How do I detect when someone shakes an iPhone?

Question

I want to react when somebody shakes the iPhone. I don't particularly care how they shake it, just that it was waved vigorously about for a split second. Does anyone know how to detect this?

Answer 1

First, Kendall's July 10th answer is spot-on.

Now ... I wanted to do something similar (in iPhone OS 3.0+), only in my case I wanted it app-wide so I could alert various parts of the app when a shake occurred. Here's what I ended up doing.

First, I subclassed UIWindow. This is easy peasy. Create a new class file with an interface such as MotionWindow : UIWindow (feel free to pick your own, natch). Add a method like so:

- (void)motionEnded:(UIEventSubtype)motion withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
    if (event.type == UIEventTypeMotion && event.subtype == UIEventSubtypeMotionShake) {
        [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"DeviceShaken" object:self];
    }
}

Change @"DeviceShaken" to the notification name of your choice. Save the file.

Now, if you use a MainWindow.xib (stock Xcode template stuff), go in there and change the class of your Window object from UIWindow to MotionWindow or whatever you called it. Save the xib. If you set up UIWindow programmatically, use your new Window class there instead.

Now your app is using the specialized UIWindow class. Wherever you want to be told about a shake, sign up for them notifications! Like this:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
selector:@selector(deviceShaken) name:@"DeviceShaken" object:nil];

To remove yourself as an observer:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self];

I put mine in viewWillAppear: and viewWillDisappear: where View Controllers are concerned. Be sure your response to the shake event knows if it is "already in progress" or not. Otherwise, if the device is shaken twice in succession, you'll have a li'l traffic jam. This way you can ignore other notifications until you're truly done responding to the original notification.

Also: You may choose to cue off of motionBegan vs. motionEnded. It's up to you. In my case, the effect always needs to take place after the device is at rest (vs. when it starts shaking), so I use motionEnded. Try both and see which one makes more sense ... or detect/notify for both!

One more (curious?) observation here: Notice there's no sign of first responder management in this code. I've only tried this with Table View Controllers so far and everything seems to work quite nicely together! I can't vouch for other scenarios though.

Kendall, et. al - can anyone speak to why this might be so for UIWindow subclasses? Is it because the window is at the top of the food chain?

Answer 2

This is the basic delegate code you need:

#define kAccelerationThreshold      2.2

#pragma mark -
#pragma mark UIAccelerometerDelegate Methods
    - (void)accelerometer:(UIAccelerometer *)accelerometer didAccelerate:(UIAcceleration *)acceleration 
    {   
        if (fabsf(acceleration.x) > kAccelerationThreshold || fabsf(acceleration.y) > kAccelerationThreshold || fabsf(acceleration.z) > kAccelerationThreshold) 
            [self myShakeMethodGoesHere];   
    }

Also set the in the appropriate code in the Interface. i.e:

@interface MyViewController : UIViewController <UIPickerViewDelegate, UIPickerViewDataSource, UIAccelerometerDelegate>

Answer 3

Just use these three methods to do it

- (void)motionBegan:(UIEventSubtype)motion withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{
- (void)motionCancelled:(UIEventSubtype)motion withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{
- (void)motionEnded:(UIEventSubtype)motion withEvent:(UIEvent *)event{

for details you may check a complete example code over there

Answer 4

I finally made it work using code examples from this Undo/Redo Manager Tutorial.
This is exactly what you need to do:

Set the applicationSupportsShakeToEdit property in the App's Delegate:

    - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {

        application.applicationSupportsShakeToEdit = YES;

        [window addSubview:viewController.view];
        [window makeKeyAndVisible];
}

Add/Override canBecomeFirstResponder, viewDidAppear: and viewWillDisappear: methods in your View Controller:

-(BOOL)canBecomeFirstResponder {
    return YES;
}

-(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    [self becomeFirstResponder];
}

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [self resignFirstResponder];
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
}

Add the motionEnded method to your View Controller:

- (void)motionEnded:(UIEventSubtype)motion withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
    if (motion == UIEventSubtypeMotionShake)
    {
        // your code
    }
}

Answer 5

I came across this post looking for a "shaking" implementation. millenomi's answer worked well for me, although i was looking for something that required a bit more "shaking action" to trigger. I've replaced to Boolean value with an int shakeCount. I also reimplemented the L0AccelerationIsShaking() method in Objective-C. You can tweak the ammount of shaking required by tweaking the ammount added to shakeCount. I'm not sure i've found the optimal values yet, but it seems to be working well so far. Hope this helps someone:

- (void)accelerometer:(UIAccelerometer *)accelerometer didAccelerate:(UIAcceleration *)acceleration {
    if (self.lastAcceleration) {
        if ([self AccelerationIsShakingLast:self.lastAcceleration current:acceleration threshold:0.7] && shakeCount >= 9) {
            //Shaking here, DO stuff.
            shakeCount = 0;
        } else if ([self AccelerationIsShakingLast:self.lastAcceleration current:acceleration threshold:0.7]) {
            shakeCount = shakeCount + 5;
        }else if (![self AccelerationIsShakingLast:self.lastAcceleration current:acceleration threshold:0.2]) {
            if (shakeCount > 0) {
                shakeCount--;
            }
        }
    }
    self.lastAcceleration = acceleration;
}

- (BOOL) AccelerationIsShakingLast:(UIAcceleration *)last current:(UIAcceleration *)current threshold:(double)threshold {
    double
    deltaX = fabs(last.x - current.x),
    deltaY = fabs(last.y - current.y),
    deltaZ = fabs(last.z - current.z);

    return
    (deltaX > threshold && deltaY > threshold) ||
    (deltaX > threshold && deltaZ > threshold) ||
    (deltaY > threshold && deltaZ > threshold);
}

PS: I've set the update interval to 1/15th of a second.

[[UIAccelerometer sharedAccelerometer] setUpdateInterval:(1.0 / 15)];

Answer 6

In iOS 8.3 (perhaps earlier) with Swift, it's as simple as overriding the motionBegan or motionEnded methods in your view controller:

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    override func motionBegan(motion: UIEventSubtype, withEvent event: UIEvent) {
        println("started shaking!")
    }

    override func motionEnded(motion: UIEventSubtype, withEvent event: UIEvent) {
        println("ended shaking!")
    }
}