I'm making a game for Android and iOS using OpenGL ES and SDL in C++ native code for cross-platformability and more efficient code. Though I am currently only testing on Android. (Inefficient code is a a BIG pet pevy of mine and a battery sucker.) OpenGL ES is for the graphics and SDL for the touch sensors, sound, OS events, timers, and to hold OpenGL ES. But there is a problem, how do I get tilt input with C/C++ code as I want to avoid the JNI as much as possible.

Can anyone help me out?

Qt has recently added support for mobile platforms, and has a C++ sensor API.

If you aren't already using Qt, you almost certainly don't want to include the giant collection of libraries that is Qt, but luckily, Qt is opensource under LGPL and GPL, so you could look to see how they do it, separate out their sensor code, wrap it in its own separate LGPL'd library, and then use that - dynamically linking to it, so the rest of your closed-source commercial product isn't hampered by the licensing.

Or you could just examine it, to see what API function calls they use, and then write your own wrapper (or better yet, submit a patch for SDL so others can benefit) by reading the API documentation.

You can get the accelerometer like this in C++:

ASensorManager *sensorManager = ASensorManager_getInstance();
const ASensor *accelSensor = ASensorManager_getDefaultSensor(sensorManager, ASENSOR_TYPE_ACCELEROMETER);

Then create an event queue for the sensors.

ASensorEventQueue *sensorEventQueue = ASensorManager_createEventQueue(sensorManager, looper, LOOPER_ID_USER, NULL, NULL);

If you use the android_native_app_glue "framework" the looper is in the struct android_app that is passed to your android_main.

Then when your main-loop poll (ALooper_pollAll?) returns LOOPER_ID_USER (I guess you can build your own messages by adding +1 +2 etc to LOOPER_ID_USER), handle the sensor-events:

ASensorEvent sensorEvent;
ssize_t sensorResult = ASensorEventQueue_getEvents(sensorEventQueue, &sensorEvent, 1);
while(sensorResult > 0) {
	codeToHandleSensorEvent(sensorEvent);
	
	sensorResult = ASensorEventQueue_getEvents(sensorEventQueue, &sensorEvent, 1);
}

And finally handle the ASensorEvent:

switch(sensorEvent.type) {
	case ASENSOR_TYPE_ACCELEROMETER:
		sensorEvent.acceleration.x;
		sensorEvent.acceleration.y;
		sensorEvent.acceleration.z;
	break;
}

I'm not really an expert at this stuff, but that's how I do it when using android_native_app_glue and run the main-loop from android_main.

EDIT: You also need to enable the sensor I think with ASensorEventQueue_enableSensor, and you can disable it when your app loses focus for example to avoid using it unnecessarily. And there's an ASensorEventQueue_setEventRate for setting how often you want data events from it.

Check <android/sensor.h>, it's the header with the functions and structures and has some comments in it.

Qt has recently added support for mobile platforms, and has a C++ sensor API.

If you aren't already using Qt, you almost certainly don't want to include the giant collection of libraries that is Qt, but luckily, Qt is opensource under LGPL and GPL, so you could look to see how they do it, separate out their sensor code, wrap it in its own separate LGPL'd library, and then use that - dynamically linking to it, so the rest of your closed-source commercial product isn't hampered by the licensing.

Or you could just examine it, to see what API function calls they use, and then write your own wrapper (or better yet, submit a patch for SDL so others can benefit) by reading the API documentation.

Thanks for the great ideas. I will make my own SDL patch for the tilt sensor.

You can get the accelerometer like this in C++:

ASensorManager *sensorManager = ASensorManager_getInstance();
const ASensor *accelSensor = ASensorManager_getDefaultSensor(sensorManager, ASENSOR_TYPE_ACCELEROMETER);

Then create an event queue for the sensors.

ASensorEventQueue *sensorEventQueue = ASensorManager_createEventQueue(sensorManager, looper, LOOPER_ID_USER, NULL, NULL);

If you use the android_native_app_glue "framework" the looper is in the struct android_app that is passed to your android_main.

Then when your main-loop poll (ALooper_pollAll?) returns LOOPER_ID_USER (I guess you can build your own messages by adding +1 +2 etc to LOOPER_ID_USER), handle the sensor-events:

ASensorEvent sensorEvent;
ssize_t sensorResult = ASensorEventQueue_getEvents(sensorEventQueue, &sensorEvent, 1);
while(sensorResult > 0) {
	codeToHandleSensorEvent(sensorEvent);
	
	sensorResult = ASensorEventQueue_getEvents(sensorEventQueue, &sensorEvent, 1);
}

And finally handle the ASensorEvent:

switch(sensorEvent.type) {
	case ASENSOR_TYPE_ACCELEROMETER:
		sensorEvent.acceleration.x;
		sensorEvent.acceleration.y;
		sensorEvent.acceleration.z;
	break;
}

I'm not really an expert at this stuff, but that's how I do it when using android_native_app_glue and run the main-loop from android_main.

EDIT: You also need to enable the sensor I think with ASensorEventQueue_enableSensor, and you can disable it when your app loses focus for example to avoid using it unnecessarily. And there's an ASensorEventQueue_setEventRate for setting how often you want data events from it.

Check <android/sensor.h>, it's the header with the functions and structures and has some comments in it.

Thanks, I googled #include <android/sensor.h> and found what I needed. Unfortunately I couldn't find the iOS equivalent.

Google for "ios accelerometer". The easiest one is UIAccelerometer I think, just one line of code that registers for events and a selector that receives them if I remember correctly. I think it's deprecated though and we're supposed to move to CMMotionManager.