magnetic/compass (faulty?) sensor keeping loosing calibration all time

[mutonic]

Just received my phone today, and I was very susprised first that it didn't embed any gyro sensor (as it is very common in todays' phones) but only accelerometer and magnetic sensors. You can see that notably trying to play with google cardboard VR program which doesn't let you navigate in it..
But even more worrying, I noticed that the geomagnetic field sensor which can determine phone orientation (even without gyro) wasn't working properly..
Indeed, whyle trying to use google sky map app I noticed after 1 or 2 min that orientation started to completely mess up...
It seems sensor is loosing calibration anytime (usually in a few minutes).... I tryed many sensors app to be sure it wasn't software issue but they all fail the same way..
For instance if you try "Phone Tester" and go to sensors status, you can see in compass that there are 3 orientations:
- rotation which points directions (North -Est-West-South)
- pitch which is a rotation on 2nd axe (range going from -90° to +90°; 0° when phone laying on flat surface)
- roll rotation on 3rd axe (range going from -180° to + 180°; 0° when phone laying on flat surface)
As soon as you play with these rotations, you can see they are all okay for some minutes, but after a whyle, one of them remains stucked (for instance compass pointing South all the time) no matter how you rotate the phone...
This is really annoying as all apps relying on 3d orientation (Virtual Reality for instance) aren't able to work for decent time without going crazy. What is strange is that sometimes you just need to restart the app without calibrating sensor again to have it work again but only for 1 minute or so..
It is like if sensor needed to be reset all the time.
I don't know if this is firmware or faulty hardware?
Does anyone has encountered the same issue? I don't know if I need to send it back to store...
If anyone is willing to test using google sky map to see if he has the same issue as me, I'd be glad

 

[GameBoy1989]

I have the same issue using Google Sky Map. In my case, the effect is like the sky in the app vibrate. It happens to me from the beggining, when I start the app.

 

[mutonic]

ok thanks for trying,
well maybe if it does this right at the begining is because you need calibration first? it would be interesting to see if you loose calibration then as I do..
But vibration is normal, it does this also with my galaxy note 8. What is abnormal is that at some point you don't see the sky moving as it should, e.g. there is one direction which is stuck. For instance, you look at south, and then you move your phone to the north, but it stays on the south.. we
but this might be a hint that this phone has an issue with magnetic sensors... maybe firmware issue...

 

[GameBoy1989]

Finally, I have observed that Sky Maps doesnt work as smooth as expected. I tried it in several phones (Xperia S, S4 mini) and i can check that it doesn't work as well as in the other devices. Also, it appears that sometimes one direction is stuck (as you say) but it isn't very noticeable and after move some times the device finally works. I think that is a firmware issue (I have the vodafone spain firmware 26.1.A.1.112).
I hope that my experience can help you

 

[mutonic]

Indeed, your feedback seems quite similar.
I'm still thinking about returning it to shop and take z3 compact instead even if i would loose dual sim... Because im also bothered by the usb OTG issue reported.
Will see...

 

[mutonic]

False alert?

To correct what i reported before. After further successful attempts seems like device isn't faulty and is behaving as expected when used properly . I think mistake was trying to use Google's Cardboard VR kit which simply doesn't work with this device because it doesn't have gyro. I think cardboard's magnet prevent compass from working as expected and might uncalibrate device as well. I don't know why cardboard exclusively use gyro and doesn't support compass as a way of moving head because it should works too...
Just in case someone would have the same issue.