The WeatherSignal app concept GUI. (via OpenSignal)
As smartphones continue to be upgraded with an increasingly larger set of data harvesting sensors, the use of such vastly available localized data naturally becomes a significant factor in the development of novel mobile apps. A smartphones such as the industry leading, sensor-packed Galaxy S4 - equipped with a barometer, magnetometer, accelerometer, thermometer, and hygrometer - creates a vast potential for individualized data exploitation. The recently released WeatherSignal app has taken storm to this data availability by creating a revolutionary weather app that draws anonymized crowd source data from Android devices to engender a more localized, real-time weather forecast.
The WeatherSignal app is a branch off from the UK start up OpenSignal - a company that has developed an Android app (by the same name) that uses crowd-sourced data to show users where the best nearby places for WiFi and data signal coverage are found. In a similar fashion, the WeatherSignal app will use sensor data from a crowd of Android phones to average out a community driven meteorological forecast. This essentially provides the world’s most comprehensive real-time weather map that is completely based on the availability of shared Android phone data for a given area.
Since there is a reliance on the presence of smartphone sensor data for this technique to work smoothly, great importance is placed on the capability of the phone being used. The Galaxy S4 will provide optimal sensor data to record more accurate weather conditions - but thanks to the accidental discovery of a correlation between cell-phone battery temperature and ambient temperature readings, any higher-end Android phones will be able to contribute temperature readings as well. The correlation, found by observing the relationships between cell phones’ indicated battery temperatures and their environmental temperature conditions, allowed the WeatherSignal group to create an algorithm that can estimate ambient temps entirely based on internal battery temp.
The system, however, is not quite perfect for estimating weather conditions based solely on an individual smartphone. However, when the method is applied and averaged out over a larger population of Android phones, the WeatherSignal app is able to estimate highly accurate localized weather information. The company is still in the early stages of developing their side project venture into meteorology and has no current plans for monetization. The UK’s Met Office has in fact already expressed interest in integrating OpenSignal’s technology with their own crowd-sourced Weather Observation Website. For now, the group is focused on raising funds to continue work on the app. Future goals may include rolling out their software to iOS users - though the team says that obtaining accurate battery temperature readings from iPhone devices will be a bit of a challenge.
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