Room Noise Test

Whether a room is "too loud" depends entirely on what you use it for. A 45 dB reading is excellent for a living room and unacceptable for a bedroom. Compare your result against the target for the room's actual purpose:

These targets come from WHO guidelines and ANSI acoustic standards. For the full reasoning behind each number, read the acceptable noise levels guide. If your room is over its target, start with the 8 ways to reduce noise in a room.

A free-running decibel meter is useful for spot-checking — glancing at the current noise level the way you'd check a thermometer. But it tells you little about the acoustic character of a room over time. A single spike from a closing door or a brief quiet moment between traffic waves can give a misleading impression.

The 30-second timed test solves this by capturing a standardised sample window. By measuring continuously for half a minute, it captures the average ambient level, identifies peak events, and records the quietest baseline — three data points that together paint a far more accurate picture than any single reading.

This approach mirrors how professional acoustic assessments work. Standards like ISO 1996 and ANSI S12.9 specify minimum measurement durations precisely because short samples are unreliable. While a phone microphone can't match a calibrated sound level meter, applying the same sampling discipline significantly improves the usefulness of the result.

The automated Room Report also flags high variability — a large gap between peak and minimum readings — which often indicates intermittent noise sources that are easy to miss during a quick check but significantly impact sleep quality and concentration over time.

For the most complete picture, run the test at different times of day and compare results on your Trends dashboard. Morning, afternoon, and evening tests reveal how traffic patterns, neighbour activity, and HVAC cycles shape your room's acoustic signature.