{"id":271429,"date":"2026-06-12T14:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/this-free-android-app-turned-my-phone-into-a-35-tool-measuring-tool-and-i-tested-everything\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:15:10","slug":"this-free-android-app-turned-my-phone-into-a-35-tool-measuring-tool-and-i-tested-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/this-free-android-app-turned-my-phone-into-a-35-tool-measuring-tool-and-i-tested-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"This free Android app turned my phone into a 35-tool measuring tool &#8211; and I tested everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/phyphox-science-lab-free-android-app-hands-on\/\">This free Android app turned my phone into a 35-tool measuring tool &#8211; and I tested everything<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/phyphox-science-lab-free-android-app-hands-on\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/phyphox-science-lab-free-android-app-hands-on\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-12 14:07:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Jack Wallen\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>This free app can level up your experiments.<\/li>\n<li>Anything your phone sensors can pick up, this app can use.<\/li>\n<li>Find out just how much information your phone can track.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I love getting my geek on, and I do so every day. But sometimes, I need access to scientific tools that are either way out of my price range or inaccessible.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that my Pixel 9 Pro\u00a0smartphone includes several tools for such purposes. Those tools are the various sensors that the OS and the installed apps depend on. The sensors are used for a range of tasks, including sensing ambient light, recording steps taken, directions on maps, screen rotation, and much more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also:\u00a0This hidden Pixel camera setting makes my photos absolutely pop &#8211; here&#8217;s how<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now, imagine if you could unlock the device&#8217;s scientific capability by accessing those sensors. By installing a single app, you would have access to the phone&#8217;s sensors for things like acceleration, acoustics, color and luminance, speed, mechanics, timers, inclination, and magnetism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Imagine the possibilities<\/h2>\n<p>Well, developers at Aachen University have done just that and created the open-source Android app, Phyphox (short for &#8220;physical phone experiments&#8221;). This free app can read information from your phone&#8217;s accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, magnetometer, light sensor, and GPS.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If your phone has a barometer, the app can access that capability as well. The app can read data in real time, analyze it, and even export the data to a file.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: I found a free Android app that makes deleting photos as easy as swiping left<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For example, I wanted to know the incline of the stairs leading to my office loft. Thanks to Phyphox, I know that the incline is -32 degrees. I also wanted to test the audio spectrum in my office to find the peak frequency and found it to be 93.75 Hz.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The current barometric pressure is 999.524 hPa. I could also measure distance using Sonar. And&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/phyphox-science-lab-free-android-app-hands-on\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This free Android app turned my phone into a 35-tool measuring tool &#8211; and I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/19eaf5dda116d0d75133e7db17b74f2c931cff50\/2026\/06\/08\/15236e33-2b06-4b03-87eb-5ca04cd8c435\/phyphoxhero.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70,72],"class_list":["post-271429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google","tag-pixel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271431,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271429\/revisions\/271431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}