The Daily App: iNoiseMeter For iPhone

The CRN Test Center has used decibel meters in our lab for years, often during testing of servers or appliances to get a reading on their noise impact in a data center.

iNoiseMeter for iPhone is a 99-cent download that aims to use the iPhone's microphone to analyze noise and measure it in decibels. We found that it works fairly well as a general testing tool, as long as you're not using it for scientific purposes.

After downloading iNoiseMeter for iPhone from the Apple iTunes App Store, and installing it on an iPhone 4, we took it back to our server room and measured it against our battery-powered decibel meter, which had previously been calibrated. We found that iNoiseMeter for iPhone came to within 10-to-15 percent accuracy (when measured against the battery-powered, stand-alone decibel meter.)