Question

Does anybody know if there is a way to detect when a user makes a motion with the phone. In particular I am trying to detect when the user makes a quick movement backward (or towards themselves).

Anybody know of any solutions?

Answer 1

Sounds like you’re looking for the Accelerometer. Here’s an example class that implements a the SensorEventListener, which listens in for sensor motion.

public class AccelerometerHandler implements SensorEventListener
{
    float accelX;
    float accelY;
    float accelZ;

    public AccelerometerHandler(Context paramContext)
    {
        SensorManager localSensorManager = (SensorManager)paramContext.getSystemService("sensor");

        if (localSensorManager.getSensorList(1).size() != 0)
            localSensorManager.registerListener(this, (Sensor)localSensorManager.getSensorList(1).get(0), 1);
    }

    public float getAccelX()
    {
        return this.accelX;
    }

    public float getAccelY()
    {
        return this.accelY;
    }

    public float getAccelZ()
    {
        return this.accelZ;
    }

    public void onAccuracyChanged(Sensor paramSensor, int paramInt)
    {
    }

    public void onSensorChanged(SensorEvent paramSensorEvent)
    {
        this.accelX = paramSensorEvent.values[0];
        this.accelY = paramSensorEvent.values[1];
        this.accelZ = paramSensorEvent.values[2];
    }
}