Smartphone used as an SLM?
 |
| Figure 1 – Screenshot “deciBel” app. See www.bsb.bz. |
|
Imagine if you could turn a smartphone into a
sound level meter and measure noise in decibels
(dBA). Millions of people could easily determine their
noise exposure at any time. Going further, they could
use their smartphone to take a picture of the noise
source, map its location with GPS, and share this
information in mass collaboration over the Internet to
create a Goggle Earth map of noise
for anyone to evaluate.
Don’t just imagine a smartphone as
an SLM — there’s a free app for it.
Figure 1 shows a screenshot of the deci-
Bel app for the Android OS. I recently
installed the app and calibrated the
device for my Droid. It’s not a professional
SLM, but it is fairly accurate as a
survey meter.
The NoiseTube project is underway
(see http://www.noisetube.net). Check
out the YouTube video at the web site to
see how this works and link to publications
to read scientific papers that describe the technology
of using a mobile phone as an environmental sensor.
The following are other features of smartphones that
might impact EHS practice:
Measuring physical activity: The latest smartphones
are equipped with an accelerometer that
allows the device to know its orientation as either
up, down, or tilted. Combined with a magnetometer
the smartphone can determine its direction as facing
North, South, East or West. The device’s GPS can
detect distance and speed traveled. Combine these
technologies with the smartphone’s connection to the
Internet, along with the device’s huge software capacity,
and peoples’ physical activity in real-time can be
tracked and measured. The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology’s NIH grant, “Enabling Population-Scale
Physical Activity on Common Mobile Phones,” shows
that this technology and research is underway.
Ergonomics: What if a smartphone was attached to
an employee’s trunk or other parts of the body; could
the accelerometer help assess and measure lifting behavior?
Check out the patent application by the Hartford
Insurance Company for a lift monitoring system and
method at http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090135009.
Various ergonomic apps for smartphones are possible.
Heartbeat monitor: Beyond tracking physical
activity, the iPhone has an app to monitor a person’s
heartbeat. See http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.
aspx?docid=1186087 for more information.
Monitoring traffic speed: There is a smartphone
app now that will provide an alert when a designated
speed is exceeded. Not only might this app alert the
driver, it can also send an automatic notice to anyone
else so designated. What if this other person is your
boss? Nice app for slowing people’s driving speed.
“Man down”: There are several smartphone apps that
track the whereabouts of people or assets. See http://www.
trackandlocate.net/ as one example. Not only can these
apps show where a person (or thing) is, but it can also
detect motion, electronic fence violations, voice prompts,
panic alerts, G-force alert, etc. Working alone is not as
dangerous as it once was if you have a smartphone.
Product recognition: A growing number of products
have barcodes on their labels that can be scanned
and linked to the Internet to obtain substantial information
about the product. The latest smartphones are
equipped with a barcode scanner. Although current
apps mostly help find the lowest cost for a scanned
product, apps are possible to scan a product’s barcode
and immediately link to safety data.
M-learning: The smartphone’s large screen and
excellent sound output allows viewing of videos wherever
a person is located. NIOSH refers to this technology
as M-learning (M = mobile). NIOSH tested
whether M-learning was as effective as traditional
classroom learning (e.g. lecture) and found there was
no significant difference in mean test scores among the
two methods. See www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/symp08/
posters/038.html. Redivideos (http://redivideos.com/) is
one of the growing number of companies that are producing
safety training videos for smartphones.
One Redivideos customer commented: “I'm the head of
safety at a major mining company. We have installed the
CPR video on all our employees’ BlackBerrys. Having
this information on them at all times in a convenient application
is very important to us!”
The NIOSH Pocket Guide for Chemical Hazards
(see http://www.dangerousdecisions.com/apps.html) is
now an iPhone app. More smartphone apps for these
types of databases are possible.
Picture saved as PDF: Have you ever tried to write
down all of the information on a hazmat label? There
are apps that will use the smartphone’s camera and save
a picture as a PDF or other file format. Capture all of
the hazmat or product label information with a click of
a button, then enter this as an attachment to your safety
audit report.
Smartphone technology can enhance our ability to
perform better. We just need to be alert to these possibilities
and how to use them.
