In iPhones and most Android smartphones there are sensors that are used by applications to make everything more interactive and more engaging. The sensors that are most often found in modern telephones are: accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, proximity sensor and light sensor. The accelerometer is the sensor that measures the acceleration of movement of the smartphone, whose primary use is to automatically shift the orientation of the device from vertical to horizontal.
The gyroscope is the sensor that detects the movements of the smartphone, used mainly by video games to move the view to the right and left by moving the phone.
The Magnetometer is the compass sensor used by the apps with maps.
The proximity sensor is the one that automatically turns off the screen when you put your phone on your ear to make calls.
The light sensor is the one that governs the automatic brightness of the screen depending on the light around it.
To these are added also the microphone, the gps, the fingerprint reader and the camera that we know well what they are for.
You can test the sensors on your phone, check if they are there and if they work well using applications like Sensor Kinetics for iPhone and SensorBox for Android.
Thanks to these sensors, many apps have been developed capable of transforming the smartphone into a measuring instrument for many fields of application, from the medical to the DIY for example.
Below, we see 10 of the best apps for making measurements of various types using the sensors of an Android smartphone and an iPhone .
1) The Metal Detector for iPhone and Android is a free app to search for coins and other ferromagnetic metal objects.
2) The spirit level to measure the slope of a piece of furniture or a picture, available for Android and iPhone.
3) Sensor Charts for Android is a powerful tool that records the data detected by the sensors and shows them in graphs. It will therefore be possible to have a detail on the variations of light, the magnetic field, the pressure, the movements, the steps taken, the proximity and much more.
4) You can measure the intensity of noise around us and know if the volume of music or TV is too high with the Sound Level Meter app for Android or Decibel Ultra for iPhone.
5) The Compass to always know where the north is is a free app on Android and is already integrated in the iPhone.
6) Barometer and altimeter to measure pressure and altitude is a useful app for those who go to the mountains and for meteorological enthusiasts, available for Android and iPhone.
7) The Pedometer on the smartphone, which measures each step walked or running, is available on many Android smartphones with the Google Fit app while on the iPhone you can take advantage of the Health application already included or the Pedometer app.
8) Instant Hearth Rate measures the heart rate, very precisely, for iPhone and Android, using the smartphone camera.
9) The Audiometric test can be done on PC and Android smartphones thanks to some apps to measure hearing and check if our ears are working well.
10) Apps to measure sleep use the sensors of the smartphone to record the movements of the person while sleeping and to detect the phase of sleep in which you are and when you dream. These apps work well to sound the alarm only when deep sleep ends.
11) Vibrometer for Android is the app to measure the vibrations of the ground, in particular useful for detecting earthquake shocks according to the Mercalli scale.
12) Google Science Journal app for making sound, light and movement measurements
To these we can also add other apps such as:
- GammaPix Lite for Android to measure the intensity of ionizing radiation.
- Light Meter for Android and for iPhone to measure the intensity of light.
- EMF Sensor Free for Android to search for ghosts (!?).
- Push Up Workout to count the push-ups automatically thanks to the sensor of the Android phone.
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