Spectro by Variable

Good

I haven’t used it too many times but the times I have it’s close but not close enough for me. When I use it on known paint colors it does list the correct color as a possible match but not first choice match. User error?

Using it to measure the density of black coatings. So far it’s working beautifully and giving us good measurable data.

Update 8-23-22: App worked this morning but this afternoon informed me of a required 30mb download. After downloading, the app just crashes on launch. The same required download was done on my samsung galaxy s22 ultra and the app runs with no issues there. I don’t know what the deal is, since the update history on the appstore page gasnt been updated in almost a year. It’s definitely broken for now. The app is for all intents and purposes identical on iPad and iPhone. It works very well, but some effort to adapt the iPad app to landscape would be greatly appreciated. It’d be a 5 star rating with a proper IPad landscape mode and addition/correction of the issues noted below. The main caveat - lab plot scaling: The Lab plot when comparing colors is scaled weird. It doesn’t show the whole lab plot, but instead a ‘scaled down to best fit in viewing area’ sort of version. As most color-familiar people already know: L channel range is 0 to 100 a channel range is 128 to -128 b channel range is 128 to -128 some sources use 127 to -128 for a and b channels, i.e., adobe photoshop & Wikipedia I believe this is down to computational reasons rather than the mathematical model. Often the scaled extent of the lab plot display will exceed these values, especially the L channel: For instance, scanning the included white calibration tile as the “standard” (vs any other color) results in the top end of the L channel display being well above 100; in my testing it scales the display up to 158 at the top end. Seems like it’d be better to just show a standard lab plot and place the scanned standard and sample on the plot, rather than scaling the plot to some sort of “best fit”, or at least give the user a little radio button/check box to switch from scaled to non-scaled view.

Every time I tap a color chit to view details on the paint color, the app crashes for both iPhone and iPad. The iPad app needs to be landscape aware.

I’ve not been able to reach anyone to discuss the reasons for not having these colors in the app. When leaving a message the voice recording says there are no humans available so you have to leave a message. I’ve had no call back yet. But so far the unit has work very well so far. If it had all of Benjamin Moore’s colors in the app this product would be sweet. So far it is out performing my 5000.00 Photospectrometer.

I received my Spectro early - unbelievable for the price. App is very well done.