Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Project Io - Release v1.04 is Out

The release v1.04 has one new feature and a number of bugfixes / changes:

  • The Template Info screen was added to the Android Application. It has the "Comm Check" option, in order to allow the user to check the bluetooth communication with the arduino device.
  • The Arduino Application was changed to respond to the pings sent by the "Comm Check" option.

  • From now on, all the releases of the Arduino Application will send to the Android Application, during the handshake phase, the "Host Version" information. It allows the Android app to check if it is deprecated relative to the Arduino app (therefore, incompatible).
  • It was removed, from the Arduino app, the need to press a switch to trigger the bluetooth setup and "connection wait" phase.
  • The arduino / bluetooth breadboard assembly was changed to remove the switch.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Project Io - First release is out

The first stable release for the Project Io is out. Using this release it is possible to control, over cellphone / bluetooth, just any arduino based device which has 2 states: ON and OFF. Changing the Handshake properties on the arduino file A.cpp / A.h, it is possible to set a number of items to control, including their names and their pin ids.

Check the instructions here on Project Io page

Friday, July 11, 2014

Project Io first working version

First working version of the Project Io is working:

  • The Android applications has the basics working
    • Allows to search for paired bluetooth devices
    • Connects to a paired bluetooth devices
    • Has a single host template: "SwitchesOnly", which can receive, from the arduino host, a list of switches and allows the user to turn them on/off, sending the respective commands to the host.
  • The arduino host framework can deal with:
    • Client bluetooth Connecting / disconnecting (including sofware handshake / hangup)
    • Receive and process switch status changes (turn on/ off LEDs, relays and anything with just two states)
Considering a real case, at this stage of development it is possible to use it, for example, to control all the lights of a house or a room, since the android is in range of the bluetooth module connected to the arduino.

Below some pictures I took from my phone with the android app runningon it, and a protoshield with a bluetooth JY-MCU module and 2 LEDs plugged on an arduino UNO board.




Note that the app window title, the amount of switches and the switches labels are not hardcoded on the android application itself but, they are comming from the arduino host application, during the handshake stage of the communication.

As soon as I can get rid of some small bugs the android application still has, I will publish it on the Google Play and, the instructions about how to setup the android host (plus the android program files) I will publish on the Project Io page.