PressureNET 2.1 Released: the Distributed Barometer Network For Android

cryptoz writes "Cumulonimbus has released a new version of their open source, global barometer network. The network is built around an Android app called pressureNET which uses barometric sensors in new phones (such as the Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, Note, and others) in order to build the comprehensive network. They plan to use the data to improve short-term weather prediction, and the gives a teaser of the new data visualization tool they are building."

Comments

Very nice

[medcalf]

I've been thinking that temperature and pressure sensors would be a great app enabler on cell phones. Kudos to Google and the Android device makers then.

Re:Very nice

[alexander_686]

I think it’s just pressure – and I am not sure how valuable a tempura gauge would be. I thinking my body temperature would throw off the readings to the point that they were meaningless.

Re:Very nice

[amRadioHed]

Pressure yes, but temperature would be really pretty useless. The reading would always be some random, ever changing mix of the heat generated by the phone itself, your body temperature, and the ambient temperature. What exactly could you do with that?

Re:Very nice

[19thNervousBreakdown]

A tempura gauge sounds awesome!

Warning! You are dangerously close to delicious food. Rapid cholesterol rises eminent.

Surprise sensors.

[Anonymous Coward]

The most exciting part of this - my Galaxy Nexus has barometric sensors!?

Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[SuperKendall]

I thought it was pretty interesting that phones would include barometric sensors which I had not heard of before - are they just there in a package with other more commonly used sensors? How do the phones that have them normally make use of or present that data?

Re:Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was pretty interesting that phones would include barometric sensors which I had not heard of before - are they just there in a package with other more commonly used sensors? How do the phones that have them normally make use of or present that data?

Makes GPS system start up faster.

Re:Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[Atticka]

They were originally added to assist with navigation (they double as an altimeter, sensing pressure changes due to elevation) allowing the phone to acquire GPS lock quicker by using the data in conjunction with latitude and longitude calculations.

Re:Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[interkin3tic]

More specifically, it confirms where you are faster. I've heard it's not quite sensitive enough to give you weather predictions based on your one phone (hence the need for distributed phones) but it IS sensitive enough to give an idea of altitude. So if your barometer shows you're at sea level, and the GPS starting up is saying you're in Denver, your phone can say "You sure about that, GPS?"

Re:Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[shutdown -p now]

Then it adjusts the date to somewhere circa 2200, to account for the apparent ocean level difference.

Re:Why do the phones have barometric sensors?

[bryantthesmith]

I wondered that too. I asked those involved with the design and they said that according to their tests, nearly all buildings are quite leaky and that the ventilation systems don't effect pressure enough to throw off the readings.

Re:Needs isobar lines

[cryptoz]

I agree completely! We are adding those as soon as we can. In the early days of the project, there was not enough data to build isobars. But now, we have enough and we are determined to add that feature. The project is built by me and volunteers in our free time, so it'll probably be a couple weeks or months before we get isobars in. Of course, pressureNET is fully open source and so if anyone feels like writing the isobar code and getting that feature done faster, we will welcome that too! Code is on github: https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNET, https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNETServer and https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNETAnalysis.

rubbish source of data

[SuperBanana]

Cell phones are often:

-In cars, which have varying interior pressure levels depending on design, speed, and other conditions (for example, I had a car where putting the sunroof in the "vent" position would result in a noticeable change in air pressure)

-In buildings, which can have wildly different pressures floor-to-floor or even between areas depending on a variety of factors

-In hyper-localized high pressure areas (for example, ever been caught in a severe wind gust between skycrapers? How about subway entrances and exits?)

-At different heights. Barometer readings are useless without knowing your altitude, and GPS is extremely poor at moment-to-moment altitude data; you have to collect a fair number of points over at least a couple of minutes. Do they perform this calibration?

A+ for the idea, C on evaluating the likely accuracy of the data...

Re:rubbish source of data

[Exoman]

I imagine they've considered outliers in aggregation of the data. You particular phone may be all that, accuracy-wise, but with sufficient data points, one could readily get to a point near the precision & accuracy limits of the phones' sensors.

Old news

[technomom]

Old news. I have had this on my S3 since Day 1. I also have Barometer Monitor, which generated this pretty cool graph on Monday and Tuesday, October 29-30, the days Hurricane Sandy came to town and then left. http://i.imgur.com/tuM8x.png