Pulse dB — Sound Level Meter

Pulse dB is a sound level meter built around one idea: show the dB, accurately, without anything in the way.

Open the app and you see your environment in real time — instantaneous reading, peak hold, and the running 60-second Leq. That's it. No banner ads. No popups. No subscription wall blocking the meter you came to use.

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WHAT IT MEASURES

- Real-time A-weighted sound level (dBA), the standard used by occupational health regulators worldwide.
- Optional C-weighting for low-frequency-heavy environments like concerts, machinery rooms, and HVAC measurement.
- Peak hold (1 second) — the loudest moment in the last second.
- Leq (60 seconds) — the equivalent continuous level over the last minute, the metric used in noise studies.
- Min, average, and maximum readings across your session.
- A live waveform showing the last 60 seconds.

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CALIBRATION

Phone microphones vary by model. Pulse dB lets you set a calibration offset (±5 dB) to match a known reference — a calibrated meter, a sound level reference card, or a verified reference tone. The offset is saved per device and applied to every reading.

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SAFETY ZONES (NIOSH)

Color zones on the gauge mark the thresholds recommended by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health:
- Below 70 dB — generally safe
- 70 to 85 dB — caution; long exposure can cause damage
- Above 85 dB — high; hearing protection recommended

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PRIVACY

Pulse dB requests one permission: microphone access. Nothing else. No location. No contacts. No analytics SDKs phoning home. Your reading history stays in local storage on your device — it is never uploaded, never synced, never shared.

The microphone is used only to compute the dB level; no audio is recorded, stored, or transmitted.

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DESIGN

Built natively for Android with Material 3. Dynamic color (Material You) is supported on Android 12 and above — Pulse dB will automatically adopt your system accent color. Themed icons (Android 13+) tint to your wallpaper.

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WHO IT'S FOR

- People worried about noise exposure at work, in their neighborhood, or at concerts.
- Audio enthusiasts checking room acoustics or speaker setups.
- Teachers running classroom experiments.
- Parents who want a simple, honest tool to understand the sound around their family.
- Anyone tired of decibel meters that bury the reading under three banners.

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WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

Pulse dB is not a substitute for a calibrated Class 1 or Class 2 sound level meter for legal, regulatory, or occupational compliance work. Phone microphones have hardware limits — most are tuned for human voice and may underread very loud sounds (above ~95 dB). Pulse dB will tell you what your phone hears as accurately as your phone allows, but professional measurement requires professional equipment.

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Have feedback or a feature request? Reply to any review or contact us through the developer page. Every message is read by a human.