This free Android app turned my phone into a 35-tool measuring tool - and I tested everything

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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.

The good news is that my Pixel 9 Pro smartphone 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.

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Now, imagine if you could unlock the device's scientific capability by accessing those sensors. By installing a single app, you would have access to the phone's sensors for things like acceleration, acoustics, color and luminance, speed, mechanics, timers, inclination, and magnetism.

Well, developers at Aachen University have done just that and created the open-source Android app , Phyphox (short for "physical phone experiments"). This free app can read information from your phone's accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, magnetometer, light sensor, and GPS.

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.

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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.

The current barometric pressure is 999.524 hPa. I could also measure distance using Sonar. And the luminance in my office is currently .177 (it's really dark as I write this article). However, the luminance coming from my main monitor is 3.4.

I also realized the app would allow me to record the Hue, Saturation, and Value of a color. Thanks to that information, I could find the exact color that I wanted to paint my walls in my new condo.

Yeah, this app is fascinating on so many levels, and with it, there's almost no end to the experimentation you can pull off. Want to measure the magnetron strength of your microwave? Phyphox can do that.

After installing Phyphox, I found myself looking for experiments to undertake. For instance, I wanted to compare the strength of magnetic fields emanating from different devices, so I opened the Magnetometer, started the test, and held the phone up to various pieces of equipment.