SoundPrint, Find A Quiet Place

I hate going to restaurants with rudely loud people creating so much noise that I can’t talk to anyone. And, unless at a sports stadium, screaming is extremely offensive. So this app is a great idea. But it needs a lot of work. First it lists establishments that have not been in existence for twenty plus years and leaves out new ones. I submitted updates which have been ignored. Second, the meter does not seem to be very accurate. I have submitted a couple of reports where I believe the noise level was moderate but the app measurement was loud to very loud. Repeat measurements did not improve the rating. Great idea but start polishing the app and data so it will catch on. Four stars because of the idea but only three for its current functionality.

I gave the app only 3 stars because it runs on an iPad, but seem not to have been tested on one. The “start” button covers the line saying that samples must be at least 15 seconds. And if I try to submit with name and email, the pop up keyboard covers up the boxes I want to type in. Either fix the UI (probably straightforward) or mark the app as iPhone only. I tried to get a top 10 list and it said there weren’t enough submissions. I would like to be able to request a top-10 list for another location than my current one. Another location-related issue. I am in Mountain View, and I want to find a quiet restaurant in Palo Alto. I can’t set my location of interest in any way, so for every search I have to move the map from Mountain View Palo Alto again. This is going to be painful if I am looking for quiet restaurants farther away, like San Francisco.

Brilliant. I really hope it catches on and spreads wildly. I just found out about it, downloaded it, and already I love it. Restaurant noise levels are ludicrous. I'm one of those folks who already has an excellent noise level app (by Digital Six), but there's no crowdsourcing there. Now there is! A few months ago I met a friend at a restaurant/bar with good Yelp reviews in Midtown (NYC) for dinner where the noise level was over 90 dB! Borderline permanent hearing damage! We left. But there was no way to report this to others, apart from typing a note in Yelp that no one would ever get around to actually reading. I love this app.

When I go out with friends, I want to actually talk to them. Unfortunately, restaurants and bars know that they sell more alcohol when the noise level is higher. This app helps me monitor places, and identify noise levels. As the database gets populated, it’s starting to help me find quiet places! For planning a nice night out, this app is increasingly helpful for finding a suitable place. Strongly recommended!

I haven’t taken and submitted any readings yet and I look forward to doing so, but in the meantime, I have a request: please add time and date stamps to submissions. I checked the readings for two restaurants I frequent; the louder of the two shows up as Moderate and the quieter one shows up as Very Loud. If readings at the former were from 5:30 on a Wednesday and the latter from 8:00 on a Saturday night, that would make sense. Otherwise, these readings are misleading. I’m very glad to see this app and want to promote it, but these anomalies give me pause.