hakujin

Funny enough, it was the Moment's bug where proximity sensor doesn't always work as it should when you are too quick (but now I've mastered it and like it), which made me realize the Hero required pushing a button or using a hackneyed light sensor program to get the same effect. Seems strange it's lacking... almost as strange as a sub 640x480 record a/v resolution; that one I will never understand in a Fall 2009 phone.

tatonka_Hero

Perhaps because the screen shuts off after a little bit while you're on a call? No real need for a proximity sensor if you don't rub the phone against your face lol

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Running whatever release of Froyo I happen to be on at the time

hakujin

Your brash singular application of a proximity sensor is quite amusing. Ever try those fancy new 20th century inventions called automated telephone systems? It would be a heck of a lot easier to move the phone away from one's head and it come on w/ the keypad right there, instead of fumbling for the menu button, then for the keypad button which is precariously close to the cancel button. Another example would be those like me that have their Google Voice set to screening on; can't tell you how many phone calls I've missed because by the time I answer the phone, I wasn't quick enough to dial 1 before the other party hung up. A proximity sensor would help mitigate that.

treborcj

There are different phones out there because there are different people. If you had researched the phone better, you could have picked one you liked.

hakujin

cripes! why do these things always devolve into nonsense. i'm happy and quite content w/ the Hero. my other posts here substantiate that... the questions was why does it lack a proximity sensor (what is the logic), as it seems the de facto thing to put in smartphones these days. the question wasn't, "why is HTC so unfair to me, boo hoo poor me". there may be different people, but afaict, they all have noggins, and we all invariably call phone automated systems where proximity is handy. I can't really think of a con for it so i seriously doubt the board meeting went something like, "let's make a phone for people who don't like proximity sensors", no more than they would say, "let's make a camera-less phone for people who hate pictures".

Last edited by hakujin; July 16th, 2010 at 09:41 AM.

KitsapAndroid

I tried the proximity sensor app and found that it sucked. I also found that my Hero is easy enough to use without one. Personally, I'm OK with not having it. As to why they chose to leave it out, perhaps the head honchos realized as well that it is truly not very necessary.

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tatonka_Hero

It's also entirely possible that there wasn't enough room in the Hero's case for one...or does HTC just not bother with proximity sensors? Is there one in the Eris, the N1, the Incredible, or the Evo? I really have no idea if there is or not, as I haven't looked it up lol

revtime

In the 8 months or so I have my Hero I have never once thought "Man, I could really use a proximity sensor" Its a non issue, at least for me anyway.

A_Guy

Yeah, my old "feature phone" the EnvTouch on Verizon had a proximity sensor even...

hakujin

That's not a proximity sensor, it's a hackneyed light sensor app that emulates proximity, sort of. Anyway, I'm OK with not having it too, but seems nonsensical to leave it out.
Hmmm... that sounds like a legitimate reason, and maybe HTC does have an aversion to proximity sensors... will have to investigate, thanks!

Glad to hear that.

mysticmead

well... it doesn't have one because it wasn't added at build time. yes the Eris has one.. as far as why they left it out... no idea.. just like why would they leave a LED flash off a phone as well.. it seems like that would be a standard feature for a camera but even certain versions of the Samsung Galaxy S won't have a flash, but some will.

now for me personally, I don't hold my phone smashed next to my face, so I haven't had any issues with not having a sensor

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hakujin

what does phone|face|smashed have to do w/ the phone backlight automatically turning on when you lower the phone to 'press 1 for customer service'? More so, how does smashing a phone against one's face make a proximity sensor more desirable? If anything the Moment has shown that it's more prone to incorrect proximity detection & key presses when close to the face. However, when you know how to work around it, it's great. I just like less key presses and not occasionally missing GV calls because the dialpad shortcut is precariously close to the cancel button. Proximity provides advantages to both scenarios. Further, I found it strange that the Hero didn't have it, more so now as I did not realize the Eris has this feature.

As an aside, isn't LED flash on a phone relatively new compared to proximity sensors?

