Sensor Virtualization for Efficient Sharing of Mobile and Wearable Sensors

Users are surrounded by sensors that are available through various devices beyond their smartphones. However, these sensors are not fully utilized by current end-user applications. A key reason sensor use is so limited is that application developers must exactly identify how the sensor data can be used by smartphone apps. To mitigate this problem, we present SenseWear, a sensor-sharing platform that extends the functionality of a smartphone to use remote sensors with limited additional developer effort. Sensor sharing has several uses, including augmenting the hardware in smartphones, creating new gestural interactions with smartphone applications, and improving application's Quality of Experience via higher-quality sensors from other devices, such as wearables. We developed and present six use cases that use remote sensors in various smartphone applications. Each extension requires adding fewer than 20 lines of code on average. Furthermore, using remote sensors did not introduce a perceptible increase in latency, and creates more convenient interaction options for smartphone apps.