Here is an example on how to use the accelerometer in your Android application. If you want to simulate the acceleration on the emulator I highly recommend the Sensor Simulator on the OpenIntents website.

The following example app displays the coordinates received by the sensor.

The Acceleration App

  • The activity – AccelerationActivity.java

    package com.hascode.android;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.hardware.Sensor;
import android.hardware.SensorEvent;
import android.hardware.SensorEventListener;
import android.hardware.SensorManager;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class AccellerationActivity extends Activity {
	private TextView result;
	private SensorManager sensorManager;
	private Sensor sensor;
	private float x, y, z;

	@Override
	public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.main);

		sensorManager = (SensorManager) getSystemService(Context.SENSOR_SERVICE);
		sensor = sensorManager.getSensorList(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER).get(0);

		result = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.result);
		result.setText("No result yet");
	}

	private void refreshDisplay() {
		String output = String
				.format("x is: %f / y is: %f / z is: %f", x, y, z);
		result.setText(output);
	}

	@Override
	protected void onResume() {
		super.onResume();
		sensorManager.registerListener(accelerationListener, sensor,
				SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_GAME);
	}

	@Override
	protected void onStop() {
		sensorManager.unregisterListener(accelerationListener);
		super.onStop();
	}

	private SensorEventListener accelerationListener = new SensorEventListener() {
		@Override
		public void onAccuracyChanged(Sensor sensor, int acc) {
		}

		@Override
		public void onSensorChanged(SensorEvent event) {
			x = event.values[0];
			y = event.values[1];
			z = event.values[2];
			refreshDisplay();
		}

	};
}

The Application Layout

  • A simple layout defined in the main.xml

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
<TextView
	android:id="@+id/result"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text=""
    />
</LinearLayout>

  • The strings.xml

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="hello">Hello World, AccellerationActivity!</string>
    <string name="app_name">Accelerometer Snippet</string>
</resources>

Google App Inventor

update If you like to see if this application is developed using Google’s App Inventor then take a look at the article “How to create an Android App using Google’s App Inventor”

Resources