Menu
I have a quick question about the accelerometer in Android devices. Is it always on/active? Given that accelerometer is used to detect the orientation of the device, either landscape or portrait.
In the official documentation (SensorManager) it states that sensors should be turned off to save power. But I wonder if this only applies to others sensors like magnetic field sensors, gyroscope, light sensor and so on.
I need to make a case for power conservation and I don't want to make the mistake of saying that the accelerometer can at times be disabled, and instead use it for the purpose of disabling other sensors (in compass features of the application).
Or is the battery consumption by an accelerometer only related to an app being registered for receiving the data, while simply being "on" or enabled is not relevant since it always is?
Thanks for any clarification!
844
The cost and consumption of motion sensors is more than offset by the amount money not wasted. Depending on the device, their power consumption ranges from 0.5W to 8W for the most powerful ones. To give you an idea of how little this is, a low consumption bulb that is equivalent to the old 100W bulb consumes 30W.
Actually accelerometer and gyroscope has low power consumption, but they support by OS may consume more battery.
Amount of power taken by sensor varies from sensor to sensor, and device to device. On average, your most power hungry sensors are the GPS, accelerometer and gyroscope. Leaving them On all the time will reduce the battery faster.So you should pause the sensor when the device is where-ever not necessary.
In general, the accelerometer is a good sensor to use if you are monitoring device motion. Almost every Android-powered handset and tablet has an accelerometer, and it uses about 10 times less power than the other motion sensors.
Or is the battery consumption by an accelerometer only related to an app being registered for receiving the data, while simply being "on" or enabled is not relevant since it always is?
That's correct.
The power consumption results from your app running and registered for sensor events. This keeps your app running all the time, keeps it consuming CPU, and potentially can keep the device from sleeping.
As far as I know, there's no way to shut down the sensors. Now, that is not to say that the device does not smartly shut down the sensors if there's nothing listening to them. I don't know that, but it seems likely. Regardless, again, the trigger is listening to them, so I don't think it makes a difference for your question.
139
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
