Say you're planning that next camping trip and you need to know whether you're going to be able to incessantly check your work email every 10 minutes -- do you trust a carrier's coverage map of unknown age, origin, and honesty, or real-world experience? If French firm Sensorly has its way, you'll soon be able to answer the latter thanks to the deployment of an app for your phone that continuously measures cellular and WiFi signal strength at your location and silently reports it back to the company's servers where it's compiled into color-coded maps predicting your ability to connect. The concept's very similar to that being undertaken by another up-and-comer that's been getting a good deal of coverage lately, Root Wireless, but the key difference is that Root's system is still in private beta -- Sensorly's mobile app is available right now to anyone who'd like to download it and participate (albeit only for Android; iPhone and WinMo are in the pipe). It seems unlikely that they've got critical mass to provide meaningful feedback in most areas at this point, but if marginal boost in battery drain is tolerable for you, it might be worth giving it a whirl.
posted February 5th 2010 5:05AM
Engadget, please leave a note if it's US only.
I really need an app like this for the next month, I was excited until it didn't exist.
@BUNT2 Just because you can't find it on the iphone app store doesn't mean it doesnt exist. I can get vodaphone UK and AT&T world maps. Of course the only set of maps I can't get is for Verizon...lame
@samsmith3
Actually it isn't in my app store at all. Also, this happens time and time over, and I don't think it'd be that hard to notify international readers. And reading some of the other comments here, even when the app is available, it doesn't necessarily work in other countries/networks.
@samsmith3
Bah, no Verizon? I was really excited about this until that part.
@BUNT2 This app is only available for Android right now.
Don't expect to see it on the iPhone since their is no multitasking on this phone. (=> no wifi/GPS detector running in background => no maps updates from iPhone users)
@BUNT2
It's not US-only. Here's a link to some search results which show the apps created for various providers:
http://www.androlib.com/android.developer.sensorly-com-jtDn.aspx
@gpmoo7
Just because they won't get a lot of input from iphone users doesn't mean that you won't be able to benefit from the data gathered by android and winmo users.
@gpmoo7
Multi-tasking != multi-threading. The iPhone is perfectly capable of running multi-threaded apps. Leave the technical feasibility of such an application to people who actually understand software development.
@gpmoo7
They say on their website an iPhone version will be available soon
With Windows Mobile following up
with a possible symbian and blackberry version in the far future
Yup, not available in the uk iPhone app store.
@Simonsays Yeah, cause I would have expected Android apps to be available in the iPhone app store...
@Timmmmmm
I didn't read the article properly. My bad!
The question is, does helping them (and eventually maybe yourself) outweigh the problems with sending some company your GPS coordinates every 5 minutes?
@thinmac
They only send your phone ID, signal strength, and location (unless they are doing something sneaky). They don't ask for anything extra. They can only tie phone idea to a real world person if your carrier gives it to them. Now, if they are a branch of homeland security, i'm sure they have it already :)
@thinmac
i just dont like that they want us to send them all this data, and then plan on charging for the app to view the maps.
Doesn't work in Australia, aussie don't bother installing it!
Installed it, no maps atm here, but I already send them signals..
Very nice thing.
great idea and there's something in it for everybody.
good if they could add a third metric on top of 'network operator' to be 'handset make/model'. in fact i guess they are probably gathering this data but just not publishing it - would be interesting.
This is a great thing if you are a person who likes to help other (and by that helping you self as well). I would definitely use this software to check wifi availability around the city. 3G strong everywhere in Budapest, but it would be really cool to have wifi as well shown on a map.
Very nice app, I just need an Android phone now. I hope they bring it out for Symbian as well so I can use it right away.
From what the website shows, looks like the coverage maps is limited to GSM and WiFi, no CDMA love
Very neat app, left it running now.
I'd not be surprised though if this sort of stuff was done automatically, as part of the sync. Don't cellphones send their strength back to the tower they're connecting to? Would make sense for the networks to collect this by default. Just cool that end-users can see this sort of data.
It will be interesting to see how they implement it for the iPhone, since there is no way for an app to run in the background on a non-jailbroken one.
Unless these guys have very smart algorithms, this application could be potentially useless. The signal strength at least in cellular networks not only depends on how far you are from the antenna, line of sight, etc. but also on how many people are currently active in the cell. If you watch the signal strength indicator on your phone, you can sometimes see it change even though you don't move at all. So they need a lot of data before they can actually make any kind of statement, and even then, your mileage might vary greatly depending on time of day, etc.
@Bauer Collect enough data and you can get a fairly accurate average and a fairly detailed map (ie: if you are in a building, the map will show it)
@Bauer
They'll give you an average. That's a lot better than nothing.
I think that this could be very useful for service providers to find dead zones. Case in point, my city has near 100% full coverage everywhere I go from Verizon. My parents' house, my old apartment, my work, my old school, my former high school, etc., EXCEPT, the house that I bought in July has weak, weak VZW coverage.. 1 bar normally, 2 if I'm lucky. And worst of all, it's really just about 4 houses around my house that do not get coverage... if you walk down the street, it's usually normal, full bar coverage. The reason that I can see is that my house sits in front of two rather large hills on either side, something that I love in the Winter, saving us from the blowing snow, but something ultimately frustrating when it comes to cell phone service.
Clever idea. I like it! :D
No Sprint either.... :(
Unfortunate, no Verizon or Sprint apps. Oh well.
Looks like there is some sufficient data about Tmobile and major cities in the US. I don't like their plan of eventually charging for maps that zoom further than city level. If I collect data for them for free, I should see it for free. Also, when you install the app it tells you that if you want a map they don't offer that you should enable mapping and then send them an email detailing your request.
Doesn't do me much good on Verizon, but it would be awesome for future android apps if the editor could provide QR codes for easy access :D
Looks like by my house no one has contributed, that will be my addition to this map.
Engadget, please post an update that shows this is gsm only
I don't see the point in the WiFi maps. I'm not going to just log onto an unsecured network when I've already got a data signal from my provider.
I never turn on WiFi on my G1 unless I'm at home or at work, and only when I think I'll be using the browser long enough for the speed boost to be worth the battery drain.
I'll install Sensorly out of curiosity, but I'll remove it pretty soon it if the app is still turning on the WiFi chip periodically.
Anyone know a good iphone app to measure wifi for doing basic site surveys?