How The Evolution of Sensors On Smartphones Makes Life Easier

Image courtesy of Ian Lamont at Flickr.com

Smartphones have truly evolved the way we interact with technological devices. To the point that we no longer have to press buttons, but instead they can interact by simply looking into the camera. At the same time, we sometimes touch the screen or parts of the device but technology has allowed this contact solely to identify users based on fingerprints. Sensors on phones has also promoted the use of cellphones in many everyday activities like doing exercise, traveling journals, or even to keep track of the temperature. All or at least some of these are common on most smartphones nowadays and the way they seamlessly make our lives a bit easier is amazing. Phones have come a long from advances in 4G networks, which you can read more about on the Don Burns Blogspot, to high camera definition. Sensors have evolved along with smartphones and that’s why today we can enjoy easy to use and practical tools for our everyday life. 

Today’s smartphones have a variety of sensors that expand the applications we give to smartphones themselves, ranging from the user interface to environmental ones. The user interface has the very recognized touchscreen and gesture recognition that allows us to zoom in and out. The display, with its sensors, can identify ambient light, proximity and RGB or color balance. In terms of health and fitness, smartphones now have sensors that can measure your heart rate and its variability. Motion tracking is a popular feature on smartphones allowing people to use services like GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. The camera also has sensors allowing it to capture HD images, Laser auto focus and automatic RGB lighting adjustments. Cell phones can also measure the environment keeping track of humidity, air quality, and UV lighting. The newer models are almost all coming with integrated biometric features like fingerprint and a new one the iris scan. Many people are now carrying around only their cell phone instead of their wallet with different advances in payment methods with NFC and magnetic features. Finally, the audio also has special sensors that allow the active noise cancellation and the microphone, which of course we are all familiar with.

Display sensor’s evolution

Ambient light sensors (ALS) measures light to determine how the human eye reacts to the light that is visible in a 390-700 nm wavelength range. Since this piece of equipment is able to sense light similar to the way the human eye does, it is critical for the cell phone to have an accurate light measurement. So these are the sensors that are used to adjust the brightness of your screen, they determined power saving modes and improved the overall experience of the users. From here touchscreens brought new challenges that these sensors needed to help with. Since when a call is placed the screen has to be disabled, now it was necessary to include IR proximity features. This would be the most cost effective and reliable solution and the growth of the smartphones proved that these solutions truly optimized them in a big way. From here on, more needs emerged like the necessity of recognizing RGB lights and its different varieties to make for more realistic and vibrant images. The sensors that allow all of this have evolved from photodiodes and phototransistors all the way to future solutions like aperture reduction, biosensors and advanced color sensors. The evolution of the light sensors has truly brought to life the interaction of smartphones with any environmental lighting.

Biometrics made phones safer

Image courtesy of Vernon Chan at Flickr.com

The constant need for upping the security on our smartphones, which now carry more and more information about ourselves and our families, gave way to biometric tech and this integration seems to have been a match made in heaven. In its evolution, it has not been without inconveniences. It mainly faced two big obstacles: seeing biometrics as an isolated piece of technology and the habit of not recognizing identity and security as a vital part of the future in technology. The Internet of Things, IoT, is yet another application that could bring together all of our information and personal data. As integrations of biometrics become more common there will be a need to make security and identity a priority. This helps us move beyond the traditional password security measures and helps us turn our smartphones into a larger part of our lives, generating more confidence for financial transactions, promoting healthy lifestyles, and at the end of the day access to our data in an easy way.

What will the future bring?

The future will only continue to bring more integrations of sensors that will allow smartphones to offer more features that make their users become more dependent on them due to their ease and security. The expansion of ultra-wideband radio, WiFi and Bluetooth into a slow transition towards 3D radio imaging. This will easily allow people location, even inside a building, along with information like what’s actually going on inside around the person.