[UNCOVERING!] How to Tell if a Drone is Watching You at Night?

Since consumer drones have become popular, many people have complained about privacy issues. If you are also worried about drones invading your privacy, this article is for you.

Drones can be used to spy on people, and educating yourself about them is a good idea. That’s the only way you can take care of your privacy.

So, how to tell if a drone is watching you at night?

We will discuss six (6) different ways you can detect an invasive drone, even at night. Let’s get started. Shall we?

The threat to privacy is increasing with the decreasing prices of drones. They can carry a high-quality camera that can easily violate your privacy, especially at night, without you even knowing about it.

A drone with a good digital camera can zoom in on your lawn or window from far away and take snapshots.

It doesn’t even have to get near your private property.

This makes drones extremely dangerous for people who value their privacy or want to protect their commercial interests from corporate espionage.

How to spot a drone at night?

Coming back to our main question about spotting a drone at night, there are several methods that you can use to guard yourself against invasive drones.

1. Drone Detector App

There is indeed an app for everything.

An aviation safety company, DeTech Inc., has developed an Android App that can turn your cellphone into a drone detector.

The way it works is pretty simple. Almost all drones communicate with their pilot using unencrypted wifi signals.

Any wifi device (including your smartphone) can easily catch these signals in midair. The unique signature can be compared with a database to identify if it originates from a drone.

This way, when a drone is within half a mile of your smartphone, the app can notify you about the possible intrusion.

However, there are some technical limitations to the App. For example, it cannot detect drones using encrypted communication like most modern DJI drones.

It is also pretty ineffective against drones that do not use Wi-Fi signals but work over custom communication protocols like DJI OcuSync.

It’s a free app, so give it a try and see how helpful it is.

2. Night Vision Cameras With Motion Detection

This is also a simple DIY setup that you can quickly implement without needing specialized equipment.

All drones have lights. Generally, they are of two kinds – navigational lights and anti-collision lights.

Some airspace regulators like the FAA make it compulsory for pilots to have anti-collision lights on top of drones if they are to be flown at night.

These lights can give away the presence of a drone around your property if you install night vision cameras and couple them with motion detection software.

Most home security cameras come pre-equipped with motion detection features, so it’s straightforward to set up.

My favorite is the Google Nest camera which will work perfectly for this purpose [Google Nest Outdoor Camera – Check on Amazon]

Buy a few home security cameras and set them up around your house at tactical locations, like at the top of each window or a see-through glass wall.

If they detect a moving/hovering drone at night, the camera motion detection system can send you an alert on your smartphone informing you about an intruding drone.

Nice and easy. Right?

3. Microwave Motion Sensors

Another cheap solution to our nosy drone problem – you can install microwave motion sensors around your house atop each window or glass panel, and it can act as your nightwatchman.

These sensors operate on the same principle as the highway speed gun used by the cops.

The sensor emits microwaves which are reflected by objects in its field of view (FOV).

When a drone enters the FOV, it also reflects the waves, but due to its relative motion, it slightly shifts the reflected wave wavelength due to a phenomenon called the Doppler effect.

You can get these sensors for less than $30 apiece from Amazon, install them around sensitive areas in your house, and you are good to go.

I found this one on Amazon to be very suitable for this purpose.

4. Use RF Sweeper

As discussed, all drones use radio frequencies to communicate back with their control stations (mostly a handheld remote control).

A simple RF sweeper commonly used to detect hidden wifi cameras or other electronic bugs can also be used to detect rogue drones around your house.

Most of them are small handheld devices powered by a rechargeable or replaceable battery.

There are quite a number of such RF sweepers available online, but I found this one to be very reliable for detecting drone communications.

5. Cool Radio Trick

Ok, this one is not as practical for everybody as the previous three detection methods, but it is a clever way of knowing that a drone is looking through your window.

A group of researchers from Ben Gurion University, Israel, have devised a neat solution to implement counter-surveillance against spying drones.

In their research paper named Game of Drones – Detecting Streamed POI from Encrypted FPV Channel, they implemented a proof of concept that manipulates the video feed that is sent from the drone camera back to its FPV receiver on the remote control.

Although the feed is encrypted, its single patterns can still be captured and displayed.

