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From a published limit, not a house formula. Din uses NIOSH's recommended exposure limit: a day's ears are eight hours at 85 dB, and every 3 dB louder halves the time - an hour at 94 dB, fifteen minutes at 100. Din measures the room, applies whatever is in your ears, and divides what is left of today's budget by how fast the room is spending it.

They are the plain-words caption for the number. Quiet (under 70 dB) and Moderate (70-80) cost nothing - the budget only starts counting at 80 dB. Loud (80-95) is a bar with music, where the clock runs in hours. Very loud (95-105) is a gig or a club - minutes. Dangerous (over 105) is the front row, where the answer is to protect your ears now rather than to time them.

Because sound energy doubles every 3 dB. The difference between 92 and 98 dB reads as small on the dial, but it is four times the energy, so a quarter of the time. This is the fact the app exists to make visible: rooms that feel similar can cost your ears very differently.

It is an estimate, and it says so on the dial. A phone microphone is not a certified sound level meter: Din applies proper A-weighting and a calibration chosen for recent iPhones, and typically lands within a few dB of a reference meter. If you have one, match Din to it in Settings - the calibration slider adjusts ±12 dB. Above 110 dB the microphone itself limits, so the dial shows "110+" rather than inventing a number.

Yes - that is what Before you go does, from the calendar button at the top of the Now screen. Pick where you are going (a loud bar, a club, a gig up front, or any level from 75 to 110 dB) and how long you will be there, and Din runs the same maths forward as the countdown does, against whatever today's budget has left. It shows what the night would cost behind each protection and names the lightest one that keeps it inside the budget. It needs no microphone and it is free.

Let the meter read the room for a few seconds, then tap I'm staying. Din holds that level, notes what protection you told it about, and counts down to the moment the day's budget runs out. Tap I left when you leave and the session is saved to the log.

No - that is the design. The meter only listens while the app is open; a session holds the level you measured and models the dose forward from it. Your phone is not recording in your pocket, the mic indicator goes out when it locks, and there is no battery drain at the gig. When the room changes - the band comes on, you move to the bar - open the app and tap Re-measure.

They tell the maths what is in your ears from this moment on. Switch to Musician's or Foam when the plugs go in and the countdown stretches; switch back to None when they come out. Changes only apply forward - Din never retroactively protects sound you already heard bare.

When you tap I left, Din offers a label - Gig, Club, Bar, Cinema, Work, or anything you type - and you can skip it. You can add or change one later from the log: press and hold the row. Labelling is free, and it is what turns a column of percentages into a record of where you actually were.

That at the current level, behind the current protection, the sound reaching your ears is below 80 dB - the threshold under which the daily budget does not accrue at all. A 100 dB club behind foam plugs is about 80 dB at the ear, which is why foam buys you the whole night.

The ring fills, the countdown is replaced by "Over budget", and the percentage keeps counting honestly past 100. Nothing is hidden and nothing scolds you. A card appears saying when the allowance resets, where your week stands if the Week screen is being fed, and that the guidance the budget comes from counts quiet time as part of the allowance - facts, not instructions. The log will show what the night cost, and the number is there to inform the next one.

The number on the packet is a laboratory rating - foam is commonly rated 28-33 dB - measured with a perfect fit. Worn by a real person at a real gig, the delivered protection is well below that, so Din counts musician's plugs at 15 dB and foam at 20. The countdown errs on the side of your ears, never on the side of the packet.

Yes, with Din Pro: Settings > Your earplugs > Add a pair. Give them a name and the SNR or NRR printed on the packet, and Din shows you what it will credit before you save. The rating is derated the same way Din's own figures are - an NRR loses 7 dB first for the A-weighted correction, then two thirds of what remains is counted, and nothing is credited above 25 dB. A pair rated SNR 30 comes out at exactly the 20 dB Din uses for generic foam. Your pairs then appear in the safe-time table, in a session, in the planner and as the default in Settings.

