Check light, banding, color, and darkness

getbased includes eight tools for screening and recording your light environment. Camera frames and sensor samples are processed in the browser and discarded; saved summaries stay with your getbased data. Phone cameras are not spectrometers, UV meters, calibrated lux meters, or purpose-built flicker meters. The app labels camera-derived results as relative or approximate and preserves the method and confidence with each reading.

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Tools at a glance

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What is this light?

Aim the camera at a neutral surface lit by the source. The tool uses the camera’s RGB pattern and banding proxy to screen the appearance as warm, cool, mixed, or a likely broad source category. Camera processing, automatic white balance, and different sources with similar RGB averages can produce the same result, so treat the label as an observation for your room record rather than source identification.

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Lux meter

The preferred input is the browser’s ambient-light sensor when the device exposes one. You can also enter a reading from a separate lux meter. The camera path withholds a lux number until you calibrate that browser device beside a known meter. Calibration saves a device-specific factor. If a reliable exposure lock is unavailable, or the camera is uncalibrated, use its brightness only as a relative comparison. Recalibrate after changing device, camera, or capture behavior. The displayed bands—very dim, dim indoor, typical indoor, bright indoor, and outdoor ranges—are orientation aids, not health thresholds.

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Color temp

The camera estimates a rounded correlated-color-temperature appearance and a blue RGB proxy. Automatic white balance can neutralize the very color difference being tested, so the result has low confidence when white balance cannot be held. Similar CCT values can have very different spectra. The tool can also surface visible rolling-shutter banding. That is a camera observation, not a PWM diagnosis.

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Flicker detector

Aim at the illuminated surface or source and hold still while the tool checks row-by-row brightness variation. A rolling-shutter camera can reveal banding from some modulated lights, but detection depends on frame timing, exposure, camera processing, angle, and the light itself. The saved result is a qualitative banding score. getbased does not infer a frequency or claim IEEE compliance. No detected banding means only that this capture did not reveal it; use a suitable flicker meter when the answer matters.

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Sleep darkness

Place the phone near eye level under normal sleep conditions. The camera path provides a qualitative low-light check because exposure processing prevents a dependable universal lux conversion. If you have a meter, enter its reading for a numeric record. The result can help compare room changes but does not measure melatonin or diagnose a sleep problem.

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Window check

Take comparable readings toward the same stable scene with and without the glass in the path. Keep position, angle, lighting, and camera exposure as consistent as possible. The ratio is a relative visible-light comparison for improving behind-glass session estimates. It cannot determine UV blocking, infrared transmission, coating type, or eye safety.

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Home audit

Start the walkthrough and pause for roughly 5–10 seconds in each room. getbased looks for stable pauses while holding one camera exposure, then lets you label the captured room segments. This is useful for relative brightness across the same walkthrough. It is not calibrated lux, and results from separate devices or different exposure settings should not be compared as if they were.

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Golden hour log

Use this tool after an outdoor session to record its timing and conditions. getbased classifies the solar phase from the time and location. It does not start a live sensor measurement or assume that sunrise and sunset produce a guaranteed biological effect.

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Storage and AI context

Dedicated measurements are generally stored as the latest reading for a room and tool. Home-audit walkthroughs are kept as separate records so you can compare visits. The saved record includes its method and confidence where available. Records remain local unless you enable encrypted cross-device sync. When Light & Sun context is enabled, compact measurement summaries can be included in the AI context; camera frames are never included. When a supported saved measurement receives an AI interpretation, you can read the measurement instruction and its limits.