Site icon Concord Carpenter

Victor Smart-Kill Electronic Mouse & Rat Traps

Victor Electronic Mouse Trap Review

Victor, the rodent control company, has created a better mousetrap. No, really.

While the simplicity of the traditional mousetrap has a certain elegance — a piece of wood, a spring, and a cheese or other bait — it doesn’t do a simple thing that, the world of wifi, Bluetooth, and smartphones, we have become used to: let us know when a rodent has been captured. At least, until now.

Smart-Kill WiFi Mouse Trap

Victor, the brand that I most associate with mousetraps, has developed electronic mousetraps. Called Smart-Kill, they are are wifi and Bluetooth enabled, kill rodents electronically, and send you push notifications through their app.

The advantages here are numerous. First, there’s no risk to your fingers. The age-old tradition of setting up a mousetrap by coiling up the spring appropriately, and then very carefully and slowly backing away so that your fingers don’t get snapped or injured. This is always a risky moment — one I haven’t always successfully navigated! The Victor Smart-Kill traps you set up by adding batteries and then going through a few steps to add it to your wifi system.

Similarly, once you have a kill, to empty a trap you simply slide open a black plastic gate and shake the rodent out. Given there’s no metal to act as a kind of guillotine, there is no mess. This way, you don’t have to look at the rodent and, if you do, it’s not as gruesome.

Push Notifications For Trap Activation

The other advantage of the Smart-Kill system is that you don’t have to remember to check all of your traps regularly. Anyone who has forgotten to do this will know what this means: a bad smell, that only gets worse as time goes by. If you’re trying to trap something at your ski condo, lake house, or even your barn — a place you don’t go everyday — this can present a challenge. The Smart-Kill system sends you push notifications whenever there is a kill. This way, you don’t have to remember to check them.

A sample of what a notification looks like in the app.

Some False Positives

A better mousetrap? I think so. But not one without some issues.

Given the sensitivity of the electronic traps, I have had numerous false positives. Mostly, these have been something like a cricket crawling into the trap which then sets off the sensors. In one case, I got 15-20 notices at once. Jesus, I thought! An entire colony! No so — only a cricket.

The other challenge is that, like anything else electronic, it only performs as long as the batteries permit it to. In the future, I would love to see the battery life be extended and, possibly, for the batteries to be rechargeable and built-in. (They do send a push notification when battery life gets low on a trap.)

Overall Thoughts

Between the ease of the set-up, the clean-up, and the easy reminders and notifications — I think these Victor Smart-Kills traps are a great development. The Victor Smart-Kill trap is a “smart” investment.

 

Where to Buy

Online or Home Depot

$49 for the mouse trap and $69 for the rat trap.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Exit mobile version