eli5 what goes on inside your phone when it vibrates

Question

eli5 what goes on inside your phone when it vibrates

In: 2217

Answer 1

There’s a small electric motor with unbalanced weights on it. When it spings the weights around very fast, due to them being unbalanced it makes the phone vibrate. It’s the same with vibrating controllers for game consoles or other vibrating devices.

Some devices like vibrating massagers or tattoo machines use a different system because they’re usually after a specific kind of motion, usually reciprocating.