Unconventional TV Detection using Mobile Devices

Recent studies show that the TV viewing experience is changing giving the rise of trends like "multi-screen viewing" and "connected viewers". These trends describe TV viewers that use mobile devices (e.g. tablets and smart phones) while watching TV. In this paper, we exploit the context information available from the ubiquitous mobile devices to detect the presence of TVs and track the media being viewed. Our approach leverages the array of sensors available in modern mobile devices, e.g. cameras and microphones, to detect the location of TV sets, their state (ON or OFF), and the channels they are currently tuned to. We present the feasibility of the proposed sensing technique using our implementation on Android phones with different realistic scenarios. Our results show that in a controlled environment a detection accuracy of 0.978 F-measure could be achieved.