How-To Geek
Your Android Phone Can Do Double Duty As a Geiger Counter
Android: While we’d hope you’d never need it, clever researchers have figured out how to turn the camera on your Android phone into a makeshift Geiger Counter with nothing more than an app and some black tape.
It’s not as versatile as a true Geiger Counter (it doesn’t measure as broad a spectrum) but for a free application that could be quickly deployed during an emergency to the hundreds of millions of smartphones floating around, it’s pretty awesome. From the app author’s web site:
This App is not one of those numerous “fun apps”, but a true, really working radiation detector. We already did measurements for certain devices using professional equipment at the Helmholtz Research Center Munich, the scale we used for testing starts at several 2-10 µGy/h up to 10 Gy/h (about 10Sv/h) with the latest measurements
Want to play around with it? Hit up the link below to grab a free copy. [Ed. Oops! The app is actually $4.99 for the full version and $1.49 for the lite version.]
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Comments (5)
Jason Fitzpatrick is warranty-voiding DIYer and all around geek. When he's not documenting mods and hacks he's doing his best to make sure a generation of college students graduate knowing they should put their pants on one leg at a time and go on to greatness, just like Bruce Dickinson. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 01/16/12
It’s £2.99, not free.
Yeah $4.99 US
Even the Lite version (whose specs I haven’t yet seen) costs $1.49.
Why is this being perpetually mentioned as a FREE application, at both HaD and HTG? Is the author trying to cash in on this free publicity by these sites? Kind of an ass move, IMHO, especially so if there’s no free trial version.
If I am wrong and overlooked something, please tell me.
And the best thing of this scheme – low level radiation is not detected, it is below noise floor for the camera.
And 10Sv/h is really high level of radiation. I’d say on the level of being deadly to the human and destructive on the silicon devices (the smaller the elements on chip, the higher the probability of glitching and damage).
I believe the Tricorder app does this as well. Might do a sister article on the metal detector apps (no idea what sensor those are using, haven’t tried them on my phone just seen them on others’).