HPJ Light Meter

Darryl Cheng

About this app

A simple light meter, measuring in foot-candles or lux. Records the reading along with an image from the front-facing camera.

The prerequisite for plant health is light but when growing them indoors, light levels vary immensely. When the sun is shining directly on a plant, that's considered "direct sun", but the majority of your indoor plants prefer "bright indirect light". Without a light meter, it's difficult to judge what's bright and what's low in terms of indirect light. A light meter will help you put a quantity to an otherwise, subjective understanding of brightness.

Having the camera output shown at the same time will help you link what is in the physical environment to the brightness level.

Ratings and reviews

So far really helpful and extremely easy to use! Downloaded this to help with light levels for my plants and terrariums and definitely makes life easier, I'll see how much it helps over the next few months but so far really promising :)

Overall, i really like it. The front-facing camera is perfect for the #whatmyplantsees approach. Someone said a rear-facing camera would be better but, then, how would you know what your plant sees. I don't think that person bought this for use with houseplants. Get another app if you want to measure lux for photography, video, etc., but, if you've read Darryl's book "New Plant Parent...", then you will understand & be grateful for the forward-facing camera. I will post an update, if needed.

Love it! Simple and easy to use. Would be happy to pay extra if there were a version with information linked in about what common house plants like (e.g. how much light in LUX is the "low light" necessary to keep an Elkhorn happy?). But given this app is available for FREE without ads, it's worth FIVE STARS from me.

What's new

First release.