We live in a world where almost everyone owns a smartphone. Particularly in my circle, nearly all my students, colleagues, and collaborators have Apple’s iPhone. Whether it’s an iPhone or an Android phone, these smartphones come equipped with versatile sensors. Despite their size and the expense of replacing them if dropped and broken, these functions can prove useful in emergency situations.

Gyros (currently only available for iPhone) is an app designed to capture users’ motion and transmit the data to a designated device, typically a laptop, compatible with the OSC (Open Sound Control) protocol over WiFi or Ethernet. Some argue that OSC is based on UDP, and using WiFi for data transmission is considered unreliable. However, since we transmit very small data, careful programming can help mitigate the pros and cons of this communication method.