RE: [sensors] Device Proximity (was: Device light and proximity sensor)

+1 on deferring the near/far event.

Thanks
Dzung Tran

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Turner [mailto:dougt@mozilla.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:37 AM
To: Marcos Caceres
Cc: Claes1 Nilsson; public-device-apis@w3.org; Tran, Dzung D
Subject: Re: [sensors] Device Proximity (was: Device light and proximity sensor)

Most of the sensors that we have seen on phones are in the <10cm case.

The API that we proposed simply exposes the raw values (min, max, current, resolution).  From that, you can build out the use cases we discussed (from turning off your screen when the phone is next to your head, to doing something smart when the user walks up to their desktop).

I don't think we need to run through a huge list of use cases for this simple API.  I think we should defer the 'near'/'far' event.  We should decide if this kind of 'near'/'far' event is need during implementation, deployment, and adoption of what we already spec'd out.

Doug


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcos Caceres" <w3c@marcosc.com>
To: "Dzung D Tran" <dzung.d.tran@intel.com>
Cc: "Doug Turner" <dougt@mozilla.com>, "Claes1 Nilsson" <Claes1.Nilsson@sonymobile.com>, public-device-apis@w3.org
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:15:21 AM
Subject: Re: [sensors] Device Proximity (was: Device light and proximity  sensor)



On Thursday, 10 May 2012 at 16:48, Tran, Dzung D wrote:

> You are depending on the OS or proximity sensor device to give you this near/far value, otherwise the UAs need to interpret this near/far base on value, min and max. Are we going to specify in the spec how near/far are interpret. Is <= 50% means near and > 50% means far?

Depends on the range, I guess. If common sensors in the class of hardware this API is targeting only have a range of, say, 1-3cm, then they don't really have any practical application beyond on or off (near/far).   
>  
> Also, some notebooks and desktops are adding proximity sensor for detecting if there is user present. In this case near/far have different range.
>  

The same applies here. You are either near the laptop or not (or does "maybe near" or "really close" have a use case here?). The range would still only be limited to a few centimetres (~25-50cm).    

I would be interesting to explore how a developer copes with these two scenarios (laptop vs mobile phone). How do you see it working, as these are opposite cases? In one, a developer is disabling functionality because the user is "near" (e.g., turning off the screen). In the other case, you are enabling functionality because the user is "near" (e.g., turning on screen, presenting a login box).  

I know the above is application specific, but please try to generalise from there… it might be important to distinguish the intended function of a proximity sensor (...or not… would really like to hear more use cases to help think through this).   

--  
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Thursday, 10 May 2012 17:49:33 UTC