You can also solve this in O(logn) using a physical binary search:

1) Move half the boxes to another room.

2) Listen for a beep and determine which room the beep comes from.

3) Take the boxes in that room and split them in half again.

4) Repeat until one box is left.

MKBHD demos the the FOTRIC TD2e Acoustic Imaging Camera.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ai1gIWacf0I

It costs ~$1,000 so you'd probably rent it if you're only going to use it once, but it's a neat gadget.

WHAT WAS MAKING THE BEEP!!?!?!

I wonder if it would work to find an annoyatron?

wonderful! Thanks for sharing. I thought about doing this to track the sounds moving around in my stomach... it is interesting how well the mic on your smartphone works at picking up stomach sounds

Smoke alarm.

Woah this is cool. Another interesting simonw project based around sound through browsers. Lots of simple real world problems that can be tackled with this.

I had a beep that drove me crazy and the very long search turned up a surplus CO monitor that I didn’t recall buying and had gotten tucked into the laundry room for some reason.

Same brand as my smoke detectors.

Make sounds that can be detected directionally, assholes.

Simon's LLM's beeping finder app vs https://annoyingpcb.com/

Who would win?? :-)

I lack the courage to plant such a PCB prank device... it really feels like you could drive people completely crazy haha

Could you build this into a HUD for a cat, tuned to mouse squeeks? Asking for a friend.

You know what might have been easier... Going through the boxes!