There was a time when mobile phones gained many sensors, and it all kind of stopped 10 years ago. I expected high-end phones by 2020 would measure distances and temperatures, air quality, UV exposure, radioactivity, infrared photography, etc. In essence, baby tricorders.

In fact, several of these they can already do with a combination of the existing hardware, but sadly, the market has laser-focused on visual social media.

CAT was branding a phone some time ago with a low-res thermal camera, but it was locked to some already-ancient version of Android and otherwise total lamesauce.

Sad, because I'd buy one if it was just a normal phone plus IR. Presently I make do with a plug-in accessory module.

I share your frustration. Consider a sled-backpack-case sort of thing with "all the missing sensors", instead of piecemeal accessories you carry a gaggle of and have to swap out. If it was like one of those extended-battery sled cases, you could just leave it on and write apps that expect it to be there...

You'd probably want the sensor pack to be separable from the phone case, so you can buy a new phone (whose shape changes every year, forcing new accessory purchases).

I do think it's simultaneously cool and ridiculous that instead of just adding a simple distance sensor, companies making measurement software for phones double down on the software-only approach with computer vision.

Friend-of-a-friend was involved in this

https://ikegps.com/spike/

I think they licenced it to Stanley or similar.

Because "we" keep incentivizing them to.

I think the killer app here will be... literal apps. While I'd love a tricorder in the abstract sense, I don't really know what I'd do with it. There need to be useful applications before the hardware can take off - and that probably means software.