senorhitesh/clap-wakeup

Clap Detection System is a small Python project that listens through your computer's microphone and opens a specific application whenever it hears a clap. It was built mainly as a learning exercise to understand how audio signal processing works, rather than as a finished product for everyday use. Instead of trying to recognize pitch or musical tone, which works well for voices or instruments but not sudden noises, the system looks at two simple properties of sound: how loud each moment is, and how quickly that loudness jumps compared to a moment before. A clap produces a sharp, sudden spike in volume, which is different from something like slowly turning up music. The code measures loudness using a standard audio technique and compares each new reading to the last one, triggering an action when the jump crosses a set threshold. The project is organized into four clear steps: capturing a continuous stream of audio from the microphone, extracting a loudness value from each small chunk of that audio, deciding whether that value represents a clap, and finally launching the configured application if it does. The middle two steps are written as simple functions with no side effects, so they can be tested using saved audio clips instead of needing a live microphone every time. To use it, you install two Python libraries, set the file path of the application you want to launch inside a small settings file, and then run the main script. Clapping near your microphone should trigger the app to open. The detection threshold needs to be measured for your own microphone and room rather than assumed, since background noise levels vary. The author is upfront about its current limits: it currently detects only one clap and then stops rather than listening continuously, it does not yet adjust automatically to background noise, and it cannot yet tell a clap apart from other sudden loud sounds like a bang. Settings such as the target app and threshold are hardcoded rather than stored in an easy to edit configuration file. No license is mentioned in the README.