If you haven’t put it together by now, many smartphone sensors work together to figure out the device’s physical location, and the magnetometer is just another cog in the wheel. Like other smartphone sensors, you can likely guess what the magnetometer does from its name — it helps your device figure out its orientation in space, determining your location relative to the Earth’s magnetic poles. In simpler terms, your phone’s magnetometer measures the surrounding magnetic fields and can then tell you which direction is north.
Naturally, you can thank your phone’s magnetometer for giving your compass app life. Whenever you open the application, the sensors immediately kick in, bringing the usefulness of a compass to the convenience of your hand. Like the other sensors mentioned in this list, magnetometers (and compasses) play a vital role in bringing your smartphone’s GPS to life. Without them, your phone wouldn’t know which direction was north.
