Mobile phone based sensing software

Mobile phone–based sensing software is a class of software for mobile phones that uses the phone's sensors to acquire data about the user. Some applications of this software include mental health and overall wellness monitoring. This class of software is important because it has the potential of providing a practical and low-cost approach to deliver psychological interventions for the prevention of mental health disorders, as well as bringing such interventions to populations that have no access to traditional health care. A number of terms are used for this approach, including "personal sensing", "digital phenotyping", and "context sensing". The term "personal sensing" is used in this article, as it conveys in simple language the aim of sensing personal behaviors, states, and conditions.

General information

This article presents a comparison of mobile phone software that can acquire users' sensor data and administer questionnaires. The software described below helps quantify behaviors known to be related to mental health and wellness. The list below includes both commercial and free software. To be included in this list, a software product must be able to acquire data from at least one phone sensor, and provide a minimum level of security for storage and transmission of acquired data. This list excludes software that focuses solely on collecting participant data from surveys and questionnaires.

Software table

The following table contains general information about each mobile-based sensing software, such as who the developers are, when it was last updated, whether it is open or closed source, and the programming language and database they are based on.

Name	Creator	Latest release	Latest release date	Software license	Open source	Programming language	Data backend
AWARE	Web dashboard and Android client: Denzil Ferreira ; Mac OSX and iOS clients: Yuuki Nishiyama	4.0.836 ; 1.14.12	2023			Web dashboard: PHP, HTML, JavaScript; Android client: Java & Kotlin; Mac OSX and iOS clients: Objective-C & Swift	MySQL
Beiwe Research Platform	HSPH Onnela Lab	2.0.4 3.1.4	Aug 31, 2021 iOS July 22, 2021 Android			Web dashboard: HTML, JavaScript; back-end and data analysis pipeline: Python, R, JavaScript; Android client: Java; iOS client: Swift, Objective-C	Amazon Web Services
CenceMe	Smartphone Sensing Group, Dartmouth College	1.2.0	July 27, 2009			Python, Perl, PHP, Bash	MySQL
Context Sensing SDK	Intel	v1.0-beta2 ; v1.8	March 18, 2016		Intel Discontinued this product	Android: Java; Windows Mobile: C#
EARS	Ksana Health	Android 2.038; iOS 2.1.5	August 2023			Android: Java; iOS: Swift	Amazon Web Services
Empath	Department of Computer Science, University of Virginia		2011				MySQL
Expimetrics	Louis Tay, Purdue University
Emotion Sense	Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge		April 25, 2017			Java	SQLite
Funf Open Sensing Framework	Originally at MIT Media Lab, now maintained by Behavio	v0.5.0RC1	September 4, 2015			Java	SQLite
m-Path Sense	m-Path	2.8.0	July 4, 2023	proprietary	No	App: Flutter, Dashboard: PHP, JavaScript	MySQL
mindLAMP Platform		v2.0	August 27, 2020	BSD-3	Yes	TypeScript, Python, R, Swift, Kotlin	Flexible
mEMA	Illumivu Inc
Metricwire	Metricwire Inc
Mobile Sensing Platform	Cogito Corporation
movisensXS	Movisens GmbH	1.1.1	January 5, 2017			Java, Kotlin
Murmuras	University of Bonn spin-off	2.2.1	August 24, 2020			Android: Java, Kotlin; Web: Python, R, JavaScript	PostgreSQL
Passive Data Kit	Audacious Software		Summer 2017			iOS: Objective-C, Android: Java, Web: JavaScript/Python/HTML	SQLite
Psychlog	Instituto Auxologico Italiano and National Research Council of Italy		April 11, 2013	License-free software		C#	MySQL
Psyt Research	Psychological Technologies	2.1	June 2017			Native iOS, native Android, JavaScript	Hosted
Purple Robot	CBITS, Northwestern University	2.0.8	November 3, 2015			Java	PostgreSQL
Radar-CNS	King's College and Janssen Pharmaceutica NV	2.0.3-beta ; 0.1-alpha.2	June 23, 2017 ; April 13, 2017			Android: Java, Web: TypeScript	MongoDB
RealLife exp	LifeData LLC
ResearchKit	Apple	1.5	June 7, 2017			Objective-C, Swift
Research Stack	Cornell Tech's Small Data Lab and open mHealth	1.1.1	November 18, 2016			Java
SensingKit	Queen Mary University of London	0.5.1, 0.2.0	September 20, 2018 July 29, 2015			Objective-C, Swift, Java
Socialise	Black Dog Institute	v0.2	June 16, 2017			iOS: Objective-C, Android: Java
unforgettable.me	Unforgettable Research Services	0.9.6	December 5, 2017			Java, Python, JavaScript	Amazon Web Services

Target audience

The following table shows the target audience for each piece of software included in this article. Software packages that target developers assume a high level of skill in creating code and/or modifying third-party source code. Software packages that target researchers have at least one component that can be used in scientific studies with human subjects. Software packages that target individuals allow at least one component to be downloaded and installed by an end-user with no programming skills. Please note that some packages target more than one type of user.

Name	Developers	Researchers	Individuals
AWARE
Beiwe Research Platform
Cenceme
Context sensing SDK
EARS
Empath
Expimetrics
Emotion Sense
Funf
m-Path Sense
mindLAMP Platform
mEMA
Metricwire
Mobile Sensing Platform
MovisensXS
Murmuras
Passive Data Kit
Psychlog
Psyt
Purple Robot
Radar-CNS
RealLife Exp
ResearchKit
Research Stack
SensingKit
Socialise
unforgettable.me

Mobile OS support

The following table shows the type of mobile phone on which each software package can be deployed.

Name	Android	iOS	Windows mobile	Nokia
AWARE
Beiwe Research Platform
Cenceme
Context sensing
EARS
Empath
Expimetrics
Emotion sense
Funf
m-Path Sense
mindLAMP Platform
mEMA
Metricwire
Mobile Sensing Platform
MovisensXS
Murmuras
Passive Data Kit
Psychlog
Psyt
Purple Robot
Radar-CNS
RealLife Exp
ResearchKit
Research Stack
SensingKit
Socialise
unforgettable.me