lowmms
I think @Johnnyloans and @Novalissoide summirized the solution for you very well, but I will try to elaborate a little bit, even if it might sound redundant.
Every permission you accept is like an "umbrella" permission for several things.
They are meant to give a somewhat granular choice without going too deep into what the app needs from the OS.
Sensors permission is something you don't have in a stock installation of Android (has been added by GOS team) and it is related to things not covered by other permissions.
This means that if you have a specific permission that manages some hardware (like camera, or microphone, etc.), they will not be included into sensors permission.
In other words, sensors permission will not manage camera access or microphone access, because they have their specific permissions.
lowmms When I give phone permissions to signal and do a call with it, the microphone and camera do not work either.
The phone permission give the app the possibility to check your call state and possibly see your phone number.
When you call through Signal, you are using a mere internet connection, so you don't actually need the phone permission for it to work.
The microphone and camera are not working because you need to grant access to them via two other permissions (microphone permission and camera permission, respectively).
Sensors permission in this case will be useful only to shut off the screen if you put the phone near your ear (becase the proximity sensor can tell you have your phone near something).
Recycling previous suggestions using different words, withouth changing the meaning too much, I would recommend to:
- Disable developer options:
This will get rid (among some other things) of your Sensors Off.
- Go to
Settings -> Security and privacy -> More security and privacy -> Allow Sensors permission to apps by default and set it to off:
This will make sure that apps you will install from now on will not have access to sensors
- Make sure that all the apps you already installed don't have this permission set:
You can go to Settings -> Apps -> See all x apps and check them, or via permissions dashboard.
By experience, I can tell you that most of the apps don't require sensors and I never experienced crashes without them.
Some apps really need that permission, like gps navigators (to understand where you are heading to), apps that perform calls (like Signal, Phone, Whatsapp, etc.) and others that might require some hardware, like "Wave to unlock" and the like.
That is, if you assume sensors permission as in GOS sensors permission, and not developer options permission.
lowmms why does the sensors off toggle turn off the camera and microphone
Try to follow the previous step and check if you still have the same issues, the best guess is you are using developer options instead of the default settings.