Detecting device orientation

All you need to do in order to begin receiving orientation change is to listen to the deviceorientation event:

window.addEventListener("deviceorientation", handleOrientation, true);

After registering your event listener (in this case, a JavaScript function called handleOrientation()), your listener function periodically gets called with updated orientation data.

The orientation event contains four values:

• DeviceOrientationEvent.absolute
• DeviceOrientationEvent.alpha
• DeviceOrientationEvent.beta
• DeviceOrientationEvent.gamma

The event handler function can look something like this:

function handleOrientation(event) {
  const absolute = event.absolute;
  const alpha = event.alpha;
  const beta = event.beta;
  const gamma = event.gamma;

  // Do stuff with the new orientation data
}

The value reported for each axis indicates the amount of rotation around a given axis in reference to a standard coordinate frame. These are described in greater detail in the Orientation and motion data explained article which is summarized below.

• The DeviceOrientationEvent.alpha value represents the motion of the device around the z axis, represented in degrees with values ranging from 0 (inclusive) to 360 (exclusive).
• The DeviceOrientationEvent.beta value represents the motion of the device around the x axis, represented in degrees with values ranging from -180 (inclusive) to 180 (exclusive). This represents a front to back motion of the device.
• The DeviceOrientationEvent.gamma value represents the motion of the device around the y axis, represented in degrees with values ranging from -90 (inclusive) to 90 (exclusive). This represents a left to right motion of the device.

This example will work on any browser supporting the deviceorientation event and running on a device able to detect its orientation.

So let's imagine a ball in a garden:

<div class="garden">
  <div class="ball"></div>
</div>
Hold the device parallel to the ground. Rotate along its x and y axes to see the
ball move up/down and left/right respectively.
<pre class="output"></pre>

This garden is 200 pixel wide (yes, it's a tiny one), and the ball is in the center:

.garden {
  position: relative;
  width: 200px;
  height: 200px;
  border: 5px solid #ccc;
  border-radius: 10px;
}

.ball {
  position: absolute;
  top: 90px;
  left: 90px;
  width: 20px;
  height: 20px;
  background: green;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

Now, if we move our device, the ball will move accordingly:

const ball = document.querySelector(".ball");
const garden = document.querySelector(".garden");
const output = document.querySelector(".output");

const maxX = garden.clientWidth - ball.clientWidth;
const maxY = garden.clientHeight - ball.clientHeight;

function handleOrientation(event) {
  let x = event.beta; // In degree in the range [-180,180)
  let y = event.gamma; // In degree in the range [-90,90)

  output.textContent = `beta: ${x}\n`;
  output.textContent += `gamma: ${y}\n`;

  // Because we don't want to have the device upside down
  // We constrain the x value to the range [-90,90]
  if (x > 90) {
    x = 90;
  }
  if (x < -90) {
    x = -90;
  }

  // To make computation easier we shift the range of
  // x and y to [0,180]
  x += 90;
  y += 90;

  // 10 is half the size of the ball
  // It centers the positioning point to the center of the ball
  ball.style.left = `${(maxY * y) / 180 - 10}px`; // rotating device around the y axis moves the ball horizontally
  ball.style.top = `${(maxX * x) / 180 - 10}px`; // rotating device around the x axis moves the ball vertically
}

window.addEventListener("deviceorientation", handleOrientation);

Click here to open this example in a new window; because deviceorientation doesn't work in a cross-origin <iframe> in all browsers.

Motion events are handled the same way as the orientation events except that they have their own event's name: devicemotion

window.addEventListener("devicemotion", handleMotion, true);

What's really changed are the information provided within the DeviceMotionEvent object passed as a parameter of the event listener (handleMotion() in our example).

The motion event contains four properties:

• DeviceMotionEvent.acceleration
• DeviceMotionEvent.accelerationIncludingGravity
• DeviceMotionEvent.rotationRate
• DeviceMotionEvent.interval

The DeviceMotionEvent objects provide web developers with information about the speed of changes for the device's position and orientation. The changes are provided along three axis (see Orientation and motion data explained for details).

For acceleration and accelerationIncludingGravity, those axes correspond to the following:

x

Represents the axis from West to East

y

Represents the axis from South to North

z

Represents the axis perpendicular to the ground

For rotationRate, the situation is a bit different; the information corresponds to the following in each case:

alpha

Represents a rotation rate along the axis perpendicular to the screen (or keyboard for desktop).

beta

Represents a rotation rate along the axis going from left to right of the plane of the screen (or keyboard for desktop).

gamma

Represents a rotation rate along the axis going from bottom to top of the plane of the screen (or keyboard for desktop).

Finally, interval represents the interval of time, in milliseconds, at which data are obtained from the device.

• DeviceOrientationEvent
• DeviceMotionEvent
• Orientation and motion data explained
• Using deviceorientation in 3D Transforms
• Cyber Orb: 2D maze game with device orientation