Review: Decibel Meter
Score:
75%
Either Christmas is season for small utilities or perhaps now is the time of year when I finally get round to looking at them? Either way, here's a look at Decibel Meter, an ultimate one trick pony application that works surprisingly well. Go on, have a guess what it does...
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One of the innovations brought in (arguably) with the Apple iPhone was the possibility for an application to be made to look like the physical gadget it replaced - in other words, abandoning all pretense at sticking to a platform 'style guide' and relying on real world familiarity to keep the user feeling at home.
Having said that, although Decibel Meter is an example of this latter genre, it's a somewhat trivial one - with no actual controls. Just a large and clear meter, sampling noises through your smartphone's microphone and providing a surprisingly responsive (around 7 or 8 updates per second) 'analogue' needle readout:
The red area is supposed to represent noises loud enough to damage your hearing, but take this with a pinch of salt, since it also depends on what the noise is (e.g. a music concert or a pneumatic drill).
It's not entirely clear what the difference is between 'Peak' and 'Max' - I'm guessing that the latter is averaged slightly, whereas the former is short term peaks in sound, but it's good to have these registers, if only to show someone the noise their party or DIY was registering once you get them in a quiet enough room to complain. Or simply as an aide de memoire because the needle gauge moves around quite fast.
Some of Pico Brothers' apps are outright novelties, but others (like this) are just downright useful. It's free and ad-sponsored, so there's no reason not to grab this for the next time you wonder "How loud is THAT?"
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 2 Jan 2011
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at