Radiation Monitoring for the Masses

In response to the Fukushima-Daiichi incident, many commercial vendors have produced applications and equipment targeted at the average member of the public in order to enable them to make radiation measurements themselves at little to no cost. The authors have evaluated a small selection of these items in order to validate their performance when exposed to a calibrated 137Cs dose rate irradiator. The products fall into two primary categories: the first using the CMOS from the camera on ubiquitous smartphones and the second using an accessory that performs the radiation measurement. Presented here are the performance data of a selection and recommendations on how to interpret the produced values.