Location

Overview

The Location Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) serves as a standardized bridge between Tizen’s location services and the underlying hardware components. Its primary role is to provide a standardized and consistent interface for location operations. By abstracting the hardware-specific details, the HAL allows applications to leverage geographical context—such as navigation without hardware-specific complexities.

Figure: Location HAL hierarchy

Position Reporting

This subsystem processes raw data from multiple sources—such as satellite signals, Wi-Fi networks, and cellular towers—to determine the device’s precise location.

Geofencing

Geofencing lets applications create virtual boundaries around physical locations, triggering actions when users enter or exit these zones. The HAL manages the entire lifecycle of these boundaries—creation, activation, pausing, and deletion—while monitoring device movement. When a boundary crossing occurs, it notifies subscribed services.

HAL Interface Functions

Three core functions enable hardware integration:

Initialization (init)

Prepares hardware components for operation, sets up communication channels, and registers a callback system to notify applications of events.

Deinitialization (deinit)

Deinits hardware resources when location services are no longer needed

Action Handling (request)

Translates high-level commands—like hardware-specific operations. It also reports errors if the request fails.

Summary

The Location HAL standardizes hardware interactions for Tizen’s location services, enabling consistent performance across devices. It abstracts low-level complexities and its modular design and event-driven approach simplify integration, ensuring Tizen devices deliver reliable and efficient location experiences.