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Dan Morrill decided to take the Garduino system that he built a step further, and created a remote control that runs on an Android phone and talks to the Arduino over Bluetooth:

In practice, it takes your “Serial.print” output from an Arduino program and makes it available over Bluetooth to a PC….. or a phone. Android, meanwhile, added an API for Bluetooth RFCOMM in version 2.0. My wife got me a BlueSMiRF for my birthday, and it was off to the races.

I rewrote the Arduino code into a simple finite state machine, and added the ability to accept commands over serial. It’s a very simple project, so there are only 2 commands: reset, and set current time. I encountered some interesting open-source related issues in doing this, but that’s another post.

I then wrote a spiffy little Android app that pairs up to the BlueSMiRF, reads the state dumped from the Arduino every 3 seconds, and then makes a pretty little Android UI. It shows me a Sun, Moon, or Clock depending on which state the Arduino is in (daytime, nighttime, or waiting for clock data), and reports the other status fields like light intensity and status.

Garduino Redux

Source code for Arduinos and Android devices

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Tero Karvinen, one of the authors of Sulautetut, a Finnish book about embedded prototyping, will be featured on Finnish National Television next week on the program Voice Heräämö. Tero was kind enough to send along a translation of the interview, which starts at around four minutes into the video above.

Juha Valvio, interviewer: Tero Karvinen, you are teaching here – but what?

Tero: Linux and embedded systems.

Valvio: I hope they are showing a translation below… Let’s take it to ground level. You [and Kimmo] have written a book on embedded systems. What?!

Text box: “Tero Karvinen, Linux God, Haaga-Helia”.

Anne Nurminen, Miss Finland first runner up, is showing the book: Sulautetut – learn to build robots and other embedded systems.

Tero: Embedded systems are everywhere. For example, air conditioning of this room is an embedded system. It has a tiny computer that measures air and controls motors.

Valvio: So an embedded system is … for example … a car computer?

Tero: Yes, it is an embedded system. It’s a computer, but it doesn’t have a keyboard, a normal display, or a mouse. Instead, it makes measurements and controls some outputs accordingly. Some car brakes are embedded systems too.

Valvio: Can I build a car computer in a week?

Tero: Yes, you can build a prototype.

Valvio: Matias, a student in Haaga-Helia, we are now in UbiOffice lab. What have you studied lately?

Matias: Currently, I am in practical training. I work with Linux, build web pages and the like.

Text box: Matias Korhonen, student, Haaga-Helia.

Valvio: Have you learned to build something in a week?

Matias: Yes. I took Tero’s course. For example, a built a system to connect a Wii controller to a computer. So I have played with embedded systems.

Valvio: Could one build a heat seeking missile system to a car – James Bond style? Can I do it in a week?

Matias: It depends on your rocket science background.

Robot Insect project video from Sulautetut
More videos from Sulautetut

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