we have to be amazed knowing how many hardwares are packed inside these small hand-held devices. They can tell where they are geographically, they can sense proximity, they can sense linear orientation of the phone to auto rotate your photos and now they can also determine your rotation while you are spinning on a swivel chair. Smartphones are just getting smarter.
An Accelerometer can measure linear acceleration relative to a frame of reference. This is used to sense the orientation of the phone. It added a lot of cool functionality to mobile phone. The UI(user interface) can be automatically rotated either in portrait or landscape mode, depending on the phone's orientation. This also opened up a new avenue for all the gamers. Imagine one has to play a car racing game without the support of accelerometer. Every time the car needs a turn, he has to make a gesture on the touch screen using his finger while holding the phone, not to mention there may be other touch controls also which user has to deal with. Accelerometer completely enhanced the gaming experience to another level, now we can turn the car just by tilting the phone in the desired direction. A lot of cool games were developed using accelerometer.
Now the question is why do we need a gyroscope when we already have the accelerometer. An accelerometer measures only the linear acceleration of the device whereas a gyroscope measures the orientation of the device. It can sense motion including vertical and horizontal rotation. There are a lot of practical uses of gyroscope especially in mobile games. Consider a counter-strike like mobile game for an instant. In such games, we are required to move in all directions which also involves rotation around gravity. Again without the support of gyroscope, we need to drag a finger on the touch screen to be able to move in the desired direction and we have to agree that after a while we will began to realize the unfriendliness of the system, in short it will get annoying.
With the inclusion of a gyroscope user can play these games very smoothly by simply moving the phone or even rotate around the gravity. The gyroscope will detect your motion and system will know what you want to do. With your fingers relieved from aiming and directing, they can do other things like shooting simply by taping the screen. This could also be done using the combination of accelerometer and built-in compass but we would like to have as much smoothness and preciseness as we can get in our life. It is functional and gaming experience will become much more exiting.
A gyroscope sensor can be used for a lot, mostly minor things, like measuring the level of the phone and controlling it with movement gestures. While an accelerometer can sense only 3 directions, a gyroscope can sense 6 and can know exactly in which position the phone is relative to the Earth’s surface. The most obvious example of using the gyroscope is the Landscape/Portrait mode auto-switch, which can be much faster, more accurate and smoother using the gyroscope rather than the accelerometer.
Now the question is why do we need a gyroscope when we already have the accelerometer. An accelerometer measures only the linear acceleration of the device whereas a gyroscope measures the orientation of the device. It can sense motion including vertical and horizontal rotation. There are a lot of practical uses of gyroscope especially in mobile games. Consider a counter-strike like mobile game for an instant. In such games, we are required to move in all directions which also involves rotation around gravity. Again without the support of gyroscope, we need to drag a finger on the touch screen to be able to move in the desired direction and we have to agree that after a while we will began to realize the unfriendliness of the system, in short it will get annoying.
With the inclusion of a gyroscope user can play these games very smoothly by simply moving the phone or even rotate around the gravity. The gyroscope will detect your motion and system will know what you want to do. With your fingers relieved from aiming and directing, they can do other things like shooting simply by taping the screen. This could also be done using the combination of accelerometer and built-in compass but we would like to have as much smoothness and preciseness as we can get in our life. It is functional and gaming experience will become much more exiting.
A gyroscope sensor can be used for a lot, mostly minor things, like measuring the level of the phone and controlling it with movement gestures. While an accelerometer can sense only 3 directions, a gyroscope can sense 6 and can know exactly in which position the phone is relative to the Earth’s surface. The most obvious example of using the gyroscope is the Landscape/Portrait mode auto-switch, which can be much faster, more accurate and smoother using the gyroscope rather than the accelerometer.
