Bluetooth

In a previous post I shared my notes on how to connect an Arduino to an Android phone using the the popular and cheap HC-06 Bluetooth module. In that example I used the Bluetooth module with its default settings. That works fine, but some applications may require changing the communication speed (Baud rate), the pairing code, the module name etc. For example, I am trying to set-up a way to program my Arduino Uno and Arduino Pro Mini wirelessly, over Bluetooth. This requires changing the baud rate of the module from the default 9600 to 115200, or 57600, to match the default sketch upload speed for these Arduino boards. ...

I am working on circuit that will allow me to program my Arduino boards (I have an Arduino Uno and a couple of Arduino Pro Minis) over a wireless Bluetooth connection. I am planning to use my cheap and easy to find HC-06 Bluetooth module for this. One of the first thing to figure out is the baud rate that the Arduino IDE uses, when uploading the sketches to the various Arduino boards. I need to make sure that my HC-06 Bluetooth module is configured to communicate at the same rate, so the avrdude stays happy. ...

Project overview This is a differential steering robot that can be controlled from an Android phone via Bluetooth. The robot’s “brain” is Arduino Uno compatible board (an “Arduino on a breadboard”). The robot uses a JY-MCU Bluetooth module for communication with the Android phone. A custom Android app, created with the MIT App Inventor 2 essentially acts as a remote control, sending commands to the Arduino that tell the robot to move forward, reverse, stop or rotate. ...

App Inventor provides a fast and easy way to build simple apps for Android phones and tablets. It is targeted primarily at those of us with limited, or no experience in Android development. App Inventor has a fairly intuitive graphical interface, where you first visually design the application screen and then add the logic by dragging and dropping a series of colour-coded code “blocks” that snap together with a satisfying click, when connected correctly. ...

My previous post covers the basics of setting up a Bluetooth connection between an Arduino Uno and an Android phone using the JY-MCU Bluetooth module. We connected the JY-MCU Bluetooth module to the Arduino via a serial connection on (digital) pins 0 (rx) and 1 (tx). This uses Arduino’s built in hardware support for serial communication (via something called UART) and requires no additional libraries. The Arduino has a 64 byte serial buffer and can receive and store data in it, while executing other tasks in your program. For some great examples of using serial communication, as well as wealth of other Arduino related info see Nick Gammon’s web-site. There are a couple of downsides of this set-up for Bluetooth connectivity: ...

The purpose of this tutorial is to cover the basics of setting up a connection between Arduino Uno and an Android phone via Bluetooth. Smart phones pack a ton of cool features (camera, accelerators, speakers, microphone, a nice screen to show data from your sensors, wi-fi adaptor…) that will make an excellent addition to a robot, or any other Arduino project. I will use Blueterm a basic free Android terminal emulator app to send a single digit (zero or one) from a phone to a BlueTooth module connected to the Arduino Uno via a serial connection. The Arduino Uno will read the data and will turn an LED on, or off accordingly. After that it will send a status message back, which will be displayed on the phone’s screen. This will essentially confirm we have a two way communication between the Arduino and the Android phone over Bluetