So you have something to measure but you don’t have your measuring tools with you? Well, if you have your Android phone with you, you can measure rudimentary things like distance and height with just your phone. The measuring does not consist of knowing how long your phone is. It does involve downloading an app from the Martket called the Advanced Ruler Pro.

The Advanced Ruler Pro measures distance and height of a specific point using the camera on the phone. All you have to do is point it at a point on the ground to find out the distance between you and the point. To find out the height of a structure, you first have to aim at the base, lock it and then aim at the point who’s height you want to measure and then lock that too. End result is the height of the last point.

Of course, since the app (or the phone, for that matter) cannot tell how far off the the ground the phone is, you have to enter your own height to make it work. You might have to shave a few inches off to adjust for holding it at eye level. The rest is taken care of by the phone.

It does not seem like the app is using any sensors to accomplish this task. It is possibly just looking at the camera feed and using that to parse the distance. In any case, at just 99 cents, this is definitely a handy app to have in your arsenal. Of course, it won’t be giving you inch accurate measurements but it might come in handy for individuals who frequently need to make such rudimentary measurements.

The Advanced Ruler Pro will read out measurements in both the imperial and metric system.

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