Photone - Grow Light Meter

Very useful app

Originally, I love this app used it for my LED lights. I had to wipe my phone and reinstall the app to which I found I need to pay now to use the features I had for free before.

I paid for the ability to measure the ppfd of full spectrum led lights, and I paid for the cosine diffuser. At first this app seemed helpful, but the recommended ppfd and dli was causing my plants to wilt. I decided to try this app with a different phone and also tried paper vs cosine diffuser and I ended up getting four completely different readings. If you decide to use this app, I recommend using it only as a general reference to the brightness of your light and don’t expect that the numbers are accurate. Personally I recommend using a cheap lux meter, find the lux YOUR plants like with YOUR particular light. Don’t rely on numbers and recommendations that may or may not be accurate depending on the type of phone and diffuser you’re using.

You have to pay for any lights that you might actually be using to try to grow anything. A free 30 day trial would be much more useful. At least that way you could compare it to other meters to get an idea of what this can provide.

It would be nice if they would add calibrations for diffusers made with other common weights of paper.

I hope it’s accurate with my iPhone 12 Pro because it's a really handy tool and nice to not need an expensive light meter

My main problem is the make-shift diffuser. Made it as explained and even taped it to my phone ‘cause you can’t get readings while the diffuser is falling off. we’ll that wasn’t good enough as the warning message appears sporadically. So I made a black cardboard diffuser and attached it with a binder clip. Nope. Tried the cardboard diffuser with my hand held over it and still that message. I use the diffuser and cancel the msg when it appears. I have a handheld meter that reads LUX and the readings between the two devices is significant (outside full sun 2pm 800 from the meter and 14200 from Photone. Not sure what to make of this. Maybe it is as simple as “are your plants thriving?”

Need to measure my new light in the tent so reddit recc’d Photone, i got the Full spectrum LED for 6.49$ to use on my GroCruiser 130W light and taped a piece of printer paper on my iphone 13 pro max camera and now i can measure correct light height and ppfd :)

This app caught my attention. I recently installed some grow lights and I simply want to know how far they should be from my plants. Was going to buy a light meter, but then this app says “free” on it. Thought I’d try it out. Well here’s the catch. It’s free to download, but you have to pay for anything actually useful. Theoretically, I’m fine with that. But you have to pay for each individual kind of light. You have to pay for information on what measurements mean. Really? What if, after spending all this money, you find the information is wrong? You can choose to unlock everything for a monthly fee or a onetime fee of $80. But here’s the thing…that same cost will buy a very decent light meter. You can buy a mediocre meter for less than half. And with this app, they insist you make a filter. And seriously, they INSIST. Like the alert will not go away even after you dismiss it, so the warning blocks measurements even after you have done a onetime payment to unlock something. Seriously? I’m just going to buy a light meter without all the hassle, thanks. Recommendation: Save your money and buy a meter instead.

I just watched a video where the readings were off by 150 PPFD in comparison to a PAR meter device. This because he was using 20lb paper instead of the recommended 22lb 98 bright paper. In searching for the right paper I found that 20lb is vastly more available and cheaper than 22lb. My suggestion to the developers would be to make a setting for the different common paper weights instead of requiring everyone to buy a specific whole ream of paper. I like the app so I’ll go and spend another $15 for a ream of paper to get accurate readings. Still a heck of a lot cheaper for beginners than buying an Apogee.