Noise Monitor

Usage Guide

Introduction Initial Control Screen Monitor Settings Monitoring Reviewing and Copying to iCloud for Emailing Options Feedback and Support Remote Monitoring over iCloud Colour Audio Analysis Information Display

Introduction

Are you subjected to unwanted noise? Quickly set up a monitoring session to record noise. ‘Noise Monitor' has low disk and battery usage with background and screen-locked recording. Long recording sessions well in excess of 12 hours are possible. Noise is analysed by determining the instantaneous audio frequencies of the noise and mapping it onto the colours of a rainbow. On the top instantaneous graph up to 6 frequencies are displayed with the highest intensity frequency in the middle of the line and progressively lower intensities on the outside. Similar noises will show similar colour patterns though louder noises will show in brighter colours.

Initial Control Screen

Monitor Settings

Microphone settings on the iPad are just the single  microphone. On the iPhone it is a bit more interesting with three microphones to choose from. The audio output settings allow you to select the volume for reprimands and praise as well as the in-built speaker or an airplay speaker. Bluetooth speakers and microphones are not supported. Available recording space and battery life are also displayed. Normally this form will be displayed only once before the initial monitoring session. Provided the app can restore the previous settings it won’t display it again unless there are limits on how long the app can record due to limited space or a partially charged battery.

Monitoring

The first time the Monitor button is touched the Monitor Settings form above will show. The elements of the monitoring form are described below.  There are only four potential user interactions on the screen while monitoring, these are: • The ‘Stop Monitoring’ button • The snapshot email icon button which takes a screen snapshot as currently displayed and opens iOS mail with the attachment pre- populated. • Adjustments to the microphone sensitivity slider which are commenced by touching the padlock to unlock it. See the next section. • The problem report button in the top navigation bar. Use this to report an issue that has occurred in this session. Use of it causes the app to crash which results in me getting a crash report which includes logs from this session which may help in resolving the problem.

Adjusting the microphone

sensitivity for a monitoring

session

To adjust the sensitivity touch the locked padlock icon next to the slider until it changes to an unlocked padlock as shown. The last icon on the right (circle with vertical bar) centres the slider. In the normal noise environment where you are monitoring the app should be showing none or very few yellow underlines (noise peak detected) under the graph. Ideally the graph will be a grey line with a few colour points on it. If it is not then you should adjust the microphone sensitivity until it is. Slide the ball left to reduce the sensitivity. When it looks about right touch the padlock again to lock it. After monitoring sessions make minor adjustments left or right as required to suit your environment. If you cannot reduce the sensitivity sufficiently please email me with a screen capture of your results.

Reviewing and Copying to iCloud

for Emailing

Before you can review a recording you have to select the recording you want to listen to. The name given to recordings when they are created is the start date of the monitoring session followed by the start time including decimal seconds. The numbers in brackets are the hours and minutes duration of the recording. That is: YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.sss (hh-mm) For information about protected and modifiable recordings please read the section on Protected Recordings and Emails. When you select a recording, the row is highlighted (greyed) and a tick marker is placed to the right of the row. Recordings with their name in a rectangle can be renamed by simply selecting the row and then touching the name a second time. If the recording can be reviewed then the play icon  in the top right hand corner becomes enabled. Touch this to replay the recording which opens a variant of the Monitoring form as shown below: Note that in the Session Summary above the same colour patterns are repeated which mean the same noise, in this case a rooster. The colour patterns tell you what has happened in the session once you have listened to them a few times the same noises are still going to be the same on different days. The current playback position is shown by both the slider and a vertical bar above it in the session summary graph. The snapshot email button if enabled is over on the right together with the ‘Stop Replay’ button. On the iPhone the ‘Stop Replay’ button is not present and you have to use the stop button at the left of the audio controls. The audio controls from left to right are: •   Stop •   Pause •   Seek backwards to large peak •   Seek backwards to medium peak •   Play •   Scan and play medium peaks •   Scan and play large peak • 2X  Double speed playback

Options

The options form contains all configuration settings and in-app purchase options. Touch here to open the options section.

Feedback and Support

The ‘Feedback and Support’ form provides options to: • Provide feedback on Facebook • Rate the app on the app store • Send an email to app support • Open the app FAQ page in Safari • Report a problem

Remote Monitoring over iCloud

If an iCloud remote monitoring session is present on another device there will be a button at the centre bottom of the initial control screen to link to it. The button will be green if the session is currently active otherwise it will be brown. To see what happens read the section on iCloud Remote Monitoring and Email Alerts.

Colour Audio Analysis 

Information Display

Touching the       icon on the bottom right hand corner brings up the information display on the colour audio analysis: The important thing about this is that the same noise will bring up the same colour pattern each time which will assist you when reviewing monitoring sessions.