There are societies where rather than knocking on wood one turns one's head and spits. For example: "Grandad is looking well after his fall, let's hope that doesn't happen again. Ptew!"
Knocking on wood was about knocking on unpainted wood, so that you have actual direct physical contact with wood. Remote knocking seems to go in the other direction...
I can't explain why but it's amazing! Maybe because in my culture "knocking on the wood 3 times" helps to avoid the bad luck and I lived with that for 20 years, or maybe it's just fun to imagine that you're knocking on the wood remotely ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The knockers are missing solar panels to continuously charge their batteries. So there will be sustained costs to keep them running. And how water-proof are they? Apart from that, it's going to sell like hot cakes.
Looking for this in app form.
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/10/31/kinky-kashayam-portable-bl...
Though it seems less like machine response than humans integrating technology into superstitious belief.
How do you know this? For example, there is a wikipedia page section entitled "Origin of use in the English language"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocking_on_wood#Origin_of_use...
but the contents of that section make it extremely clear that no relevant facts are known to wikipedia.
https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/allen.html#about-th...