What is Sensor Devices?

Sensors come in many configurations and, from a certain perspective, almost anything that provides data about physical phenomena can be called a sensor. Although we typically think of sensors as hardware devices, logical sensors can also provide information through emulation of sensor functionality in software or firmware. Also, a single hardware device can contain multiple sensors.

The sensor and location platform organizes sensors into categories, which represent broad classes of sensor devices, and types, which represent specific kinds of sensors. For example, a sensor in a video game controller that detects the position and movement of a player's hand (perhaps for a video bowling game) would be categorized as an Orientation sensor, but its type would be 3-D Accelerometer. In code, Windows represents categories and types by using globally unique identifiers (GUIDs), many of which are predefined. Device manufacturers can create new categories and types by defining and publishing new GUIDs when required.

Location devices make up one especially interesting category. By now, most people are familiar with global positioning systems (GPS). In Windows, a GPS is a sensor in the Location category. The Location category also includes other sensor types. Some of these sensor types are software based, such as an IP resolver that provides location information based on an Internet address, a mobile phone tower triangulator that determines location based on nearby towers, or static providers, such as a Wi-Fi network location provider that reads location information from the connected wireless network hub.