The daily budget is NIOSH's recommended exposure limit (publication 98-126): eight hours at 85 dB, halving every 3 dB. The weekly allowance on the Week screen is the WHO's safe-listening figure: forty hours at 80 dB, on the equal-energy principle. Neither is Din's invention, and the app never adjusts them to be kind.

Under the daily limit, yes - NIOSH counts nothing below 80 dB, so conversation, offices and streets are free. The weekly allowance counts everything by energy, but quiet hours cost so little they barely register: forty hours at 60 dB is one percent of a week.

Yes, fully. The meter screen offers "Start from an estimate" instead - typical venue levels for a loud bar, a club, and a gig up front - and a session started from an estimate has the same countdown, the same events and the same log entry. You can change the estimate mid-session the same way you would re-measure.

To measure the room instead of guessing it. It listens only while the app is open, turns the sound into a level, and throws the audio away - nothing is recorded, stored, or sent anywhere. There is nowhere for it to be sent: Din contains no network code.

From Apple Health, read-only. Your iPhone already records headphone audio levels on its own, and an Apple Watch records environmental sound around you. Din reads both and sums them against the WHO weekly allowance, day by day, with the split shown - headphones against surroundings.

To avoid counting the same night twice. A gig you logged as a session was also heard by your Watch, if you wear one - it is already in the surroundings number. Adding Din's own record on top would overstate the week, so the Week screen shows the devices' record and the Log shows Din's, each labelled as what it is.

No. Without one the Week shows your headphone listening, which every iPhone records by itself. The Watch adds the environmental half - the rooms you were in. And the meter, sessions and the log need neither.

The Live Activity - the countdown in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen - ten minutes' warning before the budget runs out, adding the earplugs you own by their packet rating, the Week screen, history beyond seven days, the Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, and asking Siri how long your ears have got without opening the app.

Safety, all of it. The meter, the bands, the safe-time table, the Before you go planner, all three built-in protections, sessions with the full countdown, naming your nights, starting and ending one from Siri, the no-microphone estimates, and seven days of log. Pro sells reach - the Lock Screen, the week, the past - and depth, like adding your own pairs. It never sells protection.

£1.99 a month, £9.99 a year, or £24.99 once, yours for good. All three unlock the same things.

The yearly plan starts with seven days free. Cancel inside the week in Settings > Apple Account > Subscriptions and nothing is charged.

Tap Restore purchases in Din's Settings, signed into the same Apple Account you bought with. Purchases belong to the account, not the phone.

Refunds are handled by Apple rather than by me: go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, and find the purchase.

An iPhone on iOS 26 or later. Din is iPhone-only.

Not yet - Din has been submitted and is waiting for review. This page will carry the App Store link the day it is live.

Three actions. "Start a Din session" and "End my Din session" are free, and both open the app - the meter only listens while Din is on screen, so an action that claimed to start measuring in the background would be lying about what it does. That is enough for an automation like starting a session when you arrive at a venue, and the location is the Shortcuts app's business, not Din's; Din has no location code. The third, asking how long your ears have got, answers without opening anything and is part of Pro, because it reads the same snapshot the widgets read.

Entirely. Din makes no network connections at all - airplane mode changes nothing about how it works.

One: ten minutes' warning before the day's budget runs out, during a session, with Pro. It is time-sensitive so it reaches you through a Focus, it is scheduled locally on your phone, and ending the session cancels it. There is nothing else - no streaks, no re-engagement, no marketing.

Your sessions, your settings, and - if you allowed Health access - the sound-exposure records your devices already keep. All of it stays on your iPhone. There is no account, no analytics, and no network code in the app, so nothing can leave. The full policy is at /din/privacy-policy.

Long-press any session in the Log to delete it, or delete the app to remove everything Din stores. Health access can be revoked in the Health app under Data Access & Devices - Din holds no copy of what it read.