Decibel Meter Sound Detector 4+

The app is great, so easy to use for non professionals and I’ve recommended it to several people so far.
I believe it could be easily enhanced by providing information about safe levels of noise and duration of exposure. Legislation worldwide for safe limits is pretty much the same of course BUT they only apply to workers not recreational exposure which is starting to cause an increase in premature hearing damage. This is the sort of thing:
Hearing damage is likely to occur if exposed to 80dBa for 8 hours.
Noise levels dBa are a logarithmic scale ie an increase of 3 dBa doubles noise exposure. 81 is double 78dBa , 96 is double 93. Also 87 is half of 90.
Exposure at 83 dBa for 4 hours is same as 80 for 8hours. Pro Rata exposure at 92dba for 30 mins is same as 8hours at 80dBa .
A simple chart would explain this clearly
Last point :
Hearing damage is irreversible, once it’s gone it’s gone! Hearing aids temporarily amplify the noise to already damaged nerve cells in cochlea and will eventually cause more loss. This is why the latest hearing aids attenuate the sound in the undamaged octaves.
Your App is excellent at giving people the choice to vacate noisy areas, attenuate noise when or if necessary.
I wish you good luck and hope you sell millions of your app.

Just calibrated this against my admittedly ageing Radio Shack DbM I use for home cinema calibration and it matched perfectly. I guess they could both be wrong but I’ll take it. In any case, I’ll be using this for comparative measurements between sources so outright calibration is perhaps not critical but it’s nice to know it’s more than likely close enough.

This app has been an eye and an ear opener regarding the levels of noise I’ve been experiencing and exposed to, in normal everyday life.

It isn’t a replacement for a professional noise recording meter but it’s a useful indicator.

There are places such as outdoor shopping areas who have installed sound systems with blaring music that I no longer visit because of unhealthy and dangerous noise levels.

Please protect your hearing and be careful of your children’s hearing. Reduce the amount of time you use headphones and earphones and turn the volume way down when listening to music. If you doubt what I’m saying Google the the musicians and other people who have hearing issues as a result of noise exposure.

Many thanks to the developers of this great app.