How to use Decibel Meter

Get started

1. 1

   Choose a page

   Meter shows the live reading. Tools opens the extra measurement and logging pages; Saved opens kept work; Settings holds the tool and general options.

2. 2

   Choose the meter drawing

   On Meter, the drawing at the top shows the sound now: swipe it to choose Ring, Hero card, Level bars or Meter display, all the same size and each with Min, Average and Max. The dots under it show which one, and the meter opens on the one you swiped to last.

3. 3

   Choose a sound mode and its settings

   Mode, the pill above it, opens Sound level, Noise report, Sleep and Noise walk. The Settings tab has the typed timer, threshold and calibration.

4. 4

   Choose what Record keeps

   Nothing is kept until you press Record, the red button at the bottom; its right part picks what it does. Log keeps the levels, the chart and everything added to it until Stop; Audio records the sound at once and Stop saves it as audio; Video opens the camera.

5. 5

   Choose what goes with a log

   Picking Log opens Keep with the log: tick Audio, Video or Place and they start with the log; its levels and chart are always kept.

6. 6

   Open the capture camera and choose an overlay

   Video, picked in Record's part, opens the camera over the whole screen to film video or take photos with the reading drawn on them. Close, the recording time and Flash sit above the picture and the controls below it, so nothing covers what is recorded; On the picture, under it, picks the drawing: Level bars, Graph, Number, Meter display or Off.

7. 7

   Start a noise report

   Noise report is for any noise that bothers you, from neighbours, building work, traffic or a bar. Start a noise report asks two things: what the noise is and where (a title, a few words and the place from your location), then where you hear it (a bedroom at night, a living room by day or outside), which gives the usual quiet to start from; the limit is it plus the margin.

8. 8

   Choose Sleep for bedroom measurements

   Sleep measures sound while the tool is open and compares it with the bedroom guide.

9. 9

   Start a night log and set its clips

   In Sleep mode, Start night log in the bar at the bottom starts measuring while the tool is open and the screen is on. Whenever the level stays over the limit, it saves a clip with the sound just before; Settings › Clips sets how long the level must stay over, how much sound before it to keep, the most clips a night and whether each clip gets a fingerprint.

10. 10

    Open the sound tour

    Settings › Tour & lessons, the first row of the meter's settings, has the Tour (the welcome's Take the tour plays it too): short pages on the sound level, a log, the alert, a noise report and Sleep, each with Try it.

11. 11

    Choose when tips appear

    The Tips switch turns on or off the tips that show once, at the moment they help; Show all tips again brings them back.

Measure

12. 12

    Pause, mark and add to a running log

    While a log runs, Record reads Stop with the log's time, Pause and Resume leave the paused time out, and the chips under the drawing add to the log: Audio records its sound, Video films a clip into it, Place keeps where it was measured, and Note writes something at that moment. Marker marks the moment in one tap. A timer, when set, ends the log as Stop does.

13. 13

    Add the measurement’s place

    Place, a chip while a log runs, or Place on logs in Measurement settings, adds the address, the coordinates or both to logs, CSV files and the camera's photos and videos.

14. 14

    Log noise and add notes

    The report's page shows its steps with ticks. Record, with Log picked, logs the noise, day or night, and keeps a clip whenever it stays over the limit, while Add note writes what you hear and Bedside shows a dark clock page; each log shows under step 3, red with its clips when it went over.

15. 15

    Read the noise walk map

    Noise walk colors your route by sound level, with the colors' key on the map's foot and the loudest spot larger on the route; Walk level, Loudest and Quietest sit under the map. Until the phone knows where it is, the map waits with Finding where you are….

16. 16

    Record the walk and add media

    Record offers Log to map levels, Audio to map the walk and record sound, and Video to open the camera during a walk; while you walk, the microphone and camera on the map record the walk's sound and film clips into it, and both stay with the walk.

17. 17

    Position the phone toward the sound

    Allow the microphone and hold the phone steady toward the sound. Live measurement does not record audio or save a log. Choose Record when you want to keep measurement data, audio or video.

18. 18

    Try optional sound recognition

    When available, beta sound recognition is off by default. Enable it on the welcome screen or in Settings › Sound recognition. It is still in development: names can be wrong. Share feedback to help us improve it.

19. 19

    Make a PDF log report

    More options (⋮) on a saved log makes it into a file. Log report shows its PDF as it will print, with ticks for what goes in (the chart, marks and notes, what was recorded with it and the map); Save PDF puts it in the phone's Documents folder and Share PDF sends it.

20. 20

    Browse reports, logs and captures

    Saved lists your noise reports first, each with its map, days and clips, then everything else newest first, a day at a time: logs, the sound recorded with Audio, and the photos and videos kept from the camera. A report keeps its logs inside it; its page has its loudest clips, each log, the notes and photos, and ⋮ › Report PDF.

