

The Sound Grenade was provided to our contributor Jeff Senterman free of charge in return for a review here at Adventures in the Outdoors.

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