Decibel Meter (Pro)

About this app

Decibel Meter is a nice android app that uses your smartphone's microphone to measure the intensity of the surrounding sounds. As the decibel (dB) is the logarithmic unit used to measure the sound levels, our application has a big, analog display with two hands that can show any decibel value between 0 and 100 dB (sounds are local pressure deviations from the ambient pressure, so these values are in fact dB SPL - sound pressure level). The higher the decibel level, the louder the sounds are. A whisper is about 30 dB, normal conversation is about 60 dB, and a motorcycle engine running is about 95 dB. Noise above 80 dB over a prolonged period of time may start to damage your hearing. The orange hands shows the current decibel level, while the red one has a 2-second delay in showing the maximum level of the sound. Additionally, there are three counters for the minimum, average and maximum decibel values and a graph that shows the evolution of the sound levels over time (see the first picture below).

How it works

Once the application starts, the sampling process automatically begins and the current decibel level is displayed on the big dial and as graph. The START/ STOP button can be use to pause and resume this process at any moment.

As the microphone sensitivity and frequency response could differ from one phone to another, a CALIBRATION process has to be performed at first in order to measure accurately the decibel levels. Use a digital sound meter and calibrate the app (+/- 15 dB) to have the same indication (Figure 2).

The PRO version of Decibel Meter is ad-free and includes two more functions: Microphone and Speaker (Headphones) tests, useful to assess the sound quality of your smartphone (Figure 3,4).

-- easy to read the decibel levels
-- free application, non intrusive ads

-- one permission required, Record Audio

-- portrait orientation

-- compatible with most tablets and smartphones