BasicMicroUK - Forums

Has any one connected a atom to a cell phone via the phone USB port? I have the AT commands, and this would be very useful for remote monitoring using a prepay cell.
Open to any ideas.

There's a USB port on the phone? Which phone, IPhone 4 by chance? Is the 'phone a host or a slave?

If it's a master, then a USB to TTL cable could do the job!

Alan KM6VV

My Android phone has a USB port used to charge it or connect it to a PC for stuff. But I was thinking at some point of using the Bluetooth of the phone to connect to robot...

Just another idea...

Kurt

A Bluetooth connection would be fine, a WiFi connection even better!

My iPhone 4 has a USB cable (duh!) that charges as well. As it connects to my PC, that makes the 'phone a slave. So one needs a master to connect to the phone (as far as I can tell). There are some new protocols that do do both. Seems it would be nice to have, then one could print from the 'phone directly. But then a WiFi printer and the proper driver could do that. My wife uses a WiFi printer, but so far, she's the only one that can talk to it. The iPhone4 can also "pair up" with other Bluetooth devices (ATT wireless 'phones, my car, what's next?).

Yeah, I'd like to be able to use the 'phone as a wireless controller! And/or as a telemetry device.

Alan KM6VV

Point of clarification. I found out that on some Motorola phones the 2.5mm jack head set jack doubles as a serial port. I know some people have used this to connect to arduino, but can not find much info on how to do it. I would be a very useful add, since then you could read sensors and contol things remote at a very little cost using pre-pay.
At present, beyond my skill sets.

My phone is a Motorola Bravo, but I don't see anything in the documentation that implies this for this phone, so I probably won't be much help here.

Good Luck

If your cell phone has USB host support, and if your cell phone OS has a FTDI USB driver(check FTDI website) then you could write a program to communicate to our devboards/modules in theory. You may want to look at wifi instead. I've used an RN-131 to put my arc-32 on the network. Any wifi capable phone can then connect to it(you'll still have to write a program for the phone of course).

RN-131 could work. I'm interested in implementing the Lantronix WiFi module into my 'bots.

That's true, you'd need the USB driver IN the 'phone. I wonder what is in the 'phone? Phones do audio stuff (headsets), and can also communicate with the PC to do downloads and sync mail. I don't know the iPhone 4 world.

for the Surveyor 'bot, there's already a WiFi module, and some are working on apps for the iPhone 4 and possibly others.

SRV-1 Wifi Expansion Module

http://surveyor-corporation.stores.yahoo.net/srwiexmo.html

I'm watching these. I have the Bluetooth camera w/WiFi. Now to make it talk to MY 'bot.

Alan KM6VV

Quick update. I connected a Mot c168 ph to Arduino and all works fine for sending digital events. (google "Arduino, Motorola c168 to find software) So far no luck sending a analog value. I have found out that using T-moblile pre-paid only allows sending txt messages, but can not send to a e-mail account. This is a limitation of T-mobile, not software. This project could be useful to send a remote digital event(s) to just about any were. Have not figured out how to use an Atom for this, will just stick to Arduino for now.

Which arduino did you connect to? If you are using the ones with the FTDI chips on board, then you should be able to do the same using an AtomPro USB Devboard which uses the same chip.

Nathan,

The connnection to the phone is via serial soft using pins 11,12 on Arduino at a baud rate of 4800. There should be no problem using a Atom. It is just trying to figure out
what codes to sent to the phone and when. Still working on that part.

Bluetooth is the key here.

If your cellphone has bluetooth then you can use one of the roving networks bluetooth adapters Info here.

Then you can use a simple serial terminal program on your cellphone.
I did this with both a windows mobile PDA, and Android platforms. Heck, i even did this with a gameboy advance SP (with a flash cartridge).
Though i wasn't able to customize the GBA software as the author used some crazy outdated compile. The bluetooth was wired to the game link port on the back, which is literally a 3.3v TTL serial port. Even supplied power to the bluetooth adapter, i only needed to juri-rig up an old cable to make an adapter.

Bluetooth in it's most simple form, is a wireless serial port, which is why it's so readily suitable for robotics.

Any bluetooth equipped computer(laptop), cellphone, Tablet!, can detect the roving network devices as a software serial port.
For PC i suggest using the BlueSoleil bluetooth stack, it's just far more stable with bluetooth serial ports. Windows/widcomm/toshiba stack will cause send/receive lag.
You can't program a Basic Atom MCU over bluetooth due to timing issues, keep in mind. But controlling a device, sure no problem. All my stuff is bluetooth.

My iPhone 4 has BlueTooth, what app do I run on it for simple serial console?

Alan KM6VV