5 ms·

1Sheeld: Replace your Arduino shields with your smart phone

63 points by hsnim 13y ago

menemragab 13y ago
Just Backed this up, and i had a chance to talk to their team and they are super nice, intelligent hardware makers in Egypt, if not the best.the kit uses the hardware components in your mobile device as if its embedded inside, and communicated with your device over a secured bluetooth channel.
- thedangler 13y ago
  What about WiFi?
  - menemragab 13y ago
    I think they have plans for that after they have fully pledged their KickStarter.
tehwalrus 13y ago
When mine arrives, I'll actually have a reason to play with my Arduino again! :)
hershel 13y ago
there are some chinese android phones going at $35. they should fit quite nicely with this project for permanent projects. in the longer term, there are already microcontrollers that contains Bluetooth who run arduino, so I believe this project will become only software.
me2resh 13y ago
I was going to buy multiple shields for my Quadcopter project, but now I can save many of them.
JonSkeptic 13y ago
What will they think of next? If only there was some way to take advantage of all those hardware capabilities on the phone without the hassle of hooking up an Arduino. If only there was some sort of way to write 'programs' that take advantage of that hardware. But 'programs' sounds boring, we'll call them 'applications'. Wait, no...that has too many letters. I know! We'll call them 'apps'! You're gonna love 'em, they're the next big thing.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  That's nicely cynical, but seems to overlook that this is a nice way to interface a cell phone with a hardware project.
- spion 13y ago
  You're right. We don't need the Arduino, we can simply use our phone directly to control that RC car, open doors with passcodes and read the temperature of things. Oh wait, a smartphone's hardware is closed, you get what you get (in terms of sensors and control) and thats it. Hmm. It would be nice if we could extend the smartphone's hardware capabilities...
  - zokier 13y ago
    > Hmm. It would be nice if we could extend the smartphone's hardware capabilities... on a more serious note, I'd love to see more widespread generic HW and SW agnostic GPIO/DAQ standard. HW agnostic meaning that you could make your own boards with whatever MCU you prefer, and interface it with whatever. SW agnostic so that it would work with Windows, Linux, Android, OSX, iOS etc painlessly.
    - follower 13y ago
      > I'd love to see more widespread generic HW and SW agnostic GPIO/DAQ standard. Interestingly the linked project appears to be based on Firmata which has at least some of the agnosticism you seek.
    - moron4hire 13y ago
moron4hire 13y ago
What ever happened to the Android Accessory Development Kit? Wasn't this what ADK was supposed to be? Like, 2 years ago?
- mik3y 13y ago
  My best guess is that it was something of a gimmick for Google I/O. They never seemed well-supported by Google. An alternative to ADK is the Android USB Host driver support. It's like libusb: for phones with the right USB controller, you can write little drivers in Java/userspace. Here's an Android library you can use to talk to almost any Arduino, great for these type of "make my microcontroller smarter" applications: https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for-android https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for-android (full disclosure: I'm the author)
  - follower 13y ago
    > My best guess is that it was something of a gimmick for Google I/O. They never seemed well-supported by Google. I would agree. I created the Handbag for Android project (http://handbagdevices.com/ http://handbagdevices.com/) which was initially based on the ADK so I've spent a lot of time with it. In the ADK 2.0 release Google itself even moved away from having the physical USB link in favour of using Bluetooth. When 2.0 was released I started converting Handbag to have the option of Bluetooth/WiFi/USB but the ADK stuff was so unreliable (and the debugging was ridiculous due to different issues on each Android version available at the time (2.x/3.x/4.x)) that it seemed like a waste of time to continue. The goal of Handbag was to enable an Arduino sketch to create an Android UI and have bi-directional communication between the two devices. It could be interesting to adapt that aspect to run with the linked project.
  - fat0wl 13y ago
    Yeah when I heard about it I was really excited. I was big into Arduino back then. But unfortunately didn't have an Android phone. Then the only time I heard of anyone owning the ADK was my friend who worked at Google. It seems they kindof gave them out as party favors. I thought it was a great idea & wished it would take off but unfortunately had to move away from Arduino anyway to focus on web engineering career and to this day(!) I don't own a smartphone.
AliDarwish 13y ago
Super Idea!!!
benbojangles 13y ago
Why can't you just buy a HC-06 bluetooth adapter for £3 from ebay, then use Amarino or a similar android apk?
- hershel 13y ago
  The sheeld looks less complex,you can more easily shift between using a phone and normal shields, and the app contains more elements.
  - benbojangles 13y ago
    I see what you did there. Good work.