Let me explain it’s working in simpler terms without going into too many technical details.

Imagine a drone hovering in front of your house and looking at your glass window through its camera lens.

How can you ensure it’s recording and sending back the footage to its operator?

Well, the camera transmits the footage using radio waves, and if the camera is looking at an unchanging view, the ratio signals don’t change much and remain ‘flat’.

You can intercept and display the signal on your screen.

Now, here is the interesting part.

You can alter the monitored area (your window) by introducing a controlled change, like installing a red bulb to blink with a specific frequency and see if it also changes the signal pattern.

If the drone camera is recording your window, you will see a spike in the transmitted signal each time the red bulb goes off.

Here is a video by Ben Nassi from the research team to explain the process more accurately.

6. Radar Detection System

I know this isn’t something everybody can afford or be allowed to install, but I will discuss it here anyway.

Many security companies have developed sophisticated drone detection systems based on Radar technology.

These radar transmitters and receivers are installed around your sensitive property and can detect incoming drones from afar.

One such company is the Netherlands-based Robin Radar Systems.

They have developed a military-grade drone detection system that can cover a 360-degree area around your property.

It can detect incoming drones and classify their make and model.

Is drone spying legal?

No. Recording videos or taking photos of someone without their explicit consent is against the law in almost all countries and states.

The right to privacy is considered a fundamental right, and its violation can land someone in jail if caught.

In the state of California, the Civil Code Section 1708.8 legislate the use of drones for surveillance against other people or critical infrastructure without permission.

Similar laws are present in almost all other states as well.

This gives you legal cover to take action against someone using their drones to invade your privacy.

But the question is that how do you know if someone is using a drone to spy on you in the first place?

We will discuss a few ways to safeguard you against spy drones at night.

An important thing to remember here is that you CAN NOT shoot a drone down just because it is flying over your property.

Federal laws protect the airspace above your house or property, and shooting down a drone can get you in legal trouble.

Though there are several methods to take down rogue drones they are primarily for military purposes and are considered illegal for the general public.

Can drones see inside your house?

Most commercial drones cannot see inside your house with their normal cameras. However, there is a special class of thermal drones that can see through walls using their night vision cameras.

But even they can only see a shadow of different heat signatures, not a clear picture.

Drones with night vision are not very common and are only used at the enterprise level, so you won’t find your neighbor flying a 15,000 USD thermal drone.

But even if the drone can’t see inside your house, the threat to your privacy remains.

In 2019, a woman in Canby, Oregon, narrated an incident to the Canbyfirst Podcast about a drone outside her window one night while she was working at her computer.

She noticed unusual lighting (which probably was the recording light on camera), but by the time she informed her husband, the drone had disappeared.

Similarly, in 2014, a woman was recorded topless sunbathing in her own backyard by a real estate drone which caused a social uproar about drones and privacy invasion.

Although the chances of most commercial drones seeing inside your house are slim, they can still invade your privacy greatly.

What does a drone look like at night?

If a drone hovers high over your house or property at night, it will look like a blinking star with rapid movements in different directions.

If it is flying low, you can easily spot it by its throbbing white anti-collision light or by the colorful LED lights on the landing gears of most drones.

There are two types of lights on most drones; colored LEDs on the landing gears or belly and throbbing white light, also known as anti-collision lights.

FAA mandates the anti-collision lights to be visible from at least 3 miles away, so if a drone is flying over your house at night, you can easily see either of these hovering lights in the sky.

Normally, pilots cannot operate their drones at night unless they receive a special nighttime flying waiver.

Even with the waiver, they have to install the anti-collision lights on their drone, making them pretty easy to see from below.

Conclusion – how to tell if a drone is watching you at night?

We discussed several drone detection systems that can help you spot a drone around your sensitive property at night.

But the question is, what to do next when we detect the drone?

Obviously, due to federal regulations covering airspace, we cannot go on shooting drones out of the sky; that would be illegal.

Until the laws catch up with the technological progress in aviation safety, we can only take precautionary measures and adjust our lifestyle and living to protect our privacy from spying on drones.

If you have suggestions on how to spot drones at night, you can mention them in the comments below for other interested people to read and learn.