DIY Apps - Are they any good?

[Davey_82]

Just been on the Apple App store and theres a few DIY apps with material calculation etc and decent tutorials but 'm not sure what to get.

Has anyone else ever downloaded any of these apps, and if so were they any good? I'm starting to renovate my new house and its got no internet so I'm looking for something that covers a lot of material without a net connection to help me out a bit.

So far there's DIY DO IT which looks the most promising and a few others that I cant remember.

Any opinions welcome, cheers

Dave

[mark]

DeWalt have what looks to be an interesting app., with sections to suit various trades. However it is only available on the US itunes unless someone can come up with a workaround.

Google: dewalt itunes and you'll find it.

mark

[polygonum]

You probably don't want to know this, but there are loads and loads of Android apps...

I was somewhat surprised to find a metal detector app...

[whisky-dave]

Does it work, well it's andriod ;-)

As I thought you needed an externalm coil.

Is there a water diviner app too, maybe a UFO detector also. as long as they're free I'll try them, must find that cat translator I heard about.

[Dave Liquorice]

The one I downloaded does, at least for magnetic materials.

Depends if your droid has the magnetic sensor or not.

[polygonum]

Yes - it works on a Galaxy S2.

Can't help thinking that with appropriate Bluetooth devices these phones could be harnessed to do all sorts of things. And certainly that seems to be happening in the medical world with some blood testing devices at least in development.

[fred]

If you have a suitable phone set it up as a hot spot and log on via that

[whisky-dave]

I'm not sure a phone can test blood..... I know lots of things are happening in the medical world quite a few of my students do that, but the phone is only the output device it's not really used for actual testing.

You could do blood/breathe alcohol level, but somehow the phones go to have the relivant cirucitry. I suprised that aren;'t used for measuring speed too,rather than rely on a cars speedo, but I get the impression the errors might be too large.

[polygonum]

Sorry, fred, but I really don't understand what you are saying there.

I was pointing out that there is a device in development which connects to a smart phone and exploits its processing capacity, etc. to perform a number of tests on a blood sample.

My phone (in common with many others) is able to act as a mobile wireless hotspot.

Yes - the remote device could use wifi - but the ultra low power Bluetooth 4 has several advantages.

[polygonum]

On its own, I'd struggle to see how a blood test could work. Which was why I wrote "with appropriate Bluetooth devices". And one that uses the flash of the phone is this:

entirely sure if this particular device incorporates Bluetooth - I think not - but other devices might well do so and it is easy to see why that might be of use. One of the most obvious, though trivial, applications would be to collect data from a standalone portable blood pressure machine such as are readily available.