alt Hacker NewsPff that sound is horrible, and sorta hard to locate (because of the pitch?). Anyway. None of my neighbours seem to care and in summer I used to hear an orchestra of beeps every 5 seconds. It was maddening, I was contemplating of buying 1000 batteries, print a manual and shoving it in peoples mailboxes, although somehow I think it wouldnt have made a difference. I moved out eventually (not because of the beeps)
It’s because it doesn’t have enough overtones, or a notable attack. You might have noticed that some trucks these days make a weird noise when they back up instead of a beep. They’re using white noise because it’s easier to locate; it has many overtones that allow your brain to pick the sound out of the background more easily, and thus more easily correlate the signals from both ears. You get a much more accurate location just from hearing that sound than you ever could with a pure tone.