Accelerometers / Sudden-Motion Sensors in Notebooks

Call it what you may: an accelerometer, sudden-motion-sensor (SMS), a data air bag, these things are increasingly common in notebooks.

The most famed device having one of these is the Macbook & Macbook Pro. There’s actually a few programs out there that can take data straight from the sensor and use it as input data for mouse/keyboard/program functions (screen rotation), besides its intended use as a way to tell if a notebook is being dropped. When an SMS senses this, the hard drive heads are parked and taken off the surface of the disk so as to prevent damage.

Here’s a few sites I found with software for the Apple SMS:

• osxbook.com’s SMS section
• Seismac, and SiesMaCalibrate from suitable.com
• Smackbook – one of the most authoritative blogposts I’ve found so far about this. Contains links to IBM software that I’m investigating right now..
• Lenovo/IBM w/ Accelerometers running Linux – perl script. Knock-based commands. Sweet!

 

I remember reading a blog post somewhere about a linux script for an IBM notebook as well. This script purportedly allowed you to create tap codes that could be used to do whatever you want (rotate the screen, launch a program, etc.).

The Tecra M7 has a 3d accelerometer too, which is why I’m posting about this – I’ve been looking for some software that runs in a PC Windows environment that deals with SMS/Accelerometer input data. So far I’ve come up dry. The M7 came preloaded with some software that allows you to launch a program / bring up the start menu / rotate the screen based on tilting the M7 one way or the other (left-right or forward-backward).

However, I have no interest in tilting my computer. I want tap codes! Tap codes could actually be fairly useful, and as long as you program a code that is sufficiently non-random, it won’t trigger without you purposefully doing it. In any case, I’m kind’ve disappointed I haven’t been able to find anything yet. I’m not entirely surprised though, considering that, while there is an increasing number of notebooks out there with SMS, its still a fairly small amount for there to be too many programmers out there messing with them.