• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Galaxy S3 to come with barometer

From MobileNApps

The Samsung Galaxy S3 features a whopping 4.8-inch 720p Super AMOLED display, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, and runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Samsung's new flagship phone is powered by a quad-core Exynos chip clocked at 1.4GHz, with 1GB of RAM. It comes in three different configurations - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB - expandable with a microSD card supporting up to 64GB of additional storage. Other features include accelerometer, proximity sensor, RGB light, gyroscope, near-field communication (NFC) capabilities, and barometer.

Wow so much functionality in one device.

For those who don't know, a barometer is something that measures current air pressure. So when you go up hills or mountains, you'll be able to measure the pressure. This is quite useful in situations where there is low relative pressures of oxygen.

Barometers also come in handy in GPS/navigation functions. Barometers make it easier to lock onto satellites.
 
I think the gyroscope is more impressive than the barometer. Makes for better motion gaming and improves on the accelerometer use in the OS. There are quite a few in the Market, I mean the Play Store. Nothing really "high end" cause not that many Androids have Gyros right now.

The Galaxy S II has Gyro, I presumed that was pretty standard for new phones now.
 
Upvote 0
A barometer can allow you to correct altitude measurements (which are normally derived based on a standard pressure) for current atmospheric pressure. This may allow GPS derived altitude measurements that are super accurate. This can be very desirable in an aviation context (the app Avilution makes use of it for example). Or anytime you would like a very accurate measurement of your current altitude.
 
Upvote 0
From MobileNApps



Wow so much functionality in one device.

For those who don't know, a barometer is something that measures current air pressure. So when you go up hills or mountains, you'll be able to measure the pressure. This is quite useful in situations where there is low relative pressures of oxygen.

Barometers also come in handy in GPS/navigation functions. Barometers make it easier to lock onto satellites.

I was like why do you need Barometers in your phone right after reading the title, but it kind of makes sense. :) I would never need it though :D
 
Upvote 0
My wife gets headaches due to low cerebral spinal fluid pressure levels, then the weather will sometimes add further pain. Knowing barometric pressure might help us to predict/combat her headaches.

Reading about the nose hair clippers above sounds like the most exciting and practical smart phone advancement of all times.
 
Upvote 0
I have really sensitive sinuses and often suffer from headaches due to rapidly decreasing barometric pressure. Hopefully some ingenious programmer will write an app the will alert me to these conditions before my head does. That way I'd be able to pop some decongestants before suffering too much.

Also, I wonder if there will be any weather apps that will access this info anonymously to help increase the accuracy of local weather predictions.

Man, I should learn how to code apps...
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones