About sensors and location
bookmark_border Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based on your preferences.

On this page
Videos

Android-powered devices have sensors that let you provide users with contextual information about their surroundings, including location awareness, motion, position, and qualities of the physical environment.

To provide a much richer, more more context-specific experience for users, use Android APIs that take advantage of the following types of sensors:

Use GPS to add location awareness to your app with automated location tracking, wrong-side-of-the-street detection, geofencing, activity recognition, and more.
Use motion sensors to measure acceleration forces and rotational forces along three axes. This category includes accelerometers, gravity sensors, gyroscopes, and rotational vector sensors.
Use position sensors to measure the physical position of a device. This category includes orientation sensors and magnetometers.
Use environmental sensors to measure various environmental parameters, such as ambient air temperature and pressure, illumination, and humidity. This category includes barometers, photometers, and thermometers.