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New Types of Sensors In Future Mobile Phones: Altitude, Emotion and More

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Apr 12, 2001
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iPhone teardown image from Viaforensics​
The New York Times' Nick Bilton spoke with Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS division of STMicroelectronics, about what kinds of sensors we might be seeing in the next generation of mobile phones.

The iPhone presently uses a number of sensors such as GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, and digital compass. These sensors have found to be quite useful in various social applications and games.

The next generation of sensors could include additional location providing ones, such as an altimeter:
Mr. Vigna said the next smartphones would have altimeter sensors that would be able to detect your elevation. “These sensors will tell people what floor they are on in a building, or could be used to more precisely determine where you are in relation to your friends on a location-based service,” he said.
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Other possibilities include heart monitors, perspiration/mood sensors, and temperature/humidity sensors. The new sensors could even be used in games to determine excitement or emotion during gameplay.

Meanwhile, a combination of factors (phone position, and other patterns) could be used to identify the user for security purposes.
After you use a new phone for a short period of time, it will start to learn your patterns and automatically lock or unlock the phone accordingly. This could be used for more secure banking too.
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Article Link: New Types of Sensors In Future Mobile Phones: Altitude, Emotion and More
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/20/new-types-of-sensors-in-future-mobile-phones-altitude-emotion-and-more/
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I'm wondering, do altimeters still work correctly inside an airborne aircraft?
 
Motorola seems to believe that the barometer is gonna be huge! You have no idea how many times I've wanted to know the atmospheric pressure and find myself without an instrument.

But seriously, I hope this doesn't get totally silly. The altimeter makes sense as long as it's not too expensive. But my phone doesn't need to be able to measure every imaginable aspect of my environment.
 
dustinsc said:
Motorola seems to believe that the barometer is gonna be huge! You have no idea how many times I've wanted to know the atmospheric pressure and find myself without an instrument.

But seriously, I hope this doesn't get totally silly. The altimeter makes sense as long as it's not too expensive. But my phone doesn't need to be able to measure every imaginable aspect of my environment.
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But how will it accurately track you?!... :eek:
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Rot'nApple said:
Just be sure to set it to 29.92"Hg! :D
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in a non pressurized cabin, such as a cesna or helicopter, yes, on a commercial flight, no... it would read somewhere around 7000 ft the whole time.


the one area where my Garmin Rino still beats my iphone 4 is the fact that it has an altimeter... for detailed tracking of a day skiing, or hiking in the mountains that sensor is necessary as GPS isnt great for measuring precise small changes in elevation/altitude
 
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I do not want a device that monitors and reacts to my mental state. Creepy.
 
I wonder how that would even be worth it.... outside of a building GPS can already get your altitude... inside a building, well... as a pilot, I know altimiters need to be calibrated constantly do to changing air pressure from the current weather. Unless the phone is constantly getting local air pressure readings via the internet, the altimeter would be useless....
 
The altimeter is cool, it makes sense, as long as it's accurate enough.

The emotion-meter, however, is weird! I don't think measuring excitement during a game is relevant to anything, as games on your iPhone are not very immersive so you're probably playing them while doing other things anyway.

A heart rate monitor for sports could however be very useful, they could use the metal parts of the outside antenna to do that. Though it wouldn't be very accurate. For that, you would need to wear a belt over your chest, which is still good, if the iPhone can communicate with it.
 
tsadi said:
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I'm wondering, do altimeters still work correctly inside an airborne aircraft?
Click to expand...

They do, but they will simply display the altitude to which the cabin is pressurized. At about 35,000 ft, the aircraft's interior cabin is pressurized to around 7,200 feet of elevation and at 37,000 ft it is 8,000 ft (but it varies somewhat-but not greatly depending on the aircraft model). This is done for structural reasons, to not exceed a pressure differential typically around 8.5 psi from interior to exterior (again varying slightly by aircraft model). So your altimeter would work perfectly at sensing the ambient pressure it is subjected to, but of course it would have no way to sense the atmospheric pressure outside the aircraft (unless you are riding on select Southwest flights) ;)
 
Now all that's left is to design an attachment ($59 RRP) that'll add pitot tube functionality and the iPhone will really start to take off.
 
That's a lot of chips. Give it 5 years and all that will be down to 5 or 7 chips and fit 1/3rd of the space.
 
dguisinger said:
I wonder how that would even be worth it.... outside of a building GPS can already get your altitude... inside a building, well... as a pilot, I know altimiters need to be calibrated constantly do to changing air pressure from the current weather. Unless the phone is constantly getting local air pressure readings via the internet, the altimeter would be useless....
Click to expand...

Actually, it could utilize GPS/Google Maps elevation data when it has a GPS lock outside and utilize that information to determine the calibration. Ultimately, have these in enough hands and have them report in the barometric pressure and the weather people would get a very fine resolution picture of ground conditions which would allow better forecasting.
 
smartphones are starting to get a little too smart....why does it need to know what floor im on and my emotions? little too big brother-ish, no matter what useful applications it may bring to daily users.
 
VIGNA? Wow... he was just a couple of letters away from having his ass whooped everyday during grade school. :D
 
I can just see the (Legally required) privacy settings now:

Altitude - Allow
Temperature - Allow
Mood - Allow - except for spouse, who has to guess
 
I'm curious, is there some new technology to adapt barometric pressure sensors so that they can accurately tell you the elevation over a period of time?

Last I checked, the sensors could detect a small enough changes in atmospheric pressure to sense a change in the equivalent of about 10 feet or better. However they are all still based on atmospheric pressure, which is its self constantly changing.

So you go to the 10th floor for a meeting, and by the time it's over you're on the 12 floor. How helpful ;-)
 
All this junk for a "phone".

Time to remove the word "phone" from these devices and come up with a whole new term...and smartphone is not the term.

Who WANTS all these hardware features anyway? It's just more opportunity for people/big brother to track you down within inches. "Oh my gosh! He's sad and is on top of a cliff! He's gonna jump! Have him arrested immediately and suck all the data off the iPhone before he jumps!" Maybe the guy is just sad because he found a wounded bird on top of that cliff while hiking. :)
 
ericinboston said:
All this junk for a "phone".

Time to remove the word "phone" from these devices and come up with a whole new term...and smartphone is not the term.
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The Germans have been using the word "handy" (the english word) for cellphones. No one really knows for sure why they din't call it mobile phone or some translation. However it's a fitting word for a device that can do pretty much everything and fits in your pocket thus being very handy.
 
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