Abstract

This paper evaluates the opportunity to utilise external sensors through near field communication (NFC) for smartphones, both, in terms of energy consumption from the smartphones’ battery and time consumption of the smartphones’ user. Our developed sensor card enables external sensors to obtain information, for example, on the current temperature level, humidity level, UV level, and amount of ambient light. We demonstrate that our approach requires significantly less energy and time compared to alternatives which users of smartphones have. Furthermore, we analyse the impact of heat sources present in smartphones on the readings of temperature and humidity level sensors. We propose to externalise sensors in order to minimise the negative impact of temperature on sensors readings and, thereby, improving the accuracy of the measurements and the acquired sensor data.