A lot of new construction has motion detectors in the restrooms, which turn on the lights. If the lights go out on you, you can stand up and wave your arms, or point a laser at the motion sensor.
I've noticed that, at least for cheap laser pointers, red lasers seem to work better than green ones for this. This surprises me a little bit. PIR motion detectors are designed to react to >8000 nm, so I wouldn't have thought 530 vs 650 nm would make that much of a difference. My violet laser also triggers the motion detector easily, but this is probably due to the lack of an IR filter.
I'm assuming this effect is just due to the laser heating up the pyroelectric sensor, but maybe something else is going on?
I've noticed that, at least for cheap laser pointers, red lasers seem to work better than green ones for this. This surprises me a little bit. PIR motion detectors are designed to react to >8000 nm, so I wouldn't have thought 530 vs 650 nm would make that much of a difference. My violet laser also triggers the motion detector easily, but this is probably due to the lack of an IR filter.
I'm assuming this effect is just due to the laser heating up the pyroelectric sensor, but maybe something else is going on?