Safety App Of The Week

December 22, 2014 No Comments

Below is this week’s “Safety App of the Week“.  Every Monday we publish an article that reviews and rates a new workplace safety app.  Our testing is done on Apple iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tab 3s.  We rate each app from ♥ to ♥♥♥♥♥ (♥♥♥♥♥ is the best).  Prior app of the week articles are archived here.    

ChemAlert & ChemAlertLite

Official Description  

“ChemAlert for iPhone and iPad now brings the trusted name of ChemAlert to the world of mobiles.  Key chemical safety management information including Hazards and GHS Classifications, Risk and Safety Phrases, First Aid information and recommended Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is now be available at your fingertips…

ChemAlert Lite gives you access to all products in the ChemAlert Mobile database. Subscribers to the full ChemAlert application also receive access to over 100,000 Safety Data Sheets and independent product safety reports.”¹

 

Thumbs Up

• ChemAlert is free, and ChemAlertLite is only $3.99
• colorful, good graphics, visually attractive
• well-organized, easy  to use, no instructions needed
• separate sections for each chemical on: safety, first aid, PPE, DOT classifications, and GHS
• entire chemical data base is searchable by chemical name
• detailed GHS information section
• the $3.99 ChemAlertLite app provides access to over 100,000 safety data sheets (e.g. we found 22 entries when we searched for “Asbestos”)
• like other apps (e.g. WISER, NIOSH Pocket Guide) ChemAlertLite provides safety and toxicity information on thousands of “chemicals”;  however, only ChemAlertLite allows you to also search for industrial and consumer “products” (e.g. Windex, Loctite, etc.)

 

Thumbs Down

• the free ChemAlert app only provides access to 100 chemical data sheets
• does not work off-line
• can not email information from the app
• searching is slow, it takes far too much time for the app to find the data sheets on your chemical
• no alphabetical master list of all chemicals in the ChemAlertLite data base

 

Overall Rating

• iPad / iPhone  – ♥♥♥♥
• Android –  not available
• Overall – the free ChemAlert app is a waste of your time, however ChemAlertLite is a must have app because it is the only app that has data sheets on “products” in addition to “chemicals”

 

¹ Description courtesy of  iTunes

 

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