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Holy crap. That’s the word I’d use to describe this thing.
Plegium, a defense spray company, sent me their latest “smart spray” designed to do four things simultaneously: spray your assailant with pepper spray or colorant, emit an ear-splitting noise, flash a super bright light, and notify your family or friends about your situation. This thing does all of those things extremely effectively.
First, a little background.
How does the Plegium Defence Spray work?
Pepper spray is championed as a consistently reliable non-lethal defense option. Its effectiveness remains undiminished against individuals under the influence and animals alike. The Smart Pepper Spray incorporates the hottest level of pepper spray available, maxing out at 1.33% major capsaicinoids, making it fiercely potent. The model we tested came only with purple dye, which is less effective. The carefully designed spray pattern spans up to 10 feet and minimizes blowback risk, making it safe for the user. Furthermore, the activation button has a tactile “sensory sight” to aid aiming in situations of reduced visibility.
Redundancy is a virtue when it comes to summoning help. The device communicates independently with emergency contacts via voice calls along with the text messages, alerting about the crisis and guiding to check for location details. With a 4-year battery life and independent power sources for the Bluetooth chip, siren, and LEDs, the Smart Defence Spray prioritizes reliability, sound pressure, and luminosity.
Alarms serve dual purposes, either drawing help from bystanders or creating a discouraging environment for attackers. The Plegium Smart Pepper Spray comes equipped with an extremely loud 130 dB personal alarm, which is matchless in its category.
A powerful asset in defense situations is disorientation of the assailant. Implementing light as a blinding force can cause confusion and delay, providing valuable escape time. The Smart Pepper Spray boasts three rapid-flashing LED strobe lights that affect vision-brain coordination, thereby disorienting an attacker and illuminating the user’s surroundings for accurate pepper spray deployment. A dedicated battery pack ensures maximum luminosity though the strobe does not match the power of a standalone flashlight, it balances size, battery life, and effectiveness.
One of the key features in a crisis situation is the ability to convey precise location information. Often, victims struggle to comprehend and communicate their whereabouts. The Plegium app coordinates with the Smart Pepper Spray and uses the phone’s GPS to dispatch a Google map link with the user’s location via text to the designated contacts. Furthermore, the automation ensures successful text message dispatch, even when voice calls are infeasible during poor reception periods.
Our Pleigum Test
I tested the spray in my back yard, shooting a stream of purple dye into the air and emitting an ear-splitting 130db siren that I couldn’t turn off until I switch off the “Test” mode on the side of the device. The device also sends a Bluetooth message to the free iPhone or Android app that sends a text and calls your loved one.
The resulting ruckus is enough to scare off any assailant. Further, you can subscribe to Plegium’s premium service that gives you one year of tracking for free. This means that if you’re taken somewhere, the app will constantly update your loved ones and the authorities as to your location.
Once the siren started I can assure you that we were all sufficiently disoriented. The flashing lights and loud sounds are amazingly intense and if I my eyes had also been full of pepper spray I’m sure that this would have ended up being a bad night.
Combine the four year battery life and small form factor and you’re looking at a good investment in your safety. At $79 this product is well worth the investment. It works surprisingly well, is really scary, and if you’re in a city where pepper spray is legal you’re looking at quite a punch in a device the size of a lipstick case.
I highly recommend it.
