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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

#41

Post by piyush_soni »

runeks wrote: post #24
privong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Wouldn't I know when I'd do that? For example, civilization has known for decades now how does a thermometer work. It will show correct body temperature only at a few places. If we can somehow isolate the sensor to not to read its own machine temperature but read the ambient temperature, I think it'll be a big thing.

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

#42

Post by Recoil42 »

scottcha wrote: post #39
MBCook wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and removing functional/useful sensors. Are temperature and humidity really that useful? I know many Android phones have had them, but have they really be used? Do they really add much to the device?

I believe temperature sensors are required to get barometric data to altitude[1]. That's why all altimeter watches also have temperature though its usually useless while wearing since its reading the temp of your wrist instead of the air. On a second note I produce an app ( http://www.ullrlabs.com ) for avalanche danger evaluation and knowing your ambient air temperature is one factor which is helpful in that process…

Your first note is irrelevant, since all modern phones have a (hot) CPU running while the phone is active. It's why phones don't rely on their temperature sensors for ambient readings in the first place even if they have them.

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

#43

Post by __mp »

geetee wrote: post #5

It's most likely due to the water-proofing. The S4 rugged version has the same limitation.

I talked to an engineer from Sensirion (the makers of the temperature sensor on the S4) a couple of weeks ago. He told me that the waterproofing was the reason that they couldn't include their sensor in the S5.

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

#44

Post by taiki »

npsimons wrote: post #40
dysfunction wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Customers are idiots. To wit: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." -- Henry Ford

Customers aren't always idiots. However, there's a special kind of engineering idiocy that thinks that having a humidity sensor in a phone is a great idea.

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

#45

Post by arrrg »

nathanm412 wrote: post #20
Crito wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temperature would be extremely useful... if not for the fact that I typically store my cellphone millimeters away from my body. If temperature were useful, then humidity would be as well because then you could calculate local humidex.

It would have more to do with the temperature of the CPU and/or battery than anything dealing with the outside temperature.

Why? My phone tends to be warm because of body heat most of the time. Yeah, the shell can sometimes get warm under load, but that’s the exception. I would guess that if not for body heat and with the right placement a temperature sensor could get useful data.

However, with the phone nearly always being transported so close to the body I really don’t see it being useful.

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

#46

Post by davidgerard »

ewoodrich wrote: post #15
jug6ernaut wrote: post #2

Well that's disappointing. Adding gimmicky(imo) sensors and removing functional/useful sensors. Obviously Samsung is thinking from a consumer prospective, but still very disappointing.

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.

+1 - mostly it's good for checking I still have a body temperature.

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

#47

Post by privong »

runeks wrote: post #24
privong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

It presumably relies on having multiple phones recording the temperature, averaging out person-to-person variations in attire (thickness of pants, etc.). If those variations are correlated among people for a given day (everyone is wearing thicker pants), it's probably colder, and that would have to be included in the algorithm.

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

#48

Post by privong »

return0 wrote: post #37
privong wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

That sounds like an overkill, in this case it's easier for your phone to get your ambient temperature from some wather server around the world.

Yes, but there's a lot fewer weather stations than there are smartphones. So there's lots of potential, if the sensors and algorithms can be calibrated to account for these systematics.

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

#49

Post by receese »

__mp wrote: post #43
geetee wrote: post #5

It's most likely due to the water-proofing. The S4 rugged version has the same limitation.

I talked to an engineer from Sensirion (the makers of the temperature sensor on the S4) a couple of weeks ago. He told me that the waterproofing was the reason that they couldn't include their sensor in the S5.

The S5 barometer apparently survives underwater... I see no reason why a temperature/humidity sensor can't be engineered to.

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

#50

Post by receese »

cryptoz wrote: post #9
lkbm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you give developers more tools, they surprise you with what they come up with. Consumers didn't say they wanted accelerometers, but once developers got ahold of them, they proved massively useful. If you give me a new sensor, I might not have any ideas on how to make it useful, but if one developer has one good idea, that benefits me.

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.

Even with a large sample, temperature and humidity data is useless unless it is ensured to be properly measured (ie outdoors, away from the person, etc). Pressure data is another story, and although it is still low quality it can be smoothed.

That's why I prefer pressureNET to opensignal. Also pressureNET is actually open source, unlike opensignal which sells all your smartphone/personal data to anyone who wants it.

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