https://decibelshield.app/ New noise datasets, new free browser tools, and corrections, from Decibel Shield. All data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. en CC BY 4.0 — reuse with attribution to decibelshield.app Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT https://decibelshield.app/noise-ordinance/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/noise-ordinances-29-cities-2026-08 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT dataset Twenty-one more cities, bringing the set to 29 across 23 states: what the quiet hours actually are, whether a real decibel limit exists, the code quoted verbatim, and where a complaint actually goes. Every city was researched from its official municipal code and then independently re-checked against the live text, and the check earned its keep immediately: Phoenix was drafted as having no decibel limits anywhere, and a full search of its code turned up several attached to specific uses. Five of the 29 cities genuinely set no general decibel limit, and those pages say so plainly instead of borrowing a number from somewhere else. https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/uk/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/england-rank-correction-2026-08 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT correction A reader pointed out that our England city pages said an area could be "#1 of 65" and "right at the England median" in the same sentence. They were right, and the fault was ours: the sentence compared the midpoint of the published decibel band against the median of those midpoints, and because Defra publishes banded counts of people, most English areas share the same broad band. The ranking itself was unaffected — it comes from the population-weighted average level among exposed residents — but the description was wrong on 43 pages and has been rewritten to state that basis plainly. https://decibelshield.app/speaker-test-tones/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/speaker-test-tones-2026-08 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT tool A sine-tone generator that runs in the browser, with left-only and right-only channel routing and twelve labelled frequency presets. It plays a tone and measures nothing, which is the honest description: what you hear depends on your speakers, your room and your ears. Useful for checking whether a channel works at all, whether a driver rattles, and roughly where your gear and hearing stop responding. https://decibelshield.app/ja/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/ja-meter-2026-08 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT tool The first non-English page on the site: the browser decibel meter with Japanese explanatory copy, including the accuracy limits and a plain statement that the readings are not valid for Japanese workplace or noise-regulation compliance, which require a certified sound level meter. The tool interface itself is still English for now, and the page says so. https://decibelshield.app/press/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/press-page-2026-08 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT coverage A list of the news coverage that has used our city noise data, with links to each story, plus what a journalist needs to use the datasets: 685 cities across the US, UK and Europe, all CC BY 4.0, with CSV and JSON downloads and a ready-made citation on every page. https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/uk/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/uk-maps-2026-08 Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT dataset Rendered Lden contour maps for 68 of the 74 mapped UK urban areas, composited from the official Defra and Welsh Government noise-mapping services. Areas with no published contour service get no map rather than a guess: Scotland and Belfast are mapped in the tables but have no rendered image. https://decibelshield.app/sound-map/uk/ https://decibelshield.app/updates/uk-dataset-2026-08 Sat, 01 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT dataset Population noise-exposure figures for every UK urban area required to be mapped under the environmental noise regulations, taken from Defra for England and from the devolved administrations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England areas are ranked among themselves only, because the devolved nations model their maps separately and cross-ranking them would be a false comparison. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.