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  • Author Author: ntewinkel
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Mbed.org on phones.

ntewinkel

In my previous blog post I mentioned this URL: http://mbed.org/handbook/Guide-to-mbed-Compiler-on-tablet-device

That website mentions the use of iOS and Android tablets to use with MBed. My iPad worked well for that, and even powers my FRM-KL25z board (using the Apple usb adapter), but sadly it doesn't let install programs onto the board, as the iPad doesn't recognize it as a USB drive.

 

So I bought a USB cable online to connect the FRDM board to my Android phone.

 

I received the USB mini-to-micro cable today, and it allows me to hook up the FRDM board to my Android phones, but sadly the phones don't power the unit image  I tried on a Galaxy S (Android 2.3) and a Galaxy S3 (Android 4.0).

 

Also, in terms of using it for development at all, it just doesn't work - it seems I can type new characters and delete them, but any existing code cannot be deleted. The screen also jumps around a lot - for example, clicking on a spot to start editing shoves it off the right side of the screen.

I did install the Dolphin browser, as per the above webpage recommendation, but that didn't make any difference.

 

So in terms of using a Samsung Galaxy phone for mbed at all, it's a no-go all around.

 

I just tried my iPhone 5, and it actually works alright, though you're not left with much of a viewport once the keyboard is up. In a pinch, it could be used though. And even though it will download the program to the phone, sadly there is no way to connect the iPhone to the FRDM board.

 

So the verdict? If you're bored while waiting for your significant other to be done their shopping, you could use your iPhone to tap in a few lines of code.

 

I'm still curious as to how well an Android tablet would work, cause that might be a pretty neat solution. And just for the sake of fun it would be cool to see if it works with a BeagleBone or RaspberryPi image

 

Cheers,

-Nico

  • in reply to DAB

    Thanks Shabaz and DAB!

     

    I guess it does make sense, as phones are generally not designed to use things like usb drives. I had not really thought about that - I guess tablets are different in that they might be designed more to do things laptops can do. I almost want to take this FRDM board and cable to a computer store to try it out image

     

    And I'm not sure if a modified cable would work, if the phone is not capable of using a usb drive. And like DAB said - that could be a lot of effort for something that's rather difficult to use.

     

    @DAB, I have been using mbed.org for all my FRDM coding - I LOVE it! It's very easy to use, like Arduino and in many ways easier than Arduino. I find that Arduino code can be modified quite easily to run on mbed too. I have a few projects to try on it still, waiting for some parts image

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

  • Hi Nico,

     

    I suspect that the phones do not have enough power to spare to power another device.

    As I recall, most use the USB connect to charge themselves, so they might have a diode in the circuit to make the path one way.

     

    If you made a unique USB cable with a separate power source, either 12 VDC or from the Car auxiliary port, you could then power both devices from the vehicle battery and support just the communication over the line.

     

    Either way, I am not sure it would be worth the effort.

    Still, you could set up some interesting sensors using the Freedom board attached to a smart phone for the user interface.  You would still need a separate power source, but if you built it into a small case, you could easily slip in a 9 Vdc battery.

     

    Thanks for sharing.  If nothing else, you have saved others the time to go down the dry well. image

     

    Have you had any time to look at using mbed to develope code for the Freedom board?

     

    Thanks

    DAB

  • Hi Nico,

     

    It's interesting it didn't power it I'm wondering if maybe the cable doesn't have the ID pin grounded on the phone end (apparently USB OTG requires this to recognize the host end, see here). It does sound hard to do development work on a small device. Still, as you likely already know, using the FRDM board as some USB accessory (e.g. HID) is possible, although that's not your goal here of course. Also, this link shows the FRDM board as the host (using OTG capability), and a mouse connected to it.

     

    Digressing a bit more, there is also android development kit of course, that uses the attached device in host mode and has to then supply power instead of the phone. I've not done any android development, but should be possible to interface the BeagleBone to Android. I found this link which was interesting (the links on that page have more information).