63 points by hsnim 13y ago

Just Backed this up, and i had a chance to talk to their team and they are super nice, intelligent hardware makers in Egypt, if not the best.the kit uses the hardware components in your mobile device as if its embedded inside, and communicated with your device over a secured bluetooth channel.

thedangler 13y ago
What about WiFi?
- menemragab 13y ago
  I think they have plans for that after they have fully pledged their KickStarter.

tehwalrus 13y ago

When mine arrives, I'll actually have a reason to play with my Arduino again! :)

hershel 13y ago

there are some chinese android phones going at $35. they should fit quite nicely with this project for permanent projects. in the longer term, there are already microcontrollers that contains Bluetooth who run arduino, so I believe this project will become only software.

me2resh 13y ago

I was going to buy multiple shields for my Quadcopter project, but now I can save many of them.

JonSkeptic 13y ago

What will they think of next? If only there was some way to take advantage of all those hardware capabilities on the phone without the hassle of hooking up an Arduino. If only there was some sort of way to write 'programs' that take advantage of that hardware. But 'programs' sounds boring, we'll call them 'applications'. Wait, no...that has too many letters. I know! We'll call them 'apps'! You're gonna love 'em, they're the next big thing.

maxerickson 13y ago
That's nicely cynical, but seems to overlook that this is a nice way to interface a cell phone with a hardware project.
spion 13y ago
You're right. We don't need the Arduino, we can simply use our phone directly to control that RC car, open doors with passcodes and read the temperature of things. Oh wait, a smartphone's hardware is closed, you get what you get (in terms of sensors and control) and thats it. Hmm. It would be nice if we could extend the smartphone's hardware capabilities...
- zokier 13y ago
  > Hmm. It would be nice if we could extend the smartphone's hardware capabilities... on a more serious note, I'd love to see more widespread generic HW and SW agnostic GPIO/DAQ standard. HW agnostic meaning that you could make your own boards with whatever MCU you prefer, and interface it with whatever. SW agnostic so that it would work with Windows, Linux, Android, OSX, iOS etc painlessly.
  - follower 13y ago
    > I'd love to see more widespread generic HW and SW agnostic GPIO/DAQ standard. Interestingly the linked project appears to be based on Firmata which has at least some of the agnosticism you seek.
  - moron4hire 13y ago

moron4hire 13y ago

What ever happened to the Android Accessory Development Kit? Wasn't this what ADK was supposed to be? Like, 2 years ago?

mik3y 13y ago
My best guess is that it was something of a gimmick for Google I/O. They never seemed well-supported by Google. An alternative to ADK is the Android USB Host driver support. It's like libusb: for phones with the right USB controller, you can write little drivers in Java/userspace. Here's an Android library you can use to talk to almost any Arduino, great for these type of "make my microcontroller smarter" applications: https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for-android https://github.com/mik3y/usb-serial-for-android (full disclosure: I'm the author)
- follower 13y ago
  > My best guess is that it was something of a gimmick for Google I/O. They never seemed well-supported by Google. I would agree. I created the Handbag for Android project (http://handbagdevices.com/ http://handbagdevices.com/) which was initially based on the ADK so I've spent a lot of time with it. In the ADK 2.0 release Google itself even moved away from having the physical USB link in favour of using Bluetooth. When 2.0 was released I started converting Handbag to have the option of Bluetooth/WiFi/USB but the ADK stuff was so unreliable (and the debugging was ridiculous due to different issues on each Android version available at the time (2.x/3.x/4.x)) that it seemed like a waste of time to continue. The goal of Handbag was to enable an Arduino sketch to create an Android UI and have bi-directional communication between the two devices. It could be interesting to adapt that aspect to run with the linked project.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  Yeah when I heard about it I was really excited. I was big into Arduino back then. But unfortunately didn't have an Android phone. Then the only time I heard of anyone owning the ADK was my friend who worked at Google. It seems they kindof gave them out as party favors. I thought it was a great idea & wished it would take off but unfortunately had to move away from Arduino anyway to focus on web engineering career and to this day(!) I don't own a smartphone.

AliDarwish 13y ago

Super Idea!!!

benbojangles 13y ago

Why can't you just buy a HC-06 bluetooth adapter for £3 from ebay, then use Amarino or a similar android apk?

hershel 13y ago
The sheeld looks less complex,you can more easily shift between using a phone and normal shields, and the app contains more elements.
- benbojangles 13y ago
  I see what you did there. Good work.