Last edited by hakujin; July 19th, 2010 at 12:35 AM.

Sixxx

I agree. I don't hold the phone all on my face when i'm talking to people, who does that? Unless you got some big chipmunk cheeks and can't help it.

Sixxx

My sanyo MM8300 hundred had a flash on it and it was like 4 years ago. Actually I wanna say the 8200 i had before that had one too, and that was another year and a half. So....

astrobill

Guys....the bottom line is that MOST Hero users I've spoken to (myself included) actually DO have problems with accidentally hanging up on people or touching other buttons on the screen with this phone. It's a real oversight....

Apple, the pioneer of the touch screen smartphone, correctly realized from DAY ONE of their research that accidentally touching the screen with your cheek was going to be a major obstacle towards making the device usable for the great majority of people. They smartly developed a solution based on incorporating existing proximity sensor technology.

Stop arguing this point...99% of phone engineers would tell you that a proximity sensor is an absolute necessity for a phone like this. I was stunned when I discovered the Hero didn't have one. I misread a review or two before buying it and just didn't realize...oh well, waiting for the Samsung Galaxy now.

Sixxx

I guess I'm a 1 percenter then...

Not that I really care either way, but I thought the whole point of arguing was to express an opinion? So how could you tell people on here to stop arguing the point when they have different opinions?

Just sounds like an "I'm right, You're wrong, now Shut up!" type of reply...

hakujin

I still don't get how this correlates to my points in post 12. do you find it more intuitive to press a menu button to turn backlight on and aim for a relatively miniscule button on the corner of the screen (NEXT to the end call) button when calling voice automated systems, rather than the light simply turning on when removed from facial area and keypad showing w/o intervention (not sure if last is a proximity or SENSE issue, as Moment is vanilla and automatically shows the dialpad <-- perfect.

Anyway, I didn't start the thread to discuss the merits of proximity sensor or people who smash phones on their faces... thanks for the guess work anyway folks; maybe i was partially hoping that i was missing something as this seems a nonsensical omission. Anyway, not a deal breaker, I will cope!

hakujin

Come to think of it, so did my SANYO PM-8200, and consequently, the last time I had Sprint Coverage, what a flashback! That flash was horrible though, as are most non Xenon flashes I've seen in mobiles.

Nevertheless, guess it has been around for longer, but a novelty in phones (US phones that is, keitais are a different story), and not even a big fan of flash photography in digicams.

sdague

People tend to forget just how early the Sprint HTC hero is in the Android revolution. If I remember correctly it was the 4th android phone out there (G1, MyTouch, EU Hero were the only ones before it), and the first android CDMA phone.

The proximity sensor wasn't added to the physical design until Hero Rev 3 (the HTC Eris that came out a month later on Verizon).

hakujin

What is the correlation between the 'android revolution' and hardware sensor? were there no preceding HTC phones which had a proximity sensor? If so, then that would make sense... HTC hadn't caught up yet.

tatonka_Hero

Or, HTC realized that proximity sensors are added cost that's pretty much unnecessary. Not to mention it's one more thing to program in, and one more thing to develop a bug.

Sixxx

+1

hakujin

Or not.

HTC Evo 4G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Have a cookie anyway though

Sixxx

Phone that big, they had to find stuff to put on it so it didn't look like an ipad.

Joehunni

while yes, a proximity sensor would be nice, it still wouldn't help those of us that don't faceroll our Heros

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Sixxx

lol @ faceroll.

hakujin

I love how everyone negates the practical uses of proximity in their efforts to slant toward an irrelevant hyperbole.

Last edited by hakujin; July 20th, 2010 at 10:15 PM.

tatonka_Hero

or, because there's a lot of us who really don't need a proximity sensor, and who have no problem hitting a button to bring up the dialer if we absolutely have to. You don't like not having a proximity sensor? Get a Moment.

