Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-05-01

These terms govern your use of sounddecibelmeter.org and its sub-pages (the "Site"), including the in-browser sound level meter and the article content. By using the Site, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please don't use the Site.

The version in two lines:

• The meter is a screening tool, not certified measurement equipment. Use it for personal awareness, not for compliance, litigation, or formal documentation.
• The Site is provided as-is, with no warranty. You use it at your own risk.

The rest of this page is the long version.

What the Site provides

The Site offers, free of charge:

1. A browser-based sound level meter that uses your device microphone, the Web Audio API, and on-device computation to display A-, C-, or Z-weighted sound pressure levels in dB SPL after you complete a one-time per-device calibration.
2. Reference articles on hearing health, noise-related occupational and environmental standards, measurement technique, and acoustics fundamentals.
3. A glossary, FAQ, and per-locale translated content covering 20 languages.

The Site is operated by an independent team. We are not affiliated with NIOSH, OSHA, the WHO, IEC, ANSI, the EU Commission, or any of the standards bodies whose work we cite. References to those bodies are factual citations, not endorsements in either direction.

Measurement accuracy disclaimer

This is the most important section of these terms.

The browser meter is not a certified Class 1 or Class 2 sound level meter as defined by IEC 61672-1, ANSI S1.4, or any equivalent standard. It is a screening tool that runs on consumer hardware (smartphone or laptop microphones) whose acoustic characteristics vary by ±3 dB at the microphone alone, plus additional variability from the audio pipeline. After calibration the readings are typically within ±2 dB of a Class 2 reference for stable mid-range sources between 25 and 95 dB SPL — adequate for personal use, not adequate for:

• Regulatory compliance under OSHA 29 CFR 1910.95, the EU Physical Agents (Noise) Directive 2003/10/EC and its national transpositions, the UK Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, similar workplace-noise regimes in other jurisdictions, or any matter where a labelled Class 2 instrument is required by law.
• Legal proceedings of any kind, including noise complaints, environmental enforcement, civil disputes between neighbours or landlords/tenants, and personal-injury or workers'-compensation claims.
• Medical or audiological assessment, including hearing-loss diagnosis, hearing-aid fitting, or any clinical purpose.
• Measurement above approximately 95 dB SPL, where most consumer microphones begin to clip and underreport the actual level.

If you need readings that hold up in any of those contexts, use a calibrated Class 1 or Class 2 sound level meter (IEC 61672-1) operated by, or under the supervision of, a qualified industrial hygienist, audiologist, or acoustician. You should not, and you may not, hold us responsible for outcomes that depend on the Site's readings being more accurate than they actually are.

No warranty

The Site is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory. We disclaim all warranties to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy of content, non-infringement, uninterrupted availability, freedom from defects or malware, and compatibility with any particular device, browser, or operating system.

We do not warrant that the Site will be available without interruption, that defects will be corrected, that the content is current beyond the dates noted on each page, or that any specific reading or recommendation will produce a particular result for your situation. Browsers and operating systems change frequently, and a configuration that works today may behave differently after an update.

Acceptable use

You may use the Site for personal, educational, professional research, and journalistic purposes. You may quote short excerpts of article content in other works with attribution and a link back. You may link to any page on the Site without asking permission.

You may not:

• Use the Site to misrepresent measurements as having been produced by a certified instrument when they were not.
• Scrape the Site at a rate that materially burdens our infrastructure (a normal browser-driven crawl is fine; aggressive automated scraping is not).
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code or API endpoints other than those exposed by the published HTML, CSS, and JavaScript of the Site itself, with the intent to operate a derivative service that masquerades as ours.
• Use the Site in any way that violates applicable law, infringes third-party rights, or creates liability for us or our hosting provider.
• Bypass technical measures the Site uses to enforce these terms or protect content licensed from third parties.

Intellectual property

Article text, charts, and other content authored by the Sound Decibel Meter team are © Sound Decibel Meter Team and licensed for personal and educational use under the same terms as the Site itself. Quotations from third-party standards (NIOSH, OSHA, ISO, IEC, WHO, EPA, ANSI, and similar bodies) remain the property of their respective publishers and are reproduced under the standard limits of fair use, fair dealing, or similar exceptions in your jurisdiction.

The Site's source code, including the meter's signal-processing routines, is currently proprietary. We intend to open-source it on a permissive licence once the core feature set stabilises; this section will be updated when that happens.

Brand names of third-party products mentioned in articles (e.g., Loop Experience 2, Etymotic ER‑20, 3M Peltor, Bose QC, Sony WH‑1000XM, and similar) are the trademarks of their respective owners. Their appearance is descriptive: we discuss them as examples of categories of hearing protection. No endorsement, affiliation, or sponsorship is implied unless we explicitly note one.

Affiliate links

Some article pages contain affiliate links to consumer hearing-protection products on third-party retailers. If you click through and make a purchase, the retailer may pay us a small commission at no extra cost to you. This is disclosed on each page where it applies and never affects the technical content of the article.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall the Sound Decibel Meter team, its operators, or its content contributors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits or revenues, whether incurred directly or indirectly, or any loss of data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from:

• Your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Site;
• Any decision you make on the basis of measurements taken with the meter or content read on the Site;
• Any unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; or
• Any other matter relating to the Site.

In jurisdictions that do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of liability for incidental or consequential damages, the above exclusions and limitations may not apply to you. In those jurisdictions, our liability shall be limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

If, despite the foregoing, we are found to be liable for any matter relating to the Site, our aggregate liability shall not exceed EUR 100 (or the equivalent in your local currency at the time the cause of action arose).

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Sound Decibel Meter team from any claim, demand, loss, or damage, including reasonable legal fees, made by a third party that arises from your misuse of the Site, your violation of these terms, or your violation of applicable law or third-party rights.

Termination

We may suspend or restrict access to the Site, in whole or in part, at any time and for any reason, with or without notice. We may also remove or modify content at our discretion. The disclaimers, limitations of liability, and intellectual property terms above survive any termination.

You can stop using the Site at any time by closing the tab.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the European Union and, where EU law leaves room, the laws of the country in which the Site's primary operator is established. If a dispute arises that cannot be resolved by direct correspondence, the courts of that country shall have non-exclusive jurisdiction. Nothing in this clause prevents a consumer from bringing a claim in the courts of their country of residence as permitted by mandatory consumer-protection rules.

Changes to these terms

If we change anything material in these terms, we will update the "Last updated" date and post a brief note on the home page for at least 30 days. Continued use of the Site after a material change constitutes acceptance of the revised terms. If you don't accept a change, stop using the Site.

Contact

Questions about these terms, takedown requests, regulator inquiries, or anything else legal: see the Contact page. We are a small team and aim to reply within five business days.