Re: [dap-charter] Any new sensor API? (#4)

@tomayac:

>For some background, the hinge angle sensor as described in the Android documentation.

Fold Angle Sensor is added to the [draft charter proposal](https://w3c.github.io/dap-charter/DASCharter-2020.html).

> Barometer altitude (if the device has barometer) https://github.com/w3c/geolocation-sensor/issues/43#issuecomment-604911855

Here's how I unpack this, clarifications welcome:

Using GPS the method to measure altitude is called [trilateration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_range_multilateration). This method has restrictions as outlined in the article. To get more precise altitude readings, some (or most modern mobile?) devices include [barometric altimeter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altimeter) that measures the atmospheric pressure.

I think the proposal is to allow web developers to request "high precision altitude". This could be addressed by allowing developers to pass a flag upon instantiation of the GeolocationSensor, for example (note: this approach has caused interop issues in the past, see PositionOptions.enableHighAccuracy in Geolocation API). This would be already in scope, no changes required in the charter to pick up this work.

If, OTOH, there are reasonably mainstream use cases for requesting altitude _alone_ without lat/long, it'd make sense to split that feature into a separate sensor type to enable better privacy protections (users could grant access to altitude alone, and not lat/long). Also we need to understand  implementability (i.e. do platforms allow requesting just altitude), initial assessment https://github.com/w3c/geolocation-sensor/issues/43#issuecomment-604911855 suggests some platforms do expose this sensor type separately.

cc @karianpour

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Received on Wednesday, 1 April 2020 09:01:32 UTC