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Today’s top smartphones can take great photos, but high-end cameras can do more than that. A startup has repurposed the suite of sensors found in leading Android smartphones to measure things like air quality and smoke levels, giving users an idea of how safe their surroundings are.
A startup called MobilePhysics is announcing a new air monitoring technology (note the space — it’s called Mobile Physics). This is built into his Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that Qualcomm announced earlier this year. Phone manufacturers can choose to implement mobile physics technology, which will then be available in pre-installed apps.
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MobilePhysics is focused on bringing this functionality to as many people as possible, chairman and Nobel Prize winner Roger Kornberg told CNET in an email. The technology could be useful to most people on Earth because it can passively measure so-called PM2.5 pollution particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter) when using a phone. 99% of the world’s population breathes air that exceeds global health standards. Kornberg said it’s the organization’s standard.
“More people die from exposure to PM2.5 than from any other cause of death, including cancer, COPD, and heart disease,” Kornberg said. “It affects every cell, tissue, and organ in humans in ways we don’t yet understand.”
Just as Apple used Apple Watch sensors to measure new health metrics like blood oxygen, Mobile Physics uses smartphone sensors and cameras to measure air quality, smoke levels, and UV exposure. , determine ambient environmental factors such as temperature. in your pocket.
Mobile Physics performs these scans in the background while you check your email or take your phone out of your pocket. According to a press release, the app does things like prompt you to get under cover after being in the sun for too long, or tell you to open a window or turn on an air purifier to improve air quality. Notify users when their surroundings become dangerous. Smoke monitors can be set to run at night to scan for hazards while people are sleeping. After all, this is just another way for cell phones to monitor their owners.
The company has tested Mobile Physics on the Google Pixel 8 and Xiaomi 11 Ultra, although no phones have been confirmed to have Mobile Physics pre-installed. Both are equipped with basic sensors and STmicroelectronic’s specific VL53L8 time-of-flight sensor and perform air scan technology.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 launched in October to much fanfare with on-device generative AI capabilities. Although mobile physics does not explicitly leverage that capability, better implementations of edge AI could reduce the time required for measurements. And as more sensors and cameras are added to mobile phones, Kornberg said, Mobile Physics’ toolbox is also increasing the number of parameters it can measure, improving the accuracy of its results.
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This is critical because the world is not taking the dangers of poor air quality seriously enough. And it’s not just in visibly contaminated areas, but everywhere we live, whether it’s frying a steak, sweeping the floor, or standing next to a bus. , Kornberg emphasized that we are exposed to pollutants. He said that one day when we look back on our lack of control over our air quality, we will be as ashamed of our failures as we are of governments who failed to protect people from the known dangers of cigarettes. Told.
“Air quality is already improving, we just don’t all fully understand how serious the situation is,” Kornberg said. “MobilePhysics is the first step and a big step toward solving this problem.”
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