21. 21

    Set an alert level and response

    The Alert chip under the drawing says whether the alert is on and at which level, like Alert · At 75 dB; a tap opens Alert to turn it on or off, set the level, how long it must stay over and what the phone does. While it is on, a dashed line with its level crosses the Level bars. Once the level stays over it for the time you chose, the phone vibrates, flashes the page, beeps or says it, and the chip and the line turn red until it has been quiet long enough.

22. 22

    Recognize a microphone overload

    When sound is too loud for the microphone, the level turns red with OVER, since the real level is higher.

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    Set the usual quiet level

    Nothing has to be measured first: set your own usual quiet any time with Settings › Usual quiet (measure half a minute of quiet, or type it), and every report uses it instead.

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    Use notes and the bedside clock

    Add notes as you hear things, and Bedside shows a large clock on a dark page, where Dim screen turns the brightness down. The night saves itself every few minutes and when you stop it.

25. 25

    Expand or centre the walk map

    The expand icon opens a larger map; close it to return, or use the target icon to center on your location.

26. 26

    Compare the sound in different places

    Compare places, in the Tools tab and at the end of the Mode list, puts rooms and places on one scale by their level, with the level here among them. Once adds the place you're in with this reading; Average measures its Leq for 30 seconds, or the length in ⋮ › Average length. Give it a title, a description and a photo or video; ⋮ › Side by side shows how much louder one place is than another.

27. 27

    Explore features and practise with lessons

    The showroom shows every feature with a short film and the way to it, and Lessons teach each part with your own sounds on the live microphone, where nothing is kept: no logs, sound, video or settings.

Save

28. 28

    Review a saved log

    A saved log's page shows its Min, Average and Max, the levels through its time with its marks, its sound under them to play and seek, the videos filmed into it and its place. The details are sections that open with a tap: its loud (L10), typical (L50) and background (L90) levels, its marks and notes, the time above your threshold with each crossing, and how it was measured. Tap its name to rename it and write notes. The threshold is a reference line, not a hearing-safety limit.

29. 29

    Export levels, audio or a noise report

    CSV saves or shares every level with its time, Audio saves or shares its sound, and Add to a noise report puts it in a noise report with other logs.

30. 30

    Play audio and filter Saved

    Sound recorded with Audio plays in place: tap play, and drag along its waveform to move. All, Reports, Logs, Audio and Video & photos at the top show one kind; Video & photos shows them as a grid.

31. 31

    Keep or delete saved logs

    To delete several items at once, long-press one to select it, tap others or Select all, then Delete. The list’s more-options menu also offers bulk CSV output for logs. Review the selection before deleting.

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    Save or share the capture

    After each video or photo, Save keeps it in Saved, where a tap opens it in the phone's viewer, Share saves and shares it, and Cancel throws it away. A video filmed while a log runs goes with the log. The video's sound comes from the meter's microphone.

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    Make and save the report PDF

    Make the report opens its page: pick the logs, change its title and description, see the PDF's first page and tick what goes in, then Save PDF or Share PDF. Start a new report keeps the old one in Saved.

34. 34

    Review the night and export its report

    In Saved, tap the marks on its chart to play its clips, with previous and next, see the map of its place, check that its fingerprints are unchanged and make its PDF report from ⋮ › Log report, which prints the map too.

35. 35

    Mark places and save the walk

    Pin marks a place; Pause suspends measuring, and Stop saves the walk. Open it in Saved to review the map and pins.

Calibrate

36. 36

    Calibrate the selected microphone

    Settings › Calibration opens a page with the phone's live reading. With a sound level meter: put the phone beside it, play a steady sound with the same weighting and response on both, and type what the meter reads; the page says when the sound is steady and shows the new offset. Without one, set an offset you know on the scale: drag it, or tap −1, −0.1, +0.1 or +1. Nothing changes until Calibrate, which goes back; the back arrow leaves with nothing changed, and Reset sets 0 dB at once. How to calibrate shows the steps with a picture. The offset belongs to the microphone it was set with; another microphone starts at 0 dB.

Guided tour

Try these steps in the app. All tour instructions stay readable here.

1. 1

   Read the sound around you

   Allow the microphone and hold the phone steady with its microphone unobstructed. Read the live level, minimum, average and maximum; swipe the drawing to choose the view you find easiest to read.

2. 2

   Keep a measurement log

   Choose Record › Log. Mark a change as it happens and add a note, location, audio or video when useful. Pause leaves the paused time out; Stop keeps the completed log in Saved.

3. 3

   Choose your own alert

   Open Alert to set the level, the time it must stay over and the response. The threshold is a reference you choose, not a hearing-safety limit.

4. 4

   Compare a quieter and louder place

   Open Compare places in Tools. Measure each place with the same microphone and settings; use an average for a steadier comparison, then add names and media for context.

5. 5

   Review and share the result

   Open a log in Saved to inspect its chart, marks and associated media. Its more-options menu opens a PDF Log report or CSV export.