My Phone is Now a Light Meter!

I have a Droid Incredible, and I noticed it has a light sensor under the face plate on the top left corner of the phone.

I thought, hmmm, wouldn't it be sweet if I could utilize that sensor to read Lux?



So, naturally, someone beat me to it, and I just downloaded a free app that loads on a light meter (There were a few, I liked this one best...)










So, while I'm reasonably (100%) sure the numbers are not ready for NIST certification, etc...they do seem to at least go up/down if I shadow or shine a light onto the phone's face, particularly at that corner.

If it at least gives a relative reading, I'd feel that this is a fun app.

It does have ads (Shown), but they're not obtrusive, and I have a spam/virus, etc, program on the phone to prevent trouble.

Anyway - It appealed to my inner geek.

:devil:

Nice So now, you can just put a flashlight and your phone in a white box and make good comparisons between all of your lights. Nice find

Iphone apps check here

Norm

LOL - I can activate the camera flash on the phone as a flashlight already...so I could make it measure its own output.

It does show xxx.0 on the display, but how large is the jumps when the reading changes?

Cool! Just downloaded a free Iphone luxMeter called Megaman. I'll check it out tonight with a few lights, see if I can make any guesses as to accuracy.

SR90! I wanna see all 9's! lol I like how it tells you the max

Cool idea. I just downloaded this app on my Droid Razr. It will be fun to play around with this weekend (I have a couple of lights in transit, hpefully will arrive int he mail today)

Neon - A Princess Bride Quote! Very Cool.

Thanks TEEJ! Just put it on my EVO 4G! One thing I noticed though. It seems to max out on my phone at 10240. Tried it with my ZL SC60w, then my ZL SC600. Both read 10240 lx. Anyone else notice this? It's a cool app, but not sure about those readings being the same. I'll try some others and see what it does.

On the screen when you load it on, it will say what it will max out on, for your phone.

So far, I can't get it to read less than 40 lm, but it might be reading off the screen's brightness itself as well.

OK, seems to move in increments of 40 lm on mine at least, the decimal point is for show.

It implies in the site verbiage that it will go by the phone itself...so that probably means if your phone's light sensor has a finer feedback loop, the meter will give a finer result, etc

Well, I tried several different lights. Including the ones mentioned above, a Peak Logan QTC, and a Quark mini AA. They all showed 10240 lux on my EVO. Probably just the phones sensor. It is a cool app, I just wish it was more accurate on my phone.

Is there a similar iphone app wich is reasonable accurate?

Norm said:

Iphone apps check here

Norm

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mrlysle said:

Well, I tried several different lights. Including the ones mentioned above, a Peak Logan QTC, and a Quark mini AA. They all showed 10240 lux on my EVO. Probably just the phones sensor. It is a cool app, I just wish it was more accurate on my phone.

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You might try as a ceiling bounce...a direct shine of almost anything will put too many lumen on the sensor to read anything but PEGGED.

TEEJ said:

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Is there a accurate one?
Lux meter pro got a very bad rating.
And they seem to use the camera instead of light meter.

borgqueenx said:

. . . . Lux meter pro got a very bad rating. . . . .

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The Lux accuracy depends on the PHONE - all the Apps do is report the reading generated by the phone firmware.

Reminds of me people who give GPS apps a zero rating "it never shows my position" - the apps use position it reads from the GPS hardware built into the phone !!! Nothing to do with the app !!!

Talk to Apple - I have a Droid.