You don’t have to be an investigative journalist or a private eye in an old noir film to use a police scanner, nor do you need to splurge on a stand-alone device just to get the inside scoop. The right smartphone app will allow you to eavesdrop with ease and stay informed about the goings-on in your neighborhood, including emergencies and current road conditions. For your convenience, we’ve rounded up the best police scanner apps below.
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PoliceScanner +
This app lets you listen to live audio from police and fire scanners all over the planet. You can select from thousands of feeds, find the current top 100 feeds, search for your favorites, listen in the background, and even locate your feed on the map. The premium version is $5, and a yearly subscription costs $40.
Police Scanner
This highly rated Android scanner lets you listen in on live audio from over 7,000 police radio scanners, fire scanners, and amateur radio repeaters worldwide, mostly in English-language nations. The app lets you view the top 25 most popular police scanner radio stations, save your favorites, and tune into air traffic, rail, marina, weather, and emergency radio stations.
Scanner Radio
Scanner Radio lets you browse a variety of channels worldwide, view the top 50 scanners and recently added scanners, and target your specific location. You can also find public safety, air traffic, and marine scanners with the app. You can receive notifications when major events or emergencies take place, and it supports Android Auto. The $3 pro version removes ads, includes push notifications, and offers the ability to record audio. You also have the choice to only remove ads without new features for $2.
Broadcastify
Broadcastify offers 6,500 global channels for you to listen to, each sorted by country and metro area. The app’s interface is clean and easy to read, although the media player has bulky buttons. Channels focus on fire and emergency services as well as aviation, rail, weather, marine, and amateur radio streams, and you can even search for channels near your location and establish a favorites list. The free version includes ads, which you can remove for $3 with the pro version.
5-0 Radio Police Scanner
5-0 Radio Police Scanner is one of the best-rated iOS police scanner apps out there, providing global coverage of Fire, EMS, and Police feeds. Users can even create their own custom feeds, as well as browse lists of broadcasts by country.
The “Feeds with Active Alerts” system notifies users of notable events within their feeds. This means you can monitor your feed even when the app runs in the background, leaving you free to check your social media or texts while not missing important broadcasts.
Like a lot of free apps, you’ll encounter plenty of ads, but you can always upgrade to the ad-free version for $5.
Scanner 911
Scanner 911 has a sleek design that makes it easy to navigate, regardless of what kind of smartphone you’re using it on. Sound quality is generally good, and the app features numerous options to adjust the audio settings. This highly rated scanner helps you find nearby scanners or search anywhere in the country, listen in the background, adjust the sound with a built-in equalizer and amplifier, control the stream with lock screen controls or headset buttons, and view 10-codes to stay current with the local action.
