YABPMCounter (v1.0)
by Alexander Thomas (aka Dr. Lex)
What is it?
This is a very basic beats-per-minute (BPM) counter app for Android. (The name stands for “Yet Another BPM Counter”.)
It has only two buttons: one huge button that covers most of the screen, and a reset button. Simply tap the main button at the rhythm of the music (or whatever other rhythm you want to measure, e.g. a heartbeat). Two values will appear: an average and a median value. The median should be the most stable and reliable value for the true BPM measure. The app is robust against missing one beat, so it should still work even if you have one of those cheap phones with a less than perfect touch screen. Make sure to push the reset button before starting to measure a new rhythm, otherwise the previous measurement will influence the new one for a while.
The reason why I wrote this, is because all the other BPM counters I have tried, seemed way too finicky and provided a too unstable measure. Quite a few of them also reacted to the ‘button release’ event instead of ‘button down’, making them even less reliable. As with my other apps, my only concern was to provide something that works, not something that looks fancy. If you prefer a flashy app with a bling-bling interface, then this is not the app you're looking for.
Download
The (quite simple) source code is available as an Android Studio project on GitHub.
The program has only few strings, so I provided Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and simplified Chinese localisations to the best of my abilities. Other localisations are welcome: either create a pull request, or just send me the translated strings.xml file.
Version History
2016/04/16, 1.0: first release
Disclaimer
YABPMCounter is released under the Simplified BSD License. This software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In other words, use at your own risk.
The author cannot be held responsible for any possible damage caused by users taking the Ian Dury reference in the app literally, and hitting their devices with actual drum sticks.