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I didn't mean to be restrictive, but phones are the current obvious option - because pretty much everyone has a mobile phone these days.

Previously, a video camera or most 2nd generation digital cameeas could record short videos with sound. Many people don't own or regularly use a camera anymore - that function has been taken over by mobile phones.

Getting the recordings out of mobile phones is also very easy, as you have many options such as email or airdrop.
Cameras will require you to plug them in to the computer.

Camreas will also record sound and vireo into a compressed format (like mpeg), and may offer different levels of resolution and/compression.
The more compressed formats will have a marked impact on sound quality.

This takes me to the 3 final points of this post:
1) intentionally recording on different pieces of equipment, including lo-fi equipment is useful for creative effects and can make you achieve a different sound. This can be nusically very useful.
2) experiment with your phone, recording videos instead of sound clips. See if you have different options for video compression. - it is likely this will give you different recordings, due to the application of sound compression. Low volume sounds and high feequency sounds likely to be the most affected.
3) is it worth investing on a mic for your phone vs a recorder. Maybe. If yiu don't record often or want the convenience of being able to email, airdrop or even directly uploading from your phone, yes it could be a better option.

Update : I notice some drastic auto-leveling / compression /expander or IDK.
The action cam isn't very usable for ambiance/field recording x')

And given we're on a new page.
Anyone wanting to participate. Record something with your phone and share it using the Dare2025-02 tag.
I also encourage you to add Phone-Recording as a tag
Cheers!

Sadiquecat wrote:
Update : I notice some drastic auto-leveling / compression /expander or IDK.
The action cam isn't very usable for ambiance/field recording x')

I think we have learnt a lot about recording sounds with phones.

One more...
https://freesound.org/people/gis_sweden/sounds/789026/

As we hit the deadline.
Here's a few recordings I did for the challenge I liked :
https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/787800/ (Beyblade arena, phone was directly under the arena giving a new perspective)
https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/787752/ (A broken piano in a lobby, I never really bothered to record it but here being able to put the phone directly in the cabinet was handy and isolated the sound from the crowd)
A coffee automata https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/787750/ The phone was practical to leave it in the cup dispensing part, an awkard place to leave a zoom, or would have necessitated I bring a tripod.

https://freesound.org/people/Sadiquecat/sounds/787744/ Guitar strum, I think it's clean enough to forget it was recorded with a phone

Cheers!

Right.... and so we reach the end of this one!.....

This new series of dares is turning out to be quite different from previous ones. Not just because of the type of dares being put to the community, but also because of the amount and quality of the discussions these are generating.
I have certainly learnt a lot in terms of recordings with mobile, comparing phones with other recording devices and even reaching the conclusion that, in some cases phones could be, if not better, certainly more convenient - more accessible, available and easy to share the recordings from than an actual dedicated sound recorder.

I also hope that this dare has proven to many current and future Freesounders that phones are a perfectly valid and useable way of making recordings, which are good enough to use and share.

You will perhaps have noticed that I have not submitted an entry...
I did have several sounds recorded on my phone over the last week or so that I could submit here. But I am doing something different instead....
It comes as part of a project I am working on, was not specifically made for this dare, but is very appropriate. Every year for some time now I have been participating in the RPM challenge - This is an internet challenge, open to everyone with the objective to make/record music during the month of February:
https://www.rpmchallenge.com/

One of my entries is a collab with Batty Ramselle. The vocals come from one single take that she recorded on her phone and emailed to me.
https://soundcloud.com/alienxxx/this-volcano
While the whole thing is not perfect (part of that is certainly down to me not aligning the recording exactly right with the music in places)., but is certainly useable.
Interestingly, although there was some background noise in some parts of her recording, none of it is noticeable in the assembled music piece. I am also sure that we could have greatly improved on it by recording another take or two.

So I leave you this as as very practical example of use of a phone recording. - I hope it inspires you to record and to collab with others.
ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

(Although submissions of recordings are now closed, feel free to continue the discussion on the topic of phone recordings and the sounds submitted for the dare)