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The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

opensignal.com

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Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#21

Post by cryptoz »

dysfunction wrote: post #16
cryptoz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly correct! Google and Motorola put a barometer into the Xoom to test GPS altitude improvements, and it turned out that some developers (like me, and like the opensignal team) discovered that the sensor actually has world-changing potential in atmosphere modelling. Huge benefit from a simple sensor addition that didn't even really have a clear purpose at launch.

But then that goes back to funkyy's point: there may be lots of unexpected things developers can do with it, but none of them so far are things customers care about. Atmospheric modeling? Really cool! Do customers care? Heck no.

They'll care when they get very high accuracy weather forecasts! New models will result in more accurate, more personalized and relevant forecasts that I think customers will love. This is a very tough problem that nobody has cracked yet, but it looks promising in the near future. We'll see.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#22

Post by privong »

return0 wrote: post #17

Makes sense, after all temp sensors don't really belong to phones. What't the point of knowing it's 35C and the humidity of your pocket? They 'd make sense in cars, once (if ever) they get connected.

Weather signal [0] has developed algorithms to correct the internal sensor measurements for things like this, particularly temperature. So it's not entirely useless.

[0] http://weathersignal.com/

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#23

Post by pkaye »

Artemis2 wrote: post #18

I love how developers of this app allow themselves to collect numerous data about their users' phones, so much they even track their hardware, model numbers and available APIs. But the worst thing is probably that this has became so common that people don't react negatively anymore towards that kind of privacy violation.

The whole point of that API is crowd source collection of data so everyone can benefit.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#24

Post by runeks »

privong wrote: post #22
return0 wrote: post #17

Makes sense, after all temp sensors don't really belong to phones. What't the point of knowing it's 35C and the humidity of your pocket? They 'd make sense in cars, once (if ever) they get connected.

Weather signal [0] has developed algorithms to correct the internal sensor measurements for things like this, particularly temperature. So it's not entirely useless. [0] http://weathersignal.com/

Allow me to be skeptical about the reliability of this algorithm. How can you ever know the temperature of the air outside by measuring the temperature of your pocket? Sure, there's a correlation, to some degree. But what if you wear different pants, or put the phone in your bag? I just don't see how that's possible (to a meaningful degree of precision). I would think data from weather stations would be a lot more reliable, and make the temperature sensor obsolete.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#25

Post by nimrody »

revscat wrote: post #19
ewoodrich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never found a phone temp sensor to be useful, primarily because it tends to be several degrees higher than ambient due to internal components.

I believe that monitoring internal components is exactly why temperature sensors are useful: the device can shut itself off it it becomes too hot. This can happen if the it has been left on the dashboard of a car during the summer, for example. This can help to lengthen the lifetime of the device.

All cellphones (even very old ones) have some sort of temperature sensor. This is required for dealing with components that are sensitive to heat (oscillators for example).

These are usually not accessible to applications since they (by design) do not report the ambient room temperature.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#26

Post by diminoten »

revscat wrote: post #19
ewoodrich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never found a phone temp sensor to be useful, primarily because it tends to be several degrees higher than ambient due to internal components.

I believe that monitoring internal components is exactly why temperature sensors are useful: the device can shut itself off it it becomes too hot. This can happen if the it has been left on the dashboard of a car during the summer, for example. This can help to lengthen the lifetime of the device.

I don't think those sensors are taken out, I think this is with regard to the outside temperature/humidity sensor.

Internal component temperature measurement isn't something you can get rid of, it's critical to the phone.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#27

Post by hmpc »

revscat wrote: post #19
ewoodrich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never found a phone temp sensor to be useful, primarily because it tends to be several degrees higher than ambient due to internal components.

I believe that monitoring internal components is exactly why temperature sensors are useful: the device can shut itself off it it becomes too hot. This can happen if the it has been left on the dashboard of a car during the summer, for example. This can help to lengthen the lifetime of the device.

This is indeed a common use case for temperature sensors in embedded devices, and I very much doubt there isn't one in the S5. Temperature sensors are included in pretty much all inertial sensor dies nowadays, both for offset/drift calibration and thermal shutdown protection. It's more likely that Samsung simply removed application-level access, although I don't know why they would do so.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#29

Post by mrjatx »

Artemis2 wrote: post #18

I love how developers of this app allow themselves to collect numerous data about their users' phones, so much they even track their hardware, model numbers and available APIs. But the worst thing is probably that this has became so common that people don't react negatively anymore towards that kind of privacy violation.

Why do I care that a mobile developer knows my device model and hardware specs? I'd prefer you to know for bug testing and performance metrics.

Re: The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

#30

Post by dublinben »

hiphopyo wrote: post #28

What other cool sensors do mobile phones have these days?

Many phones also have magnetic compasses, so you can get an accurate bearing without needing GPS signals. I would expect significant advances in inertial navigation systems in mobile devices in the coming years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system

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