The Galaxy S4 surprised the world by adding Sensirion’s SHTC1 chip – a
tiny, low power chip that can take accurate measurements of relative
humidity and ambient air temperature. These readings are used in
S-Health, we also collect data from the chip in WeatherSignal – a
real-time weather crowdsourcing app (join the biggest mobile
meteorological network: download the app).
Much has been made of two of the Galaxy S5’s new additions: fingerprint
& heart-rate sensors. An Infra-red gesture sensor – which could
possibly be hacked to provide surface temperature readings – and RGB
ambient light sensor have also been added, these will likely have more
of an impact as they passively monitor the environment while
fingerprint/heart-rate requires effort from the user. But what of
temperature and relative humidity?
Sources have been a bit confused, the official S5 site does not mention
these sensors but GSM Arena, generally a reliable source for phone specs
does list humidity sensors and temperature sensors. So we decided to take a
look at our own data.
Although the S5 is not officially released for another 2 days, we’ve
seen numerous S5’s sending us data – almost 70 in fact, from 15
countries (Korea we expected to see as the S5 is already on sale there,
the US, Israel, Brazil are also included). Among the data we collect is a
one-off scan of device specs, this forms the basis of our Android
Fragmentation reports, we also provide this data to device testing firms
and OEMs.
Across all 69 Galaxy S5’s, covering 9 distinct precise models (e.g.
SM-G900L, SMG900V) not a single one provides humidity or temperature
APIs. Unless Samsung has included these sensors but made them invisible
to developers – which would be perverse – these sensors are not present.
It’s highly unusual to see an OEM removing a sensor. We’d love to be proven wrong, if anyone knows different, get in touch.
ISweek(http://www.isweek.com/)- Industry sourcing & Wholesale industrial products
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