FPE has found several no cost or low costs tools available to help ergonomists.  These tools are in the form of APPS for both IOS and Android devices.  Searches of the respective APP stores will provide a variety of such tools available to the ergonomist.  For example, tools such as sound level meters, light meters, and NIOSH Lifting Guide calculators are available.  FPE does not recommend or endorse any specific APPS, but rather suggests that you thoroughly evaluate any APPS to understand their strengths and weaknesses before using the APPS.  Dr. Paul Green and his students at the University of Michigan published an article, “Free Smartphone Apps to Support Human Factors/Ergonomics Work” in the January 2018 issue of Ergonomics in Design.  It provides an excellent evaluation of several Apps that they identified. A link to the article is provided: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1064804617723462

Ergonomists are encouraged to evaluate the various smartphone Apps to determine their suitability for ergonomics applications of interest.  It would be unwise to simply assume that a given App is an accurate and reliable tool.  When properly evaluated and used appropriately, Apps can provide an additional no/low cost set of tools for the ergonomist’s toolbox.