Joehunni

Lol, you shouldn't start a thread, in a Hero specific forum, just to point out the Heros flaws, "why would it only have a 3.2 inch screen", "why doesn't the camera have a flash"? Nobody wants to argue about how technologically outdated you think this phone is simply because it doesn't have yet another sensor, one with very limited benefits at that.

hakujin

whether or not you 'need' proximity is irrelevant and moot to my previous point. the more you talk, the more I wonder why you even posted a reply.

hakujin

Why shouldn't I post a thread? Have you looked around here, at all? There are a gazillion threads pointing out issues people have w/ the Hero, hw and sw. In addition, there is a sticky on the main board page that is dedicated to just that:

http://androidforums.com/sprint-htc-hero/82618-2-1-problems-issues-quirks.html

It's what people do; talk about their likes and dislikes regarding a particular product and what this board is (among other things) designed for.

Now onward to your trite generalizations of 'complaints', I don't feel the Hero is outdated. In fact, I've stated the exact opposite here on the Froyo thread. Further it is a legitimate question because it seems weird that it would not, unless HTC hadn't made a phone w/ proximity yet. 3.2 is a normal sized screen for an '09 phone as is a phone w/o gimmicky mobile LED flash. lastly, it would seem many (inc. you) want to argue, ironically enough since this was not my intent in disseminating the logic as to why HTC omitted the sensor. Perhaps I should have asked in the XDA board as some are far too sensitive/defensive to objective reasoning here. Dramatize much?

I'm out...

Last edited by hakujin; July 21st, 2010 at 11:45 PM.

tatonka_Hero

I gave you multiple likely scenarios as to why HTC didn't include a sensor.

-Buggy
-adds to cost of materials, development, and manufacture
-nowhere to put it
-drains battery
-not necessary for satisfactory operation of phone
-slipped the engineer's minds (believe me, as an engineer, I know damn well we all make mistakes lol)
-The designers could have just decided that it wasn't worth the extra time and effort to code in a proximity sensor.
-LED notification light and Light sensor were higher priority to them, thus not leaving a symmetrical spot to put another sensor

I could probably go on and on if I thought about it for a bit longer lol

eyebeam

Ok, look - there have been a couple of threads about this issue and it's been discovered that people who have beards don't seem to have a problem with out a proximity sensor. Clearly, the group who designed this phone was a hairy bunch if ever there was one. So, the solution is, grow that beard out! The significant other will get used to it eventually!

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hakujin

Some seem more logical than others. anything is added cost of material, dev, and so on. no place in the design sounds plausible. drains battery does not. wife's moment gets better battery life than the already exceptional battery life I'm now getting on my Hero. Not necessary is an obvious thing and ultimately was the decision for obvious reasons, but that doesn't answer the root question. Last one seems convincing. Anyway, I guess we'll never know the exact reason. oh well.

treborcj

Why is this even a discussion. The answer is real simple.

Why does Hero lack a proximity sensor? Because they choose not to.

Just like......

Why doesn't it have a physical keyboard? Because they choose not to.

Why does it not have the antenna around the outside of the phone like the iPhone? Because they choose not to.

Why does Hero lack a forward facing camera? Because they choose not to.

They could have added everything but they choose not to add it.

Joehunni

Lol, hopefully this thread gets locked soon...

hakujin

The question was, why did they choose not to. Proximity is a given in most smartphones now. Why are we having this discussion? Because you chose to.

hakujin

What hasn't this thread been closed? They chose not to.

P.S. You must in Del Rio, or worse... Laredo Indeed, proximity is the least of your worries

Sixxx

Can I add:

"Why... is this thread still going?"

hakujin

Because you're still conveying your 'oh so useful' "expressed opinions"? Or was that rhetorical James?

Last edited by hakujin; July 24th, 2010 at 12:39 AM.

Joehunni

If we ignore it, maybe it will stop reviving thus bullshit thread.

hakujin

d'oh! you just contradicted yourself! i think you need a proximity sensor to cheer you up, and maybe an enema.

Last edited by hakujin; July 25th, 2010 at 12:37 AM.

Sixxx

Hahahahahaha. Now that was funny.