Overview
Noise Meter is a work in progress at Civic Tech Toronto. The primary goal is to collect and share noise levels throughout the City of Toronto to better understand noise in the city.
The Plan
The plan is to build inexpensive, easy to set up, low-maintenance noise meters that participants can use to collect noise levels at fixed locations, typically at participants homes. A noise meter may be a purpose-built IoT device or mobile app that collects decibel level measurements at their location and shares them with this website, which in-turn makes them available as open data.
Privacy
A key goal is to protect privacy as much as possible by limiting the data that is collected and shared to decibel levels and approximate locations. In addition to the collected data, some basic device and participant information will be stored privately on the website to coordinate data collection and connect participants with their devices, so they can review and receive notifications about their device(s) and collected data.
Road Map
- IoT Devices - Design and build inexpensive IoT devices that can measure decibel levels and periodically send them to this website through a WiFi connection.
- Mobile Apps - Design and build free iOS and Android apps that can be installed on old phones and devices that are no longer in use, but that can be plugged in and connected to local Wifi.
- Website - Build a website to receive and share collected noise levels as open data and with various visualizations. The website should also enable participants to sign up, set up and monitor their noise meter(s).
- Visualizations - Visualize collected noise data in various ways to help people understand noise levels throughout Toronto.
- Participant Portal - Enable participants to sign up, obtain, manage and monitor noise meters.
- Terms of Use - Clearly identify and document how this website and the collected and shared data can be used.
- Privacy Policy - Clearly identify and document what information is collected and how it will be used.
- Promote - Once the items above are ready, we will promote this project to connect with, educate and engage participants who want to help.