4 ms·

The Galaxy S5 does not have temperature or humidity sensors

48 points by cleis 12y ago

geetee 12y ago
It's most likely due to the water-proofing. The S4 rugged version has the same limitation.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- __mp 12y ago
  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.
  - receese 12y ago
    The S5 barometer apparently survives underwater... I see no reason why a temperature/humidity sensor can't be engineered to.
  - JamesCRR 12y ago
    Conflicting information, I just talked with someone from Sensirion who was quite central to the the SHTC1 project, he confirmed it was NOT the waterproofing that was the issue and pointed out there are Japanese devices with the same chip that are waterproof, even to IP68 (2m depth).
jug6ernaut 12y ago
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.
- funkyy 12y ago
  "Obviously Samsung is thinking from a consumer prospective, but still very disappointing." Wait, what? Samsung is trying to make majority of customers happy and that's disappointing? This is what you are saying?
  - jug6ernaut 12y ago
    Did you miss the "gimmicky" part? Samsung is thinking from the customer perspective in that they are usually brought in by flashy "new" features. But that doesn't mean that these features actually pan out into anything useful.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I guess "consumer perspective" means "optimizing short-term amount of money extracted from customers for value given" instead of "providing the most awesome product we can and reaping benefits a little bit later".
  - lkbm 12y ago
    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.
    - cryptoz 12y ago
      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.
      - dysfunction 12y ago
        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.
funkyy 12y ago
The best tl;dr ever!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
return0 12y ago
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.
- privong 12y ago
  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/ http://weathersignal.com/
  - runeks 12y ago
    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.
    - piyush_soni 12y ago
      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.
    - privong 12y ago
      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.
  - return0 12y ago
Artemis2 12y ago
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.
- pkaye 12y ago
  The whole point of that API is crowd source collection of data so everyone can benefit.
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    Sadly they are selling to the devil: http://opensignal.com/insights/ http://opensignal.com/insights/
    - cleis 12y ago
      The data included in OpenSignal insights is aggregated both geographically and temporally at a resolution that makes it impossible to identify any individual user. All we show are averaged stats over a monthly or quarterly period for a given area. Part of our project is to inform users about how carriers are performing, but also to inform carriers how they're performing so that they can improve their service for their users. We use our data to independently regulate the carrier market, from both the supply and demand sides as we think this is the best way to help effect much-needed improvement. We sell to operators so that we don't have to charge consumers or show them annoying in-app ads!
- mrjatx 12y ago
  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.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
hiphopyo 12y ago
What other cool sensors do mobile phones have these days?
- dublinben 12y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system

48 points by cleis 12y ago

geetee 12y ago

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

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
__mp 12y ago
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.
- receese 12y ago
  The S5 barometer apparently survives underwater... I see no reason why a temperature/humidity sensor can't be engineered to.
- JamesCRR 12y ago
  Conflicting information, I just talked with someone from Sensirion who was quite central to the the SHTC1 project, he confirmed it was NOT the waterproofing that was the issue and pointed out there are Japanese devices with the same chip that are waterproof, even to IP68 (2m depth).

jug6ernaut 12y ago

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.

funkyy 12y ago
"Obviously Samsung is thinking from a consumer prospective, but still very disappointing." Wait, what? Samsung is trying to make majority of customers happy and that's disappointing? This is what you are saying?
- jug6ernaut 12y ago
  Did you miss the "gimmicky" part? Samsung is thinking from the customer perspective in that they are usually brought in by flashy "new" features. But that doesn't mean that these features actually pan out into anything useful.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I guess "consumer perspective" means "optimizing short-term amount of money extracted from customers for value given" instead of "providing the most awesome product we can and reaping benefits a little bit later".
- lkbm 12y ago
  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.
  - cryptoz 12y ago
    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.
    - dysfunction 12y ago
      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.

funkyy 12y ago

The best tl;dr ever!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

return0 12y ago

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.

privong 12y ago
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/ http://weathersignal.com/
- runeks 12y ago
  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.
  - piyush_soni 12y ago
    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.
  - privong 12y ago
    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.
- return0 12y ago

Artemis2 12y ago

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.

pkaye 12y ago
The whole point of that API is crowd source collection of data so everyone can benefit.
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Sadly they are selling to the devil: http://opensignal.com/insights/ http://opensignal.com/insights/
  - cleis 12y ago
    The data included in OpenSignal insights is aggregated both geographically and temporally at a resolution that makes it impossible to identify any individual user. All we show are averaged stats over a monthly or quarterly period for a given area. Part of our project is to inform users about how carriers are performing, but also to inform carriers how they're performing so that they can improve their service for their users. We use our data to independently regulate the carrier market, from both the supply and demand sides as we think this is the best way to help effect much-needed improvement. We sell to operators so that we don't have to charge consumers or show them annoying in-app ads!
mrjatx 12y ago
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.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

hiphopyo 12y ago

What other cool sensors do mobile phones have these days?

dublinben 12y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system