Your smartphone is about to get a whole lot smarter, thanks to its sensors

While you may think that your smartphone has peaked in terms of the amount of data that it can provide about your life, you would be mistaken. The staggering power of the sensors and processors that we carry around with us every day mean that we will continue to harvest more and more data in an attempt to make our lives more automated, more manageable. Modern smartphones produce up to 1GB of sensor data every hour. And we’re only just beginning to tap into it.

German startup predict.io is at the forefront of attempts to harness that data. The company’s mission is to use your smartphone’s “accelerometer, gyroscope, barometer, wi-fi, GPS, magnetoscope, GSM and many more sensors to predict user context. Its SDK for iOS and Android turns sensor data into ready-made status updates in real-time.” For example, your phone’s sensors can pick up when you are in a vehicle moving at speed, and that information can be used in various ways to ensure that the phone doesn’t disturb your driving experience, which would go a long way to curb hazardous driving.

When you arrive at a certain point, the GPS can sense where you are and when you arrived and that is valuable information for retailers or any other business where you might be headed. Security would be enhanced as well; imagine for example that you are in one place but information comes through that your credit card has been used somewhere else….that’s information that would be valuable and extremely beneficial.

In its own words, predict.io explain that “in 2012, we fell in love with the idea of using smartphones sensors to solve issues in real life. It all started with parking. How about we use GPS to auto-save where I parked my car?” It hasn’t all been smooth-sailing though. “The main challenges we faced where the complexity of documentation, the difference in sensor bias across OS and the incredibly hard trade-off with battery drain.” But all the work has paid off and the company is now able to deliver an SDK which integrates into mobile apps within minutes and can make the critical difference for developers who are working in the arena of arrivals and departures and mobile transport.

The SDK delivers a broad cross-platform experience that integrates with Android, iOS and Phonegap SDK’s, it is optimised to not be too heavy on the battery experience delivers extremely high accuracy for people on the move.

The company launched at the recent SXSW event in Austin, Texas and won a prestigious award at the Smart Mobility Pitching Event in Delft, Netherlands.

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