From the sound of the wind rustling through the trees to a jackhammer cracking through the pavement, our daily lives are filled with sounds ranging from quiet to loud, which results in an environment that can be either relaxing or stressful. Research has established that the environmental soundscape has a large impact on our stress levels, our sleep, and our cardiovascular and mental health. Unfortunately, the unreasonably high sound levels we encounter daily is often met with nonchalance, while the quiet places we can escape are neither publicized or promoted. It is believed that noise is a sacrifice we make for living in a motorized and industrialized society. Therefore, very little information is available for us understand the spatial, temporal, and visual distribution sound in our communities.

The NoiseScore application was designed to address this lack of information by utilizing smart phone technology to capture both the objective and subjective nature of the sounds you encounter as you go about your daily routine.

With the NoiseScore application, you can:

• Objectively describe your daily soundscape by recording its sound levels
• Visually document your daily sound scape by taking either a photo or video
• Subjectively describe your daily soundscape by answering a brief survey

Your responses are fed into a series of live heat maps, which provides us—the community at large—with vital information as to the spatial and temporal dynamic of sound and noise perception in your community. This information can be utilized to:

• Understand the spatial and temporal distribution of sound levels and noise perception in your community both overall and by specific sources such as loud parties, road traffic, or aircraft noise.
• Identify both quiet and loud spaces you can escape from or travel to
• Allow for your voice to be HEARD and your issues to be seen.

There are four main features of the NoiseScore Application:

1. Objectively describing your daily soundscape by recording its sound levels
2. Visually documenting your daily sound scape by taking either a photo or video
3. Subjectively describing your daily soundscape by answering a brief survey
4. Tracking your responses via our live heat maps, which visualizes your responses and the responses of all other users

The NoiseScore sound level meter measures an unweighted sound pressure level—the dB. One of our primary research goals is to study total noise—that is, we want to capture the contribution of low and high frequency sound as well capture both the noise we hear and feel.

There are several variables that may impact a reading—the anatomy of your phone, the microphone location at the time of recording an event, meteorological conditions, etc. Some of these things we can account for, some of them we cannot.

To ensure a quality sound reading, make sure that the microphone is unobstructed and is facing in the direction of the source you would like to capture. Jackets/coats/loose clothing, hands, fingers, smart phone volume and wind can greatly impact the quality of your reading.

Further:

• Our sound level meter is in an experimental phase and is being subjected to continuous review and improvement. We welcome any feedback and appreciate your patience as we test and update.
• Expect to specifically see variations in your Android device as Android phones are made by a variety of manufacturers with different specifications and requirements when it comes to how they design and build their microphones, audio/signal processing chips, and software. Therefore, the accuracy and functionality of the Android version of the app is limited, but is something we are currently addressing. As we test and improve, we will update the application and these updates will download to your phone automatically.
• While we have carefully tested this application, you may experience issues. Please keep in mind that this application is a work in progress and your feedback helps us to improve it. If you do experience issues, please reach out to us.

Our sound level meter is in an experimental phase and is being subjected to continuous review and improvement. We welcome any feedback and appreciate your patience as we test and update. As we test and improve, we will update the application and these updates will download to your phone automatically.

We are currently working on calibrating our sound level meter on a variety of Android phones and will update this page with calibration information as it becomes available. If you are interested in assisting us, please let us know, in the form below. We thank you in advance!

We hope, everywhere and anytime! We are interested in hearing your objective and subjective responses to sound in your community—whether it is overwhelmingly loud or enjoyably peaceful. Your participation helps us to better understand the spatial and temporal considerations of environmental sound.

You can view your results in two places—directly in the app, via your history (Version 1.0 of our app stores your last 5 readings) and via noisescore.com, which houses our live maps. Our live maps visualize all app responses from the NoiseScore community and updates every 1 minute. You can filter these maps by inputs including: type of noise, location, and time.

Further, each year, we will create a noise summary report, which will be freely available for download at noiseandthecity.org

NoiseScore is a free community resource tool and we intend to keep it this way. We are a small unsalaried research team and donations are one way that you can help us to defray the costs associated with running the maps, carrying out daily operations, updating the site, updating the application, and funding further research and development to keep NoiseScore up-to-date, relevant, and responsive to community needs. Donations of all amounts are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

You can make a donation HERE.

You can also become a sponsor. If you choose to become a sponsor, your business will be featured on our site as well as in our academic journal, au•ral. Rates are extremely reasonable and help us to further defray the costs of running NoiseScore. For an advertising kit, contact us HERE.

Yes! Noise and the City’s data has supported master’s and doctoral students from a variety of disciplines. We are always looking for motivated and innovative researchers to help move this project forward. If you have a research project you’d like to undertake with us and are committed to community-based research, please contact us HERE to get started.

You can always check this page for app specific updates as we are constantly working on improving our app. Any new improvements to the app will be documented on this page. Further, you can join our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and now, Instagram.

STAY CONNECTED!

You can contact using the form below. Please expect a response in 24-48 hours.

September, 2017: NoiseScore Application Version 1.0 officially launched.

March, 2018: NoiseScore Application Version 1.0 updated:

• Passwords are now stored and users can remain logged in the app.
• Changes to the registration process: (1) Updated date of birth field; (2) Research explanation for why we are collecting socio-demographic information; (3) Revamped the “Sex” question.