The best ways to measure products, people and places with your iPhone or Android phone.<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s surprising how often we need to measure things. Whether it\u2019s tracking the kids\u2019 heights or working out if thing X will fit in space Y, the ability to measure things with our phones is really useful. Both iOS and Android enable you to point your phone at things to see how big, small, long or far away they are, and they can also do useful things such as help you calculate the area of an object or dimension. In most cases the apps use augmented reality to map what your camera sensor sees, overlaying measurements and lines on whatever you point your phone camera at. Before we start it\u2019s important to stress the limits of smartphone measuring apps. No matter how good the phone or how clever the app, it won\u2019t deliver 100% accuracy: we\u2019ve found with the iPhone 12 Pro and its built-in LiDAR scanner that the accuracy is just over 95% in most cases. Like most (but not all) measuring apps, Apple\u2019s Measure is not designed for precision measurements: while we\u2019ve found it to be pretty accurate for measuring physical objects and the odd child, it\u2019s not as accurate as the laser measures or good old-fashioned tape measures that professional tradespeople use. If you need accurate measuring for your job or project, a laser measure with Bluetooth connectivity is a better option. For everything else, read on. Since iOS 12, your iPhone has included an app called Measure that you can use to accurately determine dimensions. You can use it to see how long something is, and you can also use it to calculate the square footage\/square metres of objects. In a nice touch you can see how tall someone is simply by getting their whole body in the viewfinder. Your accuracy will depend on what version of iPhone you have. The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max have a LiDAR scanner that makes the Measure app more accurate on those devices. We’re also expecting this feature to be available on the iPhone 13, too. When you launch the Measure app it\u2019ll look a lot like the Camera app: that\u2019s because it uses your phone camera to do its measuring. When you point the camera at an object you\u2019ll see this white dot appear. You don\u2019t need to keep the whole object or person in frame to measure it. Get as close as you need and when you\u2019ve got the dot in the right place, tap the + icon to set the start point. Measure has some auto-detection that tries to help, which is what the faint yellow lines you can see in the screenshot are. Don\u2019t worry too much about getting the start point in the precise position: you can adjust it later. Move to the other end of the item you want to measure, in this case a guitar, and tap the + icon again. Until you set the end point you\u2019ll see a dotted line stretching from your start point with a constantly updated size as you move the camera around. That\u2019s all you need for a straight line measurement: you\u2019ll now see the calculated size in the middle of the object. You can adjust the start and end points for more precision if you need it to, but for this we\u2019re just trying to work out how big a box we need to post the item. Measure can also measure multi-point distances, and as you can see here it also enables you to calculate the area of a particular shape. Simply add the corners with the + icon and Measure will automatically calculate the area in metres or feet, depending on your phone\u2019s unit settings. There\u2019s an easy way to see how accurate Measure, or any other measuring app, is: use it to measure a measuring tool such as this standard measuring tape. As you can see it\u2019s very accurate but slightly out: we\u2019re getting accuracy of around 95%. That\u2019s fine for most things but not for anything where 100% accuracy is essential. Tap the icon at the top left of the display (it\u2019ll be in a different corner if you\u2019ve rotated your phone) and you can copy the measurement for use in other apps such as your Notes app. As you\u2019ve probably guessed, tapping the Level icon will turn the Measure into a surprisingly accurate spirit level. In the early days of the iPhone, spirit level apps were very exciting. We are so very old. The closest equivalent to Apple\u2019s Measure on Android was Google\u2019s own Measure app, but Google removed that from the Play Store in 2021, apparently due to negative feedback from users. But we\u2019re talking Android here, so of course there are still tons of apps that you can use to measure distances on your Android phone. Here are some good choices: Why install multiple apps when one app can do lots of different things? This app has a similar set of features to Apple\u2019s app, enabling you to measure dimensions and use it as a spirit level. Not to be confused with the first Ruler app we mentioned, this Ruler offers accurate measurements and effortless unit conversion. It can calculate areas and it\u2019s great for measuring smaller items. If you\u2019re serious about sizing, ImageMeter works with a wide range of Bluetooth measuring devices, includes a good collection of annotation and drawing tools and makes it easy to export measurements for use in other apps. Do you need to measure something really big? Then this app uses the power of GPS to measure areas, distances and perimeters.<\/p>\n