Office Noise Level Checker
Measure your workspace level from the microphone in real time and compare it to a research-based productivity and health guidance chart — under 50 dB(A) optimal, 50–70 moderate, above 70 detrimental — alongside an OSHA workplace reference and open- vs private-office benchmarks.
ℹ This is an uncalibrated estimate, not a sound-level meter. A browser mic can’t know its true sensitivity, so it reads relative dBFS; a dB SPL figure only appears after you calibrate against a real meter, and even then it’s approximate. The 50/70 dB productivity bands are research guidance, not a compliance measurement, and this tool is not valid as legal, complaint, or workplace-compliance evidence. Automatic gain control is forced off (a reading is meaningless otherwise). Nothing is recorded or uploaded.
Microphone
Calibration (optional)
Read the current level on a calibrated sound-level meter or a trusted phone app, type that dB(A) here while measuring, and press Set. The offset is shared with every noise tool on this site, so you only calibrate once. It stays an estimate.
Note: this tool measures an unweighted (broadband, dB Z-like) level — it does not apply A-weighting. Calibrating against a dB(A) meter only applies a single scalar offset, which cannot reproduce the frequency-dependent A-weighting curve, so the estimate is most reliable at the spectral mix present when you calibrated and may read higher than a true dB(A) figure in rooms dominated by low-frequency HVAC hum.
Workspace level
Workspace noise reference (guidance only)
Productivity bands are a simplified framing of office-acoustics research and are for guidance only. The dB(A) figures here are A-weighted reference values, but this tool’s own reading is unweighted (no A-weighting filter is applied), so the comparison is approximate. The 85/90 dB(A) figures are real published OSHA occupational-noise values (29 CFR 1910.95). Comparison here is indicative, not a compliance measurement.
How It Works
When you press Start, the tool opens your microphone with automatic gain control, noise suppression and echo cancellation switched off — those processors silently change the signal level, so leaving them on would make any noise reading meaningless. It then reads the raw waveform many times a second, computes the RMS (root-mean-square) energy of each short frame, and smooths it with a roughly one-second time constant to give a steady level the way a sound-level meter’s “slow” setting does.
That level is reported in dBFS — decibels relative to digital full scale, where 0 is the loudest the system can capture and everything else is negative. dBFS is relative: it tells you reliably whether the room is louder or quieter than a moment ago, but on its own it is not an environmental decibel (dB SPL) reading, because the browser has no idea how sensitive your specific microphone is. To bridge that gap you can calibrate: while measuring, read the level on a real sound-level meter or a trusted phone app and type that dB(A) in. The tool stores the difference (offset = your reading − current dBFS) and from then on shows an estimated dB SPL = dBFS + offset. The offset is saved under a shared key, so calibrating here also calibrates the other noise tools on this site.
Once an estimated SPL is available, the tool drops it into the productivity guidance chart and shows a verdict band: Optimal below 50 dB, Moderate from 50 to under 70, and Detrimental at 70 and above. (The chart’s band boundaries are A-weighted reference values while this tool’s own reading is unweighted, so the comparison is approximate.) It also tracks Leq (the equivalent continuous level over the whole session, 10·log₁₀ of the mean of the per-sample energies), L90 (the level exceeded 90% of the time over a rolling last-~7.5-minute window, a good proxy for the steady background under conversation and clatter), and the loudest and quietest samples since you started. Before you calibrate, every figure is shown honestly as relative dBFS rather than an invented SPL number. Before/after comparisons with the same mic and the shape of the level over time are meaningful even without calibration; only the absolute dB SPL value depends on it.