Thermacell Updates Its LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System
US company Thermacell has released an upgraded version of its perimeter mosquito repellent system LIV, two years after the original, with nearly all hardware components replaced.
A Wired reviewer moved back to Texas from California four years ago and quickly found himself battling an intense mosquito problem, describing the insects as having grown larger and more aggressive during his 25 years away. He initially paid a local company to spray pesticides on all the foliage around his property every three weeks using a backpack-mounted cannon. The service cost thousands of dollars annually and only kept mosquitoes away for 48 to 72 hours after each treatment.
After two years of searching for a better solution, he discovered Thermacell, a company he describes as a leader in mosquito abatement. Its top-tier product, the LIV Smart Mosquito Repellent System, differs from the company's small personal-use repellers by being installed semi-permanently around an area a homeowner wants to protect, switched on when needed and off when safely indoors.
Same Concept, New Hardware
Two years after his original review, Thermacell has now upgraded nearly all the LIV components — only the cabling remains unchanged — and renamed the system LIV 2.0. The company supplied the reviewer with the new hardware for testing.
The underlying design remains the same: one or more Wi-Fi-connected control hubs plug into wall power and link via cables, in a daisy chain, to multiple pesticide-emitting repellers arranged in a perimeter around the protected area, such as a swimming pool. Repellers can be spaced up to 20 feet apart, each holding a replaceable vial of the chemical metofluthrin, which repels mosquitoes without typically killing them.
With the original LIV system, the reviewer used two hubs and five repellers to encircle his pool. This year he added a sixth repeller to improve coverage in a corner where mosquitoes appeared to be slipping through a gap in the vapor fence.
