Energy consumption of the sensors of Smartphones

Abstract:
From the first Smartphones to the current generation, huge steps have been taken in their technical development, which opened up a new era of applications and services. And the concurrent equipping of Smartphones with multiple sensors has also facilitated new applications and services. Since the energy supply of a Smartphone is quite limited, applications and services must take into account the energy consumptions of the Smartphone components. Many Smartphone components have been investigated with regard to their energy consumption. However, the energy consumption of Smartphone sensors has not yet been thoroughly investigated. With this paper we contribute an investigation on the energy consumption of Smartphone sensors. We do this in two different ways: firstly, by measuring with a volt meter and an ammeter and secondly, by using the Smartphone’s internal API. From the presented results one can conclude that an average Smartphone can be used for daily sensing and context surveys.