Smartphone sensors: Know the use of most commonly used sensors in your smartphone

 

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    Hello tech world. Here we are back with another article on the smartphone sensors which we use in our smartphones for multiple usage. From taking calls to the security factors, sensors are very important part of our smartphones. But do we all know the exact use of every sensor. If no, then here's the answer. We will discuss the mobile phone sensors and the usage of them all.

1. Ambient light sensor:

      As the name suggests, the ambient light sensor works as the light sensor for the smartphone. It measures the amount of light around the phone. We have the auto-brightness option in our smartphones which controls the brightness of the smartphone screen (if the option is enabled) automatically. Whenever we(actually the smartphone, more accurately the particular portion of the smartphone which carries the ambient light sensor) are in a dark room the brightness goes lower and whenever we are outside in the sunlight the brightness is highest. This is controlled by the ambient light sensor.

2. Accelerometer sensor:

     We use our smartphones in the portrait mode most of the time. But sometimes we have to flip it and use it in the landscape mode also, may it be during a game or sometimes in other apps to get a bigger form factor of the screen. And for this, we only have to activate the auto-rotate mode (basically the accelerometer sensor of our smartphones) and flip the phone 90° and screen turns to landscape mode and we can use the bigger screen horizontally. The games can change the mode according their screen usage, but other apps need manual actions by the user.

3. Gyroscope sensor:

      The gyroscope sensor is basically a accelerometer sensor with more sensitivity. It works more accurately than the accelerometer sensor. While the accelerometer sensor works in the 90°flip, the gyroscope can notice the minimal change in the angular position of the smartphone. We can see it working in games where a car can move right or left if we tilt the phone in a minimum angle.

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4. Proximity sensor:

     The Proximity sensors are used mostly as the distance sensor in the smartphones. We may have noticed the screen of our smartphones going off during a phone call when we keep it close to our ears and turning on just in a second when we move it away from the ears. Well, there's the proximity sensors working behind it. This actually throws out a beam light from it and waits for the light to come back to it. The range of the beam light is very small, mostly 1 cm or less. So whenever we place an object within the range of that sensor, the beam light gets reflected to it and returns to the sensor and just only then the sensor becomes active and switches the screen off. And when we move the object away, the beam light goes away from the sensor without reflecting and can't get to back to the sensor. So the sensor remains deactivated and the screen remains on. Thus the proximity sensor helps out to keep the screen off during a phone call. It also helps to save the battery and also decreases the risk of unwanted wrong touches during a phone call.

5. Biometric sensors:

      These are the most important sensors nowadays in a smartphone according to us. These are sensors which are used for the security purpose of a smartphone. Like the fingerprint sensor, facial unlock, iris scanner etc are used in different smartphones. These sensors take the data of the users for one time and saves it on the memory. After that, the saved data is checked every time when the users try to unlock the phone. Everytime the user tries to unlock the phone, the sensor reads the data and matches it with the saved one. If the data is matched the phone unlocks in less than a second and if not the smartphone remains locked. So these sensors have to be the most accurate and fast as this is a matter related to user-security.

6. Magnetometer sensors:

       The magnetometer works exactly as its name and help the smartphone to recognise the directions accurately. We can use various apps to find the exact directions by the help of this sensor.
       Apart from these, our smartphones have many other sensors, like the thermometer sensor, pedometer sensor, barometer sensor etc. The thermometer sensor can measure the internal temperature of the smartphone. While the pedometer sensor is used to calculate the steps taken by the user while walking a distance. The barometer sensor helps to confirm the distance of the phone from the sea level. It also helps to check the air pressure around the phone. Thus we can also look after the weather changes around the location of the phone.
       These were the sensors used in a smartphone nowadays to make the experience of the user better. But it totally depends on the brands that how many sensors they provide in their phones. If any of the sensors are missing in any phone the phone will not work as described above. So users must know the information about the smartphone they going to buy if they include all necessary sensors or not as some brands nowadays also don't provide all sensors in the name of cost-cutting.

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