Ever since the Pixel 8 was announced I couldn’t wrap my brain around why they invested money putting a temperature sensor on the device. The functions that keep touting, like checking the temperature of your food or your forehead…it just didn’t add up. So here is my wacky theory.
I truly wonder if there is a bigger plan at play. Just think about Google Maps. The GPS and accelerometer help the phone determine speed, direction, etc. It can detect crashes based on acceleration and deceleration. It can crowd source traffic. I am wondering if that type of data collection is something they are going to try with this temp sensor. Crowd-sourced, live, real-time outside air temps of areas, fire detection, warnings for heat exhaustion risk, they can potentially link it to Nest themrostats (like the nest temp sensors) to help automate your heating/cooling. Maybe they can find some other useful ways to farm our data. Not saying I am for or against this - I would probably turn off the permissions, but food for thought.
My phone is either lying around, in my pocket or in my car most of the time. The times when I carry it outdoors in my hand are not many. And shouldn’t the sensor be less than 5 cm away from something, and you have to select the kind of material that you want to measure?