Today’s every smartphone is coming with a set of sensors. There are several lists of sensors are equipped with smartphones for getting things done. So what are these smartphone Sensors useful for? This guide will help you to know about every sensor present on your mobile.
Smartphone Sensors Wiki
1. Gyroscope
2 Windows Hello requires specialized hardware, including fingerprint reader, illuminated IR sensor or other biometric sensors and capable devices. 3 Cortana available in select markets; experience may vary by region and device. 4 Touch capable tablet or PC required. Pen accessory may be sold separately.
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- Depending on the model, HP computers use Validity or AuthenTec drivers. To update the fingerprint reader device driver: Identify the version of the fingerprint reader device driver currently installed. Open the Device Manager, and then expand the Biometric list of recognized sensor devices.
- ASUS Support Center helps you to downloads Drivers, Manuals, Firmware, Software; find FAQ and Troubleshooting.
- ANT+ allows you to view your sport, fitness and health monitoring data in real-time on your mobile device. Choose from a variety of phones and tablets with built-in ANT+ support, or connect to virtually any Android or iOS device with an ANT+ accessory.
The gyroscope is an orientation sensor with accurate precision. It simply calculates the angular velocity of the device. The gyroscope in smartphones is used for tracking the rotation of the device. When you play games like N.O.V.A, Modern Combat: Sandstrom you can feel rotation, and the axis. The gyroscope calculates data along with accelerometer and sends the data to the game.
Popular apps like Google Sky Map, Android Photo Sphere camera, and much more apps use the Gyroscope data for accurate results.
2. Accelerometer
Accelerometer measures and calculates the device acceleration. It calculates the three axis orientation of the device and sends the data to the required apps and games.
For example, in Android, you can use portrait or landscape mode. When you move the smartphone in portrait and landscape modes the phone screen, automatically adjust according to the position with the help of accelerometer. It is one of the most widely used android phone sensors.
3. Proximity Sensor (what is proximity sensor in mobile?)
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When you are on the call and place the phone near to the ear the light turns off, ever wondered how it works? A Proximity Sensor in mobile will detect the near object and send the data to your phone. The sensor works by activating a small beam of light which is reflected by our skin and the device turns off the screen display temporarily.
4. Light-Sensor (Ambient light sensor in mobile)
Light Sensor is used in Smartphones for automatic display light adjustment. This sensor calculates the Illuminance of the environment and sends the data to the device. Then the device calculates the required display brightness and applies the effect.
5. Barometer (What is barometer sensor in mobile?)
A barometer is a sensor which we usually find in high-end smartphones. As we know from the school Physics Barometer measures the atmospheric pressure. However, there is no direct use of smartphones; the Barometer in mobile works with GPS sensor about the device sea level measurements for greater GPS accuracy.
6. Heart Rate Monitor
As its name implies this sensor measures the heart rate of the user. It measures the heart rate by placing the user’s finger on the sensor. It calculates the user pulse by minute wise and displays on the screen.
7. Fingerprint Sensor
Fingerprint sensor doesn’t need any introduction. This sensor became most common these days, and it is coming equipped even with a low-end smartphone.
8. Pedometer
Pedometer sensor calculates the number of steps taken by the user. But many smartphones using accelerometer data for the Pedometer data, this data is not accurate as the real Pedometer sensor does. Only a few smartphones are equipped with real Pedometer sensor; Google Nexus 5 is one of them.
9. GPS
Global Positioning System also considers as a sensor. A GPS module will connect to the satellite and gives you an accurate position result.
10. Touch Screen
The touchscreen of a smartphone is also a kind of sensor which responds to human contact. A touchscreen is made of multiple layers of glass and works with the pressure of your finger.
11. Hall Sensor
If you have used the old devices which used to have flip covers which were functional, like had an option to switch off the screen when you flip them on, then those used to have this kind of Hall Sensor which can sense the magnets, and respond. Even the latest gen phones from Samsung, and Apple comes with Hall Sensors.
12. Digital Compass
This is the rarest sensor we can find on a mobile phone, the main reason of ignoring this one is the combination of other sensors with which the mobile can get its orientation and the magnetic readings of where it is pointing to. This sensor gives the direct position and direction of the device to the apps without any issue. It also doesn’t require calibration which most of the new devices need.
