# OpenBat — Putting bats on the map!

> Putting bats on the map! (iPhone/iPad app by Niall Bell.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/openbat/id6787886621 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Niall Bell](https://appshunter.io/developer/1884697412)
- Category: Education, Reference
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 17+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 52 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-09-04
- Data updated: 2026-10-01
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/openbat/id6787886621/reviews.md

## What is OpenBat?

OpenBat is a free iOS app that turns a compatible ultrasonic USB microphone into a live bat detector. It captures audio at up to 384 kHz, shows a real-time spectrogram, detects individual echolocation pulses, and, where an open-source model exists for your region, suggests species IDs on-device. Currently covers the US and Canada, with UK/Europe in beta.

** Bat detection requires an external ultrasonic microphone. Visit OpenBat.app to learn more. **
  
Hear bats in real time

OpenBat uses two ways to turn ultrasonic bat calls into sound you can actually hear:

  - Heterodyne: tunes into a band of frequencies and scales it down. Preserves rhythm and loudness, but can sound
    clicky.
  - Time expansion: records a call, then plays it back at a fraction of the speed. Preserves the character of the
    call, but not the rhythm.
  - Het + TE hybrid: both running at once.

Analyse your recordings

Record what you hear, then break down the calls in Playback. Extract the parameters used to identify species, save them for later, or post recordings straight to iNaturalist for the community to help confirm an ID.

Learn about bats

AutoID suggests which species might be around you in real time. The Field Guide covers bats in your area and worldwide, curated by bat experts and kept up to date — and if you know your local bats, you can contribute too.

Share it, or keep it to yourself

Play the bats you're hearing through your device's speakers, or plug in headphones and listen alone.


## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 0.9.8 — 2026-09-22

Continuing to improve OpenBat and add additional features!

New:
- A blog in the field guide which read posts from openbat.app and see where they're about, pinned on the guide's globe alongside species.
- Blog posts with locations are now shown on the globe. View them by tapping the filter wheel and rotating (imitates an old-style het detector).
- Favourite recordings in the player so that they appear in the demo mode.
- Re-run the classifier on any recording by enabling classifier mode and tapping a recording in the session (only visible in advanced mode).

Improved:
- The list of calls from a session now shows the name and best guesses for each one, plainly numbered, instead of a picture that could only be drawn for a few of them.
- Added endorsement and affiliation notes next to each of the included models. Made license terms clear.

Fixed:
- Long calls are measured properly rather than being cut short by a display setting.
- Opening a past recording during a live session no longer crashes the app, it offers to end the session first.
- Fixes to the BatDetect2 (not endorses or affiliated with OpenBat).

### 0.9.7 — 2026-09-11

New for 0.9.7 (build 251):

- Listening settings are now one card: time expansion and heterodyne side by side, with a single Mixer instead of two volume sliders, and background reduction on by default so the extra loudness doesn't just raise the hiss.
- Users can now hold the phone to their ear (like on a phone call) and the app moves sound output to the earpiece for quiet listening without earphones
- Default volume boosted: the default volume has been boosted significantly to resolve an issue where users were experience quiet calls.
- Identifications say one thing at a time. The percentage on a row is the model's track record for that species, how often it's right when it names that bat, with the winner and its nearest rival shown together, coloured by how far apart they finished. Simplified view keeps all of it one tap away.
- AutoID Model Selection: now automatic and in the background. If there is a model for your area, it will be applied, if not you'll see a message.
- Fixes: an interruption (a call, Siri, another app taking the mic) no longer stops your recording silently; replays of keys and footsteps are dropped again, and every replay lands at the same level; session exports no longer leave their zips on your phone; "Reset all settings" now reaches the AutoID tab; microphones that aren't 384 kHz work properly; and species photos come back after a bad connection.
- Lots of other misc bugs including under the hood, and user interface.

### 0.9.6 — 2026-09-08

New for 0.9.6 (Build 220):

- Updated App Store screenshots.
- Added deeper iNaturalist integration. The app now ranks the quality of a recording and allows you to send recordings straight from your device to your iNaturalist account in a format that is useful to bat experts so that they can attempt to offer an ID. Requires an iNaturalist account - sign in is handled by iNaturalist and not OpenBat.
- Added a config menu to the settings. This is locked behind a password because changing settings could break the app. This is used to administer support to people who are experiencing issues. 
- Added remote kill switches to some features. This allows us to turn off some functions quickly in the event issues are detected which need urgent attention. These features are AutoID, iNaturalist send, and Range Maps. The main reason is that we don't want the app to be providing incorrect information and need a way to disable a feature faster than what an official app update can be processed.
- Improved autoID. Mostly under the hood stuff to reduce compute budget so we can ID more passes to get more accurate IDs. 
- A few visual bug fixes.

### 0.9.5 — 2026-09-04

No release notes.

## Apps similar to OpenBat

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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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## More apps by Niall Bell

- [numbird](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/numbird/id6760490080)

All apps by Niall Bell: https://appshunter.io/developer/1884697412

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-01.*