How To Use
Basics
The Control Board presents you with your location's current noise level. Noise Alerts begins monitoring sound immediately when launched to present you with your noise level as fast as possible, but you can pause microphone usage by clicking "Stop Monitoring".
Learn more about noise meter customisation below.
You can also enable and disable notification alerts here by toggling "Enable Noise Alerts". It is off on default on first start-up.
Notifications
When enabled (either from the Control Board or menu bar), Noise Alerts can send you a notification when it detects a spike in noise — such as something falling, a baby crying, someone talking to you, etc.
Noise Notifications don't work whilst monitoring is off.
Menu Bar Add-on
Noise Alerts comes with a handy add-on to your menu bar, allowing you to see your noise level and control the app whilst working in other programs.
The noise level it displays matches the one displayed in your Control Board — following all preferences set in the app's settings, meaning it retains full customisability like the rest of the app.
From here, you can also get quick access to settings, and toggle noise notifiactions and monitoring.
Check if Noise Alerts is using your microphone.
Noise Alerts has been designed to be very transparent with when it's using your microphone. From macOS Monterey, you can see when it's in use by checking if an orange dot is present next to the Control Center in your menu bar, or on the top-right of your display.
You can also see if your microphone is being used by Noise Alerts by checking if monitoring is on. If the button on the bottom of the Control Board reads "Stop Monitoring", your microphone is on, and if it reads "Start Monitoring", your microphone is currently off.
You can also tell by glancing at the menu bar. If you see a megaphone icon, your microphone is off. If you see a percentage or a number ending in "dbFS", your microphone is on.
Customisation
Noise Alerts has been designed with customisation in mind. It comes with an extensive settings panel with loads of options to calibrate Noise Alerts to you and your microphone.
Minimum Level on Noise Meter
This setting allows you to change the minimum level shown on the Noise Meter. Adjust this if the Noise Meter constantly appears empty. The default for this setting is -60 dbFS.
Maximum Level on Noise Meter
This setting allows you to change the maximum level shown on the Noise Meter. Adjust this if the Noise Meter constantly appears red. The default for this setting is 20 dbFS.
Noise Type displayed on Noise Meter
This setting allows you to change the type of noise displayed on the Noise Meter. Either Average Noise (the average noise for the past second), or Peak Noise (the loudest noise observed for the past second). The default for this setting is Average Noise.
Noise Unit displayed on Noise Meter
This setting allows you to change the unit of noise displayed on the Noise Meter. Either a percentage (calculated by comparing the current noise value to the range between the minimum and maximum level), or Decibels to Full Scale (dbFS). The default for this setting is Percentage.
Threshold for Noise Notifications
This setting allows you to change the threshold for a noise spike required to send a noise notification (when enabled). Adjust this setting if noise notifications are occuring too little or too often. The default for this setting is 10 dbFS.
Permissions
To work correctly, Noise Alerts requires microphone and notification permissions. You can check if they're both enabled in the app's settings. If the dot appears green, the permission is enabled. If it appears red, it is disabled and needs to be turned on for the app to operate correctly.
You can go directly to the System Preferences pane to edit these permissions by clicking "Go to System Preferences" underneath the permission in question.