Abstract: Systems and methods that can reduce energy resources required by sensors in mobile devices and thereby mitigate premature battery depletion are disclosed. Mobile devices can be assigned groups by a sensor usage management (SUM) server based on the proximity of the mobile devices to one another. Once groups have been established, one or more of the mobile devices within each group can share sensor readings with other mobile devices in its group via the SUM server, such that each mobile device in each group can reduce the overall number of sensor readings that particular device must take. This co-locational “sharing” of representative sensor data among members with groups of co-located mobile devices can reduce overall energy consumption and/or, for a given amount of energy consumption, increase accuracy compared to a situation in which each mobile device in each group exclusively relies on its own sensor data.