Inside the phone a motor pushes a big weight backwards and forwards really fast.
That’s it. Nothing fancier on the “vibration” side. The cobtroller for that vibration is the bigger complexity, as it has to compute digital signals of ones and zeros to analogue movement using + and – voltages to move that weight. But still not super complex.
Everyone saying it’s a motor spinning an unbalanced weight is a few years behind the curve.
Most modern phones use a linear actuator. The simplest explanation is it’s a magnet that can move back and forth on a spring in a straight line. It then has an electromagnet that can turn off and on at a harmonic frequency causing each oscillation to be a bit bigger than the one before. (Like pushing someone on a swing). Anytime the magnet changes directions it has to push back on the body of the phone which we feel as a vibration.
There are multiple ways. Here are 2 of the more common.
1. An unbalanced motor is spun. To see how this works, take a small object with a hole on one of its ends. Like a nail clipper, or a toothbrush. Now insert a toothpick in the object’s hole, grab the toothpick and rotate it. Your hand will be pulled in different directions by the rotating toothbrush. A cellphone does the same just way faster.
2. The other kind of vibration is with 2 magnets next to each other. Take 2 magnets and a piece of cardboard. Place magnet 1 on top and magnet 2 underneath the cardboard so they can influence each other magnetically. Now grab the bottom magnet and rotate and or move it randomly. You will notice the cardboard vibrate. Inside a cell phone one of the magnets is attached to the phone body and the other is an energized coil, similar to a common speaker.
NOTE: speakers vibrate so fast you can hear them, so a speaker is just a fancy vibrator
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