Question

I gathered plenty of samples and tutorials on the matter but once I implement my own version or even just copy the code straight off, I cannot get any values to show up in my log.

I think I am missing one important part but I cannot seem to figure it out.

public class Accelerometer extends Activity {

    SensorManager sensorManager;
    Sensor accelerometer;

    private SensorEventListener sensorEventListener = new SensorEventListener() {

        public void onAccuracyChanged(Sensor sensor, int accuracy) {

        }

        public void onSensorChanged(SensorEvent event) {

            float x = event.values[0];
            float y = event.values[1];
            float z = event.values[2];
            update(x, y, z);
        }
    };

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        sensorManager = (SensorManager)getSystemService(SENSOR_SERVICE);
        accelerometer = sensorManager.getDefaultSensor(Sensor.TYPE_ACCELEROMETER);
    }

    public void update(float x, float y, float z) {

        Log.v("semajhan", "x: " + x + " y: " + y + " z: " + z);
    }

    protected void onResume() {
        super.onResume();
        sensorManager.registerListener(sensorEventListener, accelerometer, SensorManager.SENSOR_DELAY_NORMAL);
    }

    protected void onPause() {
        super.onPause();
        sensorManager.unregisterListener(sensorEventListener);
    }
}

My problem seems to be that I do not know how to really access the accelerometer.

Once I can get these values, I can move forward but I need to understand this first.

Answer 1

Your code seems ok to me. It is similar to working examples I also used to fetch the sensor data. One thing may be problematic. Are you sure you have sensor of that type on your device?

To check that use

public List<Sensor> getSensorList (int type) 

function of SensorManager. You can get full list of sensors available on your device if you use type = Sensor.TYPE_ALL in function call, and go through all list elements.

UPDATE:

Tried your code. It is fully functional. Issue is that display of traces is disabled on your Nexus. To enable traces go to Settings->Applications->Development and check option USB debugging. Without that you get no traces.