Phidgets On the Android OS

[Patrick]

It looks like 3.1 supports USB Host properly, so we could probably get Phidgets working on 3.1.

-Patrick

[jrichardsMav]

I have an a500 honeycomb tablet, really great device. I want to build an as3 app to work with phidgets, is there a driver i need to install on the tab?

[xcr]

Hi,

we have purchased a lot of phidgets for our university and our students are building different "demonstration applications" with the phidgets.
It would really be nice if we could use Phidgets from the mobile phone but for us, the demonstration application of Rob, using the web service interface, would be fully sufficient. I will never attach a bunch of Phidgets to my mobile phone when I "enter a room and want to access the built-in sensors".

However, since I have not seen the code how to access the web-service interface from Android and since Robs version uses an outdated webservice, I wanted to ask if there are samples available or if anything happened recently.

Kind regards,
Marcus

[Patrick]

For now, we support iPhone. Android support will be coming eventually, but we haven't started working on it.

-Patrick

[nagmier]

I would reccoment the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for usb host support, it requires the purchase of an additional converter ($20) but its well worth it... I have a High Current Dual Motor controller connected to a MiniITX PC using the webservice I would like to be able to control the motor controller from an Android Device.

I took a 2 year break from robotics, getting married and having a kid puts hobbies on hold , now that I'm getting back into the swing of things Android is much easier to use and much more portable. I've done a little Java development on Android over the last year so I'm familiar enough with Java. If there is anything I can do to speed along to process or help out I'd love to. I'm also plan on trying to code up something that will run on my Gtab 10.1

[RobOrt]

Just leaving a quick update.

I'm hoping to release a significant update for my AndroidPhidget app. This will give access to ALL its digital inputs,outputs and sensors. Currently working on how to best layout the user interface to accommodate all the controls! Then I'll be working on an up-to-date Phidget library...

[Patrick]

Just a heads-up:

We are working on a official Phidgets Android library internally. We have it working perfectly for network-attached Phidgets. This will be released as a native library which you just need to stick into a libs folder in your project. You then just use the same phidget21.jar that we already use for Java support. Eclipse handles dealing with the native library automatically, so it's actually very easy to work with.

We're also working on USB host support. We have a Asus eee tab transformer, which has two USB ports on the keyboard dock, and we have directly-connected Phidgets working. We just need to formalize the host support. Host support will be available for Tablets running 3.1 or higher. Most tablets seem to either have a USB port, or the option of one via an adapter, so this should work out quite well.

Once we have documentation and examples ready, we'll be releasing the library.

-Patrick

[RobOrt]

Patrick,

Will you also be releasing the source code for users to build with the Android NDK? And any hint of time-until-release?

Rob

[Patrick]

I suppose we could release the source - but I'm not sure what the point would be, as it will just produce the exact same library as we'll be distributing - libphidget21.so.

Releasing the library compiled rather then as source means that our users don't need to download and configure the ndk - a task which is easy on Mac/Linux, and more challenging on Windows because it requires Cygwin.

At any rate - what do you think the advantage would be for including the source?

-Patrick

[RobOrt]

Patrick,

The only thing that crossed my mind (and I'm not 100% sure it needs to be considered) is the major difference between Android 2.X and 3.X and that is (limited) usb support in 3.x whereas there is none in earlier versions. Because of this I just wondered if there might be compatibility issues if you release one library for all versions. If there were (and I stress 'if') issues then releasing source would allow users to build for their version of Android.

As I have only worked with Android 2.x and also no need for USB connection I haven't had to worry about this, and of course even if this is an issue i.e. I might be thinking of a problem that doesn't actually exist...