How Can I Add DeviceMotion Capabilities to a Swift Playground? - ios

Question

I am working on a Swift playground and I am trying to use this code to get the device motion.
#objc func update()
{
if let deviceMotion = motionManager.deviceMotion {
print("Device Motion Yaw: \(deviceMotion.attitude.yaw)")
}
}
However, it seems that device motion does not work on a Swift playground even though it works in iOS. How would I change a playground to support device motion? I am using an iPad running iOS 12 and the latest version of Swift Playgrounds and a Mac for the code. I know that the method gets called perfectly, and the code runs perfectly when I put it as part of an iOS app on both an iPad and an iPhone. How would I modify a playground to support this, as from my understanding it does not by default?

Answer 1

It is entirely possible. I’ve done it on several occasions. You’ll need a CMMotionManager class. There are many ways to do this, but I would recommend using a timer. Here is some example code, taken from Apple’s developer documentation and modified to fit the question.
let motion = CMMotionManager()
func startDeviceMotion() {
if motion.isDeviceMotionAvailable {
//How often to push updates
self.motion.deviceMotionUpdateInterval = 1.0/60.0
self.motion.showsDeviceMovementDisplay = true
self.motion.startDeviceMotionUpdates(using: .xMagneticNorthZVertical)
// Configure a timer to fetch the motion data.
self.timer = Timer(fire: Date(), interval: (1.0 / 60.0), repeats: true,
block: { (timer) in
if let data = self.motion.deviceMotion {
let x = data.attitude.pitch
let y = data.attitude.roll
let z = data.attitude.yaw
//Use the data
}
})
RunLoop.current.add(self.timer!, forMode: RunLoop.Mode.default)
}
}
startDeviceMotionUpdates()
Either do that or try something like this, also from the documentation
func startQueuedUpdates() {
if motion.isDeviceMotionAvailable { self.motion.deviceMotionUpdateInterval = 1.0 / 60.0
self.motion.showsDeviceMovementDisplay = true
self.motion.startDeviceMotionUpdates(using: .xMagneticNorthZVertical,
to: self.queue, withHandler: { (data, error) in
// Make sure the data is valid before accessing it.
if let validData = data {
// Get the attitude relative to the magnetic north reference frame.
let roll = validData.attitude.roll
let pitch = validData.attitude.pitch
let yaw = validData.attitude.yaw
// Use the motion data in your app.
}
})
}
}