phyphox Sensor Database

Welcome to our sensor database. The information presented here has been collected by our users using the "Submit to sensor database" experiment in phyphox. We can not guarantee that this information is accurate. You can find details on how the data is obtained at the bottom of this page and general statistics across all devices here.

Data source

General approach

If a user starts the experiment "Submit to sensor database", phyphox uses the accelerometer to determine if the phone is actually resting. To avoid any bad data points due to vibrations or sudden movements, phyphox takes data from all sensors over two second intervals and observes the standard deviation of the accelerometer. If it is lower than any previous result, the current data is taken as a new result. If it is higher, the data is ignored. To determine when a measurement with minimum vibration has been achieved, phyphox counts the number of standard deviations that are higher than the current best but not greater than two times the lowest standard deviation so far. The user can only submit their data if five such standard deviations have been found, meaning that the submitted dataset corresponds to the two second interval with the lowest standard deviation and with at least ten seconds of data having a similar (less than twice) standard deviation.

Sample size

This is the number of devices that contributed to this entry in our database. Note that while each user can submit their data multiple times, we only take into account the submission with the lowest standard deviation. Hence, the sample size corresponds to the actual number of physical devices that have been tested for this entry.

Name and Vendor of sensors

This information is directly given by the Android system and relies on being properly set by the manufacturer of the device. In our experience, it is rather reliable and bad entries tend to be obvious.

Range and resolution

This information is also directly given by the Android system and relies on being properly set by the manufacturer of the device. Unfortunately, these values seem to be incorrect quite often, so treat them with care. These values are not given for the proximity sensor as those almost always only give two states "near" and "far" corresponding to objects closer or farther than 5cm.

Rate, average and standard deviation

This information is calculated by phyphox from a data recording of this sensor over a period of two seconds. Therefore, these values should be quite reliable and should match the actual experience in phyphox. All three values are averaged over all submissions (per device with one submission per user - see "sample size"). For 3D sensors we are looking at the absolute value here, so that all axes contribute, which might reduce the noise slightly. Also, these values are only given for sensors that give appropriate data, so you will not find average for any sensor other than the accelerometer as others should read zero or use some calibration strategy that can not be evaluated so easily.

So, for the accelerometer, the average gives an idea of how well the sensor is calibrated. The rate gives the data points per second and the standard deviation is a measure for the noise level of the sensor, although it might also be subject to drift from a calibration strategy. Also note, that sensors with a higher rate tend to have a higher noise, which could be compensated by averaging.

Apple devices

Unfortunately, Apple devices have no interface to retrieve detailed information about the sensors. Therefore, you will not find information about the Brand and Model of each sensor and no information about the range or resolution. Also, while Apple devices usually have a light sensor, there is no interface to read it from an app. At least not while following their guidelines and being allowed on the app store. Other apps that estimate brightness usually do so through the camera or by observing changes in the brightness setting of the screen. Therefore, the light sensor will be shown as unavailable on Apple devices. Similarly, the proximity sensor can be read (under specific circumstances) but it only delivers data when triggered. Therefore, unless it happens to trigger during data acquisition, it will be marked as unavailable in most cases since there is no model or brand information which could hint at the existence of the sensor.