How Jome predicts how a place will feel

Before you go somewhere, the question is rarely "is it open?" It is: how loud will it be, how busy, how bright? Jome answers that with a sensory forecast. This post explains in plain terms how that forecast is made. The model itself stays internal, but you should know what goes into a score and where its limits are.

The short version

Jome divides every city and town it covers into small blocks, about the size of a few streets. Every day, for each block and each hour of the day, it estimates how comfortable the area is likely to be on four senses: noise, crowds, light and smell. Each sense gets a comfort score from 0 to 100, where higher means calmer. Your own sensitivities then decide which of those four matters most for you.

What goes into a score

A score combines four kinds of information:

• The area itself. Roads and how busy they tend to be, railway and tram lines, nearby airports, and how many places that draw people are around, such as stations, shops, markets and nightlife.
• Time. The hour, weekday or weekend, rush hours and the season. A shopping street at 10:00 on a Tuesday is not the same street at 16:00 on a Saturday.
• Weather. Rain, wind, temperature and visibility from the weather forecast.
• Events. Concerts, matches, festivals and other large gatherings nearby, and how many people they are expected to draw.

We also take the size of the city into account, because a busy hour in Amsterdam is different from a busy hour in a small town.

Turning it into a score

We taught Jome what calm and overwhelming look like, using many examples from different cities, times of day and seasons. It uses that to score every block, for every hour. We check the results regularly and keep updating them as the seasons change.

From scores to your map

The four scores roll up into one of three labels: Sensory Friendly, Moderate or High Stimulation.

The scores are the same for everyone. What you see is not. Your sensory profile weighs each sense by how much it affects you, and that weighting is applied in the app against your own profile. The same street can be Moderate for one person and High Stimulation for another, and both are right.

What our scores are not

Being clear about the limits matters as much as the method.

• Not live readings. We don't place microphones or light meters, and we don't track people's phones to count crowds. A score is a forecast of the conditions you can expect at that hour, refreshed every day.
• Not a single venue's interior. A block covers the streets around it. Inside a café can be calmer or louder than the street outside. That is where reviews come in.
• Smell is the hardest to estimate. It is rarely recorded anywhere, so treat the smell score as an indication, not a fact.
• The unexpected won't show up. Roadworks, a spontaneous gathering or a fire alarm are not in any forecast.

Where people come in

Next to the forecast, people who have visited a place can rate it from 1 to 5 on noise, crowds, lighting, temperature and overall comfort. Reviews can be sorted by how close the reviewer's profile is to yours, so the most relevant experiences come first.

The forecast tells you what to expect in an area. A review tells you how a specific place actually felt to someone like you. Together they let you decide before you leave the house.

Common questions

Does Jome measure actual decibels or lux?

No. Jome estimates the typical sensory conditions of an area for each hour and combines that with ratings from people who have been there. It does not take live sound or light readings.

How often are the scores updated?

Every day. Each update contains a forecast for every hour of the day.

Does Jome use my location or phone data to count crowds?

No. Crowd estimates come from what is in an area and the time of day, not from tracking people.

Why not rely on reviews alone?

Because most places have few or no reviews about sensory conditions, and a single averaged rating cannot serve people whose needs differ. The forecast covers every area. Reviews add detail where they exist.

Help us improve it

If a score doesn't match what you experienced, tell us. Leave a review in the app or email welcome@jome.app. Read more about what the scores mean in the sensory guide.