Questions & answers

QuietScore measures how well your doors and windows block sound. You put a Bluetooth or AirPlay speaker inside a room, stand outside with your phone, and the app measures how much quieter it gets when you close the door. You get a Sound Isolation Score from 0 to 50 — a practical estimate, comparable to professional STC ratings.

An iPhone or iPad running iOS 26.2 or later, and any Bluetooth or AirPlay speaker. A door or window you can open and close. About a minute, and a reasonably quiet moment. No calibration, no account, no special equipment.

The app needs a sound source on one side of the door and a microphone on the other. Your phone's speaker and microphone are in the same device, so it can't measure sound travelling through a barrier on its own. The Bluetooth or AirPlay speaker is the sound source; your phone is the meter.

Yes — any A2DP Bluetooth speaker or AirPlay speaker. That covers virtually all modern wireless speakers. Nothing needs calibrating, because your score is the difference between two readings taken with the same speaker in the same spot.

The speaker goes inside the room, facing the door. You stand outside with the phone at chest height, about a metre back, and take a reference reading with the door open. Then you close the door and repeat from the same spot. The app plays four tones — 125 Hz, 500 Hz, 1 kHz and 4 kHz — on each pass, and your score is the difference between them, weighted for the pitches speech lives in.

About 60 seconds once the speaker is connected — that covers both passes and the walk to close the door. The setup screens before it take a little longer the first time.

No, just reasonably quiet. Before the tones start, the app checks that the room's own noise sits at least 5 dB below the test tone, and it tells you if it doesn't. On the door-closed pass it checks each of the four frequencies separately, and needs 10 dB of headroom on each. If a frequency falls short you can still continue — the result is kept and labelled low-confidence, and it doesn't spend one of your free QuietScores.

The app watches your phone's motion sensors. Move more than about 10 cm (4 in) between the two passes and it stops rather than hand you a number it can't stand behind. The exact spot matters less than using the same one twice.

Changing the volume between the two passes would change the result, so the app watches your phone's volume slider and warns you. Note what it can't see: if your speaker has its own volume knob, the app has no way of knowing you turned it.

It is how many decibels of sound your door or window blocks, weighted toward speech, on a scale of 0 to 50. Higher is better. Below 20 is Poor, 20–29 is Moderate, 30–39 is Good, and 40 and up is Excellent.

It depends on the door. A hollow interior door typically lands around 20–25. A solid-core door is usually 28–32. An acoustic or soundproof door can reach 40 or more. Single-pane windows are often below 20.

No. STC comes from a laboratory with calibrated equipment and a standard test wall. QuietScore measures your actual door, in your actual home, with your phone — and tells you what that's comparable to. Useful for decisions, not for compliance. We use our own name for it so the difference is never in doubt.

Usually the room changed. Background noise, exactly where you stood, or the speaker's own volume all move the reading. Anything inside about 2 dB either way is normal spread, not a real change. For a fair comparison, replicate the setup as closely as you can.

Only things you can open and close. The measurement needs a before and an after, and a wall has no open state. To find where sound gets through a wall, use the Leak Scanner — it locates leaks rather than scoring them.

Hold the phone upside-down so the bottom microphone points at the seam, then sweep along the door or window frame. Set a baseline spot first and every reading afterwards is shown relative to it, so you can see the moment it jumps. Tap to mark a hot spot as you find it, and your marks collect into a findings list, loudest first. Two modes: with a speaker inside playing pink noise, or passively, listening to whatever noise is already out there. It locates leaks — it never scores the door, and the heat colours are deliberately not the rating colours for exactly that reason. Free gets a 10-second preview; Home and above run it as long as you like. The findings list is a live tool and clears when you close it.

Yes — open a saved room and take a new QuietScore. The app keeps the history and tells you whether each new score is better, worse or unchanged. Rooms, history and notes are Home and above. On the free tier a measurement you take after your three are spent is still kept for you, locked, and opens in full the moment you upgrade.

Home and above can export a PDF report with the score, the four-tone breakdown and a customer name and comments. Studio adds the raw decibel figures. Business adds your company name and logo to the report, along with site address, project ID and up to ten custom fields of your own. Reports go out through the usual share sheet — email, AirDrop, or saved to Files.

Advanced Mode (Studio and above) shows the raw decibel readings behind your score — the actual levels at each frequency on both sides of the door. It's useful for diagnosing which pitch is the problem, and the raw figures carry through into the PDF.

Three QuietScores. Not three a month — three for the life of the install, and the app tells you so on the last onboarding screen, before you have spent any. You get the full score on each of those three, plus a 10-second Leak Scanner preview. After that the measurement still runs and the score is what locks; the reading is kept, and a plan opens it in full, breakdown included, with no need to measure again.

Retakes do — a retake is a measurement. Runs we can't stand behind don't: interrupted, too noisy, or too quiet to measure all cost you nothing.

Home ($4.99/mo or $38.00/yr) gives you unlimited QuietScores, the four-tone breakdown, saved rooms with history and notes, the full Leak Scanner and PDF export. Studio ($9.99/mo or $77.00/yr) adds raw decibel figures and calibration for a USB reference microphone. Business ($19.99/mo or $149.00/yr) adds your logo and company name on every report you export. Every plan measures the same way — what changes is how much you can keep, compare and export.

If you only want to know how one door rates, the three free scores may be all you need. Home is the right fit for most people improving a room — it is the tier where results start being saved and comparable. Studio is for anyone who wants the underlying decibel figures or uses a reference microphone. Business is for consultants and contractors handing a branded report to a client.

They are Apple subscriptions, billed through your App Store account and renewing automatically until you cancel. You can cancel any time in Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Prices are shown in USD; your local price and currency depend on your App Store region.

Two settings cause this more often than anything else, and neither is visible to the app. Check Reduce Loud Audio first, then your speaker's own volume knob — both are covered below. After those, the usual causes are a gap under the door or around the frame (small gaps cost a surprising amount), background noise during the test, or a door that simply isn't as solid as it looks. The Leak Scanner will show you where sound is getting through.

In Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Headphone Safety, Reduce Loud Audio silently limits what a Bluetooth speaker can output. The app cannot see that it is on, so the volume check passes while the tones play quieter than intended and the score comes back low. It is the single most common cause of a mystery-low score. Turn it off before measuring, and back on afterwards if you prefer it on.

The app's volume meter only tracks your phone's slider. If your speaker has its own physical knob or its own app, turn that up too — the app can't see it, and the check will pass while the measurement still fails. Turn the speaker up first, then use the phone slider for the fine adjustment.

The biggest wins are almost always sealing gaps: a door sweep at the bottom, fresh weatherstripping, and checking around the frame. Beyond that, a solid-core door is the usual step up. Use the Leak Scanner to find where the sound is actually getting through before you buy anything.

No. Your measurements, room names, notes and reports stay on your device. Audio is never recorded — the app reads sound levels while a measurement runs and nothing more. Delete the app and your data goes with it.

We use TelemetryDeck for anonymous analytics: counts of which features get used and whether measurements finish. Your audio, your measurements, your room names and your reports are never sent. Installations are told apart by a one-way hash — your device's vendor identifier combined with a value unique to QuietScore, hashed on your device before anything is sent, then hashed again by TelemetryDeck. It cannot be reversed to identify you, and cannot be matched against you in any other app. You can switch it off at any time in the app: Settings → Privacy → Share Anonymous Usage Data. The privacy policy has the full detail.