Device orientation events

Device orientation events are events that allow you to detect a device's physical orientation, as well as allowing you to detect the device's motion.

Concepts and usage

Mobile devices commonly have sensors such as gyroscopes, compasses, and accelerometers that can enable applications running on the device to detect the device's orientation and motion.

The device orientation events enable you to write web applications that can change their behavior based on the orientation of the user's device, and that can react when the user moves their device.

Some typical features for which you might want to use the device orientation events include:

  • in web-based games, to enable the user to control the motion of characters or objects in the game by tilting and moving the device
  • in mapping applications, to re-orient a map based on the device's position, or to provide turn-by-turn directions that update with the user's movements
  • for gesture recognition — for example, recognizing a "shake" gesture and using it to perform some action such as clearing an input area when the user shakes the device

Note: This API is widely supported on mobile browsers. While some desktop-only browsers may have limitations due to hardware differences, these constraints are rarely significant given the API's primary usage on sensor-equipped devices.

Interfaces

DeviceOrientationEvent

Represents changes in the physical orientation of a device.

DeviceMotionEvent

Represents changes in the acceleration of a device, as well as the rotation rate.

DeviceMotionEventAcceleration

Represents the amount of acceleration the device is experiencing along all three axes

DeviceMotionEventRotationRate

Represents the rate at which the device is rotating around all three axes.

Events

deviceorientation

Fired when fresh data is available from the device about the current orientation of the device as compared to the Earth coordinate frame.

devicemotion

Fired at a regular interval to indicate the amount of physical force of acceleration the device is receiving at that time, and the rate of rotation of the device.

deviceorientationabsolute

Fired when absolute device orientation changes.

Specifications

Specification
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# deviceorientation
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# ref-for-dom-window-ondeviceorientation
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# devicemotion
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# ref-for-dom-window-ondevicemotion
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# dom-window-ondeviceorientationabsolute
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# devicemotioneventacceleration
DeviceOrientation Event Specification
# devicemotioneventrotationrate

Browser compatibility

api.Window.deviceorientation_event

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.Window.devicemotion_event

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.Window.deviceorientationabsolute_event

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.DeviceOrientationEvent

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.DeviceMotionEvent

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.DeviceMotionEventAcceleration

BCD tables only load in the browser

api.DeviceMotionEventRotationRate

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also