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3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

gorsan | 21 June, 2006 18:14

Nokia announced the 5500 S60 phone a few weeks ago, I got a chance to test it at a recent conference.
Aftrer having made the switch to using 3G phones some six months ago, I never thought I'd say the following about a 2.5G phone:

I love it. Will get one as soon as it is out.

Ok, I am a sports and adrenalin junkie, so a nice looking phone with a sports profile is bound to be interesting.
But it's more than that. The 5500 has a very nice form factor, rests nicely in your hand, a good size for a smartphone, lot's of features.
No, it doesn't have 3G, a big display or WIFI like the N80, but it still rocks.

A peculiar fact is that the 3D motion sensor chip embedded in the phone mainly (only?) seem to be used for the excercise applications, like keeping track of how many steps you have taken so far during a day.
This sensor should also be very useful in certain games, assuming of course that there are appropriate APIs available for 3rd party developers.

We have done some experiments with motion controlled games here at Blaze, but it's not at all obvious how this technology is best used. Some games are perfect for motion control, while others simply make no sense what so ever.

For example, what about a fishing game, where your phone becomes a virtual fishing rod. You have to move your phone/fishing rod back and forth before releasing the line. NOTE: Should only be played with a wrist strap attached to the phone! :-)
Other game types that have proven to work well with motion control is certain racing games, whereas board games have generally proven hard to find good motion control for.


Some links to reviews etc:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/ed555638-8299-4f9a-8b5e-a7973912308e/5500.html
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=platforms&id=3257
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5500-review-83.php

RSSComments

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

leveeju | 21/06/2006, 20:46

I guess your question in a nutshell would be: where is the API? And answer would be nowhere, yet I guess. Maybe somebody from S60 could clarify whether there is such an API coming, and when.

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

kevinauthor | 22/06/2006, 21:31

Thought I'd repeat up here what a couple of contributors have posted lower in the thread. Nokia just today released the Sensor API SDK Plug-in.

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,034-1102,00.html

The plug-in adds Sensor Server API support to S60 public SDKs -- the maintenance release is recommended.

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

coultonp | 21/06/2006, 22:20

coultonp Goran

I agree with the possibilities of 3-D motion sensors providing the possibility of gesture based input which would be great for all sorts of games. Indeed all sorts of virtual sports how much fun would virtual Bluetooth tennis between two phones be?

Is the actual sensor in the 5550 a 3-D motion sensor?

Judging by the applications I would suspect not and its only a vibration sensor similar to the simple things we see in the step counters that are very popular these days. I am have been told by a number of manufacturers that they are considering put gyroscopic sensors into phones and I hope we see some available for development soon.

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

gorsan | 21/06/2006, 23:58

From the Forum Nokia page listed above:

"3D Motion Sensor (used in pedometer / training application and in games)"

Whether that means there is a "real" 3D sensor or some simpler variant, I don't know...

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

kevinauthor | 22/06/2006, 00:40

Interesting topic. Access to sensor input to date has usually meant a separate device like a GPS unit with some serial connection over Bluetooth or --ugh-- cable. Can you spell tangled mess? Sometimes that's elegant (let the user wear a big something and hold the little UI), but more often than not it's clunky.

Internal sensors -- and a standard API to access them -- that's much more interesting. While I can't yet comment publicly about specific APIs or tooling for the 5500, Nokia was spec lead on the Mobile Sensor API (Java -- JSR 256) that achieved final release April 10 of this year. That should give you some indication of their interest in sensors beyond a single device. Did you happen to catch some of the demos Nokia had of the API at Java One?

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

coultonp | 22/06/2006, 14:28

coultonp Kevin

On a (sort of) related issue while we are talking about accessing sensors etc do you know if there was any API for accessing the GPS shell for the 5140. Discussion on the Forums seems to imply that it could be done but no one seems to have achieved it. I have one of the shells but disappointingly could not write any code for it so have ended up with separate units connecting via Bluetooth.

The sesnor API sounds very interesting will have to investigate that one

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

leveeju | 22/06/2006, 17:58

Well, here it is (for Symbian C++):
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/4284ae69-d37a-4319-bdf0-d4acdab39700/Sensor_plugin_S60_3rd_ed.exe.html

And it says '3D accelometer'

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

dcrocha | 22/06/2006, 19:38

dcrocha Hey Göran,

Good news for you: Forum Nokia has released a plugin to the 3rd. edition SDK for 5500 3D accelerometer.

Make sure you check it out:

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,034-1102,00.html

[]s
Daniel Rocha
Forum Nokia

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

coultonp | 23/06/2006, 16:22

coultonp This is excellent I cant wait to get developing games for this! can I have one now?

Re: 3D motion sensor in Nokia 5500

gregorbroll | 12/09/2006, 16:34

Hi,

does anybody know whether/where/when the JSR 256: Mobile Sensor API is publicly available and whether it can be used in order to develop applications that can use the Nokia 5500 motion sensor?

Best regards, Gregor
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