Then I began to realize that I already have a device which contains an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetic sensor... my Android smartphone! Wouldn't it be cool if I didn't have to spend money at all? Or maybe just spend a fraction of that $500 to bring my smartphone up to standards?
So, here are the two questions that I hope you guys are able to help me answer:
- How accurate/precise can I expect readings from my smartphone to be? Is there a way I can determine the accuracy/precision before investing time and effort into developing an app?
- How hard would it be for a caver with no app development experience to make a compass/inclinometer app? Does such an app already exist?
- Battery usage (smartphones are power hungry)
- No distance measurement
- Cost of cave-proofing (Otterbox case)
- Need to mount a laser (in a way that didn't affect the sensors)
- Potentially cheaper than a DistoX2 (since I already own the smartphone)
- You don't need a separate PDA to sketch with... just sketch with the smartphone! (assuming it was stylus compatible)
- Plenty of storage space
- Voice technology (no need to push buttons)