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Ability to react according to orientation, movement and climatic changes (i.e. humidity and temperature) is the main reason why smart phones are called as “smart”. Whatever you do (tilt, shake or twist) with your smart phone, it detects it and give responses according to what type of app you are using. For instance, a game changes the flow of ball by detecting tilt and a drawing app can wash out the screen when you shake it. Types of Sensors used in Android Phones In Android Platform, motion, position and environmental are the types of sensors used. 1. Motion Sensors including accelerometers (gravity or g-sensors), gyroscopes, and rotational vector sensors to determine rotational and acceleration forces in three axes. 2. Environmental: Photometers, barometers, and thermometers to detect and determine environmental changes including atmospheric pressure, humidity, temperature and illumination. 3. Position: They include magnetometers and orientation sensor to determine actual “physical” position of the device. Types of Sensors used in Android platform in brief In most high-end Android phones which run on Android Jellybean 4.2 or higher, these types of sensors are widely used: 1. Ambient temperature 2. Accelerometer 3. Gyroscope 4. G-sensor 5. Light 6. Magnetic field 7. Linear acceleration 8. Pressure 9. Orientation 10. Proximity 11. Rotation vector 12. Relative humidity 13. Temperature How to determine if your smartphone has some of these sensors? First of all, you have to check the abilities of your smartphone. For example, you can start with accelerometer at the start up of any app. Make sure you can process all sensor events. There are only few Android devices which include all type of sensor. For instance, you can find some android devices with magnetometer and barometer, while some have thermometers and barometers. In addition, some smart phones can have more than one of same type of sensor. For example, an android device may come with two gravity sensors with different range in both. In addition, it is not important standard sensor configuration is included in all android devices. It means any sensor configuration can be incorporated in any android devices as per the desires of manufacturers. For instance, Motorola Xoom comes with pressure sensor, and Nexus S doesn’t. Similarly, both Nexus S and Xoom come with gyroscopes, but HTC Nexus One doesn’t. All in all, you like to install an app but it runs smoothly with a specific type of sensor, you should make sure that this sensor is present in your device first before installing it. Visit inertiallabs.com to know more about orientation sensor.
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