'''Plate readers''' (also know as microplate readers) are laboratory instruments designed to detect [[biology|biological]], [[chemistry|chemical]] or [[physics|physical]] events in samples stored in [[microtiter plate]]s.
These devices typicallytypicallyo use optical and/or computer vision techniques to evaluate the contents of the microtiter plate wells. An [[ELISA]] plate reader, for example, is used to measure the intensity of the colors formed in each wells. [[ELISPOT]] plate readers are used to count the colored spots that are formed in the course of ELISPOT assays. Using these plate readers can eliminate (or at least, help reduce) the amount of human subjectivity which goes into evaluating the plate contents.
