Modern smartphones are so powerful that you can run AI chatbots locally on your iPhone or Android device without breaking a sweat. This is all thanks to the continuous advancements in mobile chips that have been built over decades of research and development. But besides adding powerful chips capable of handling some processor-intensive tasks, companies also include many sensors on your Android phone that make the device capable of doing more than just communication, web browsing, and social media.

Your Android phone has several sensors that each add specific features to the device. Your phone might not expose you to them in your daily life with its preloaded applications, though. Thankfully, several Android apps take advantage of your phone’s sensors, allowing you to effectively do away with certain clunky gadgets. Instead of buying a separate product, installing an app and using it may be all you need to do. 

While tons of apps are available in the Google Play Store, we focused strictly on those that make certain gadgets redundant and that we still use today. You can check our full methodology at the end of the article.

If you’re a studio photographer or someone sensitive to light, you may need to optimize your room to ensure there’s not too much or too little light. Your first thought could be to get a light meter, and there are various options available from online retailers and big-box stores. While you can find models for less than $30, you don’t need to buy a physical light meter when an app can do it.

Light Meter – Lux Meter is a free-to-download app that makes your phone capable of measuring light and provides results in units that are used to measure illuminance, such as lux and footcandles. The app measures light using your phone’s ambient sensor, which is typically on the front, near the selfie camera.

Using Lux Meter is easy. Just open the app, point your phone’s screen to the light source, and check the measurement result. The app is flexible, allowing you to change the units of measurement and the display interface between digital and analog, as well as to calibrate the sensor for precision. However, the calibration method offered by the app isn’t the best. Lux Meter is available on the Google Play Store and doesn’t require an internet connection to work.

A sound meter, also known as a sound level meter, is a handy gadget that measures sound pressure levels in decibels (dB) to quantify noise. For the uninitiated, such a device comes in handy if you need to check whether that sound from your loud neighbor or the nearby construction site is breaching the recommended levels.

While you usually need a physical gadget to check noise levels, you don’t have to if you use the Sound Meter app. It has an intuitive user interface and uses an analog gauge to show the results. When you install the app, the only thing you need to do is grant it permission to record audio, which is necessary to capture and measure environmental noise levels. 

Once the app’s home interface displays, it will automatically start its monitoring. Sound levels typically vary by the second, so you’ll see the gauge constantly shifting with the average displayed in dB. The app’s only downsides are that it doesn’t continuously log noise levels in the background and has no intuitive interface for viewing past logs. Still, it’s worth using, and you can download Sound Meter from the Google Play Store.

Scanning documents is another task that used to require a physical gadget. You would either need a printer that had scanning capabilities or a dedicated scanner. Both options usually cost close to $100, but fortunately, you don’t need a gadget for that when you have your phone. Your Android phone’s camera can do a great job of taking pictures, and CamScanner allows you to use it to scan documents. 

It has been one of the best apps for the job on Android for quite some time. It can save documents in different formats, and it has a variety of built-in tools that ensure the best results. For example, once you’ve scanned a document, you can crop and edit the image. It also has optical character recognition (OCR), which means you can use it to digitize any kind of text. 

CamScanner is free to download from the Google Play Store, but you’ll have to pay for a premium subscription to enjoy the app’s full functionality. You can use it for free if you’re willing to watch the ads. The app costs $49.99 a year, which isn’t cheap.

If you like adventure, a compass is an essential gadget you should consider getting since it’s a great companion for directional guidance. You can find compasses for sale on Amazon starting at $10, but there’s no need to do so when there’s an app that provides similar functionality. That’s where Accurate Compass comes into play. 

As the name implies, it’s an app you can install on your phone for guidance while navigating. It has several modes you can pick from, which give you more, such as weather insights and a compass camera overlay that offer more versatility than a physical gadget. Once you open the app and grant it the necessary permissions, it displays your current location and coordinates. If you need to share where you are, there’s a Location tab that allows you to copy the latitude, longitude, and even altitude. You can also share a location pin for simplicity.

The app uses a familiar analog compass design with a hand, so it’s pretty easy to tell which side is North, East, and so on. As you can imagine, such information is critical to ensure you don’t get lost in the woods. The only catch you’ll need to keep in mind is that the ads can be distracting, as some users point out in the app’s Google Play Store reviews. You can download Accurate Compass from the Google Play Store for free.

Barcodes have been around for years, and if you need to read one, you usually need a barcode scanner. But with your Android phone, you don’t have to. You can download Google Lens, as it’s capable of scanning barcodes. We recommend using Lens because, while there are many alternatives in the Google Play Store, we’ve seen a popular barcode scanner app leak user data, so using a Google app should be safer.

Lens is a multi-functional app that also lets you search the web using a video or photo. It can identify trees, flowers, and even scan QR codes. Additionally, it has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to use. Once you open it, it shows your camera view, and all you need to do is point at the barcode and let Google Lens read it.

The app is simple, completely free, and doesn’t show ads. It works fine, but some users don’t like how scanning codes may trigger Google’s AI Mode. Google Lens is available to download from the Google Play Store for free.

The main guiding principle in our selection of these Android apps was to find those with functionality that could only be performed by specific gadgets that are still being sold online or in physical stores. As such, every app we’ve listed is either fully dedicated to replacing a specific gadget or offers a feature that makes buying that gadget unnecessary for basic uses.

For example, Google Lens has various features, but its ability to scan barcodes is what led us to include it on this list. We also focused on each app’s ease of use, whether the app is available for download from the Google Play Store, and its rating. App pricing was also an important factor in our selection, and we only included apps that are free to download and use, or those that allow you to access basic functionality without paying a dime.