13. Augmented & Virtual Reality
This is a combination of different hardware which includes a couple of different cameras, and a couple of different Lasers which will detect the different depth of the things. These will later help to organize different things via the AR or VR.
14. Infrared Sensor
This sensor is used in the devices to project the infrared dots and then they are scanned with an Infrared Scanner. This scanner is mostly used to encrypt the device with the face data of any person.
15. Pressure Sensor
This particular sensor is found in a limited number of devices, this is used to actually detect the amount of pressure being put on the device on the sides or on the screen which will act as additional inputs to the software for preset functionality.
16. Temperature Sensor
This particular sensor is rarely found on the devices, this is used in order to detect the internal and external temperature of either the device or the surrounding temperature.
17. Iris Scanner
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This scanner uses infrared and a couple of cameras to actually scan the pattern found in the iris of the peoples, this is again in a term used to encrypt the device with the eyes of a particular person.
18. Infrared Remote
This device is used to give the singles to different machines which use infrared remote to receive signals and perform a particular function.
19. Air Humidity Sensor
This particular sensor is used to find the humidity level in the air. The sensor is found only around one or two devices.
20. Pulse Oximeter
Pulse Oximeter sensor is used to find the amount of oxygen that is found in your blood. This sensor will not take any blood sample but will identify the oxygen level by the light.
21. Geiger Counter
Geiger Counter is made to detect and measure the number of ionizing radiations in different places. It is found in the really low amount of devices but can be really useful if you live in places near nuclear reactors.
22. NFC
Near Field Communication sensor is used to validate transfer between two devices. This can easily be used to make financial transactions, and can even be used to share photos aand videos.
23. Laser
The laser is used in different devices to actually measure the distance between your mobile phone and the thing behind it. It can even be used to focus your camera more accurately.
24. Air Gesture
Air Gesture has been used in devices such as Samsung Galaxy S4 & Samsung Galaxy S5 where you can easily put your fingers above the display to actually make some features work.
-->In Windows 10, the sensor driver stacks for Desktop and Mobile devices have been merged to create a universal sensor driver model.
Hardware partners can now build a single driver, along with its associated App, that can run on all Windows device platforms.
Note
V1.0 UMDF sensor drivers are supported in Windows 10 for desktop editions (Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education), and KMDF sensor drivers are supported in Windows 10 Mobile.
Sensor device drivers that are developed based on the Universal Windows driver model, and they're implemented by using the latest version of the User Mode Driver Framework - UMDF 2.0.
The universal sensor driver model has the following features:
- Allows multiple sensors per driver, to reduce the number of drivers needed to support more sensors.
- Uses change sensitivity (CS) and current reporting interval (CRI), to provide data throttling to improve power usage and reduce data noise.
- Provides extensibility using a unified PROPERTYKEY/PROPVARIANT-based system.
- Provides backward compatibility with WinRT APIs.
- Supports the class extension (CX) model. And this provides functionality that includes managing connections and subscriptions, notifying the driver when a sensor can power down, and managing the I/O queues and I/O request lifetimes.
- Support for new sensor types in Windows 10, like for example, 6-axis fusion sensors (Accelerometer + Gyro).
- Support for a Universal HID sensor class driver for SKUs that are based on the Windows core architecture. These SKUs include Windows 10 Mobile. (Previously, the HID sensor class driver was only supported on desktop SKUs of Windows).
- Support for custom sensors, via WinRT.
There is work currently underway for the next version of Windows, that will allow the HID sensor class driver to support even more sensor types. These sensor types include a Pedometer, and sensors for Activity Detection, Linear Acceleration, Gravity Vectors, Geomagnetic Orientation, etc.
Additionally, the universal sensor driver model provides the following benefits to our partners:
- All sensors are now optional. Partners can now choose to include only the sensors that they want when they develop low-cost devices. This gives them more flexibility in minimizing BOM costs.
- There is now an OEM-replaceable device orientation algorithm, which the OEM has the option of not using.
- The “minimum report interval” requirements for the accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, magnetometer, orientation, and proximity sensors have been removed from Windows. This was the result of creating converged chassis specifications.
The following diagram shows the components that make up the universal sensor driver model:
Note that the Microsoft Store Apps component can consist of apps developed by Microsoft, or by the 3rd party developer to accompany the sensor.
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