Sensor Programming

Android application development

Android Sensors1. Android phones support different sensors. 2. Today we write test code that reports which sensors our Android device supports. 3. Unfortunately, the emulator supports none upto SDK 1.5.4. But we’ll see how many sensors are supported

in real device5. We’ll create a project named SensorTest for this.

We’ll test following sensor list:1. Accelerometer2. Light3. Magnetic Field4. Orientation5. Orientation Raw6. Proximity7. Temperature8. Tricorder This is for SDK 1.5

Let’s create a project named SensorTest

Activity to a ListActivity1. We change our Activity to a ListActivity

Android Sensors Test2. We’ll use SensorManager class3. So we declare a List for SensorInfo 4. SensorInfo is a class defined by us which holds the sensor name and a boolean value whether its supported or not.5. So we create a SensorInfo class

ListActivity6. Let’s get back to our ListActivity

7. We’ll now populate the list with all sensors and check whether they are enabled

Declare a List of SensorInfo8. We declare a List of SensorInfo

9. Now we check each sensor one by one: First Accelerometer

10. Now we check each sensor one by one: then Light

Android Sensors Test11. Now we check each sensor one by one: First Magnetic field

12. Now we check each sensor one by one: then Orientation

Android Sensors Test13. Now we check each sensor one by one: First Orientation Raw

14. Now we check each sensor one by one: then Proximity

Android Sensors Test15. Now we check each sensor one by one: First Temperature

16. Now we check each sensor one by one: then Tricorder

Android Sensors Test17. To show the list we do the following by setting adapter

Now we run the app in emulator.

Except Accelerometer we see all sensors are disabledMay be in later SDKs we’ll get more enabled sensors

Android Sensors TestLets run this in Galaxy tab

We see the following are enabled:

1. Accelerometer2. Light3. Magnetic Field4. Orientation5. Orientation Raw6. Proximity

So the sensor support varies from Vendor to vendor and model to model

Android Sensor Programming

As we see that Accelerometer is the 1. most commonly used sensor and also 2. it has many applications in games development, We’ll see and example of Sensor programming with Accelerometer

And as we don’t have option to move the emulator we may have to use a sensor simulator which will simulate the sensor data.So we download the library for sensorsimulation at:http://openintents.googlecode.com/files/sensorsimulator-1.1.0-rc1.ziphttp://code.google.com/p/openintents/downloads/detail?name=sensorsimulator-1.1.0-rc1.zip&can=2&q=http://code.google.com/p/openintents/wiki/SensorSimulator

We can follow their instruction to use it.

But here, we’ll do it in our real device, so simulator will not be required

Create a project as an exampleWe create a layout with a simple image which will move according to the Accelerometer:

Our Activity

Android Sensor ProgrammingAdding SensorEventListener inner class with data update

Android Sensor ProgrammingDeclaring variables and registering listener

Android Sensor ProgrammingRegister and unregister listener on activity onStop and onResume: