This category groups together pages which are addressing the support for the sensor technology on the S60 phones.

Sensor API support on S60 phones

The usage of the Sensor API on the S60 platform is a bit of a complicated story. The following will summarize the native API support (i.e. Symbian C++) while acknowledging that other S60 runtimes (notably Python) have extensions built on top of those APIs and thus are also capable of accessing the sensors.

S60 3rd Edition

There is no official support for the sensor technology in the 3rd Edition release of the S60 platform (including the feature packs). The following discussion will cover manufacturer and even device specific sensor APIs.

Nokia specific APIs

Nokia 5500 was the first device for which a Sensor API was released through a dedicated SDK plug-in. The API provides access to two sensor channels, allowing developers to react to changes in phone's tilt angle as well as to receive tapping events.

However, of greater interest for developers was the fact that although not officially supported the Nokia N95 phone also contains accelerometer sensor hardware and that the Nokia 5500 API was partially compatible with it.

Using this, and an unsupported plug-in derived from an Nokia Research Center project, developers have started a wave of innovative applications which in the end convinced Nokia to improve the Sensor API compatibility in subsequent firmware updates for N95 and other phones from the same generation.

For more details see the Nokia Sensor APIs page.

Device support

Phones marked with * are subject to firmware specific constraints. See Nokia Sensor APIs for details.

S60 3rd Edition FP2 devices

For S60 3rd Edition FP2 based Nokia devices developers can use the Sensor API Plug-in for S60 3rd Edition SDK for Symbian OS, Feature Pack 2, a backport of the S60 Sensor Framework.

Samsung specific APIs

For their S60 3rd Edition based phones Samsung has released the G-Sensor API, with focus on the accelerometer hardware.

Device support

S60 5th Edition

Starting with its 5th Edition release, the S60 platform now offers sensor technology support through the Sensor Framework. This ensures that developers can use the same set of APIs across all S60 devices.

In addition, the platform also provides an uniform Platform Services framework (aka. SAPI, standing for Service APIs), allowing Flash and Web Runtime (WRT) developers to access, among other, the sensor features.

Device support

Note: Consult the Device Specifications pages for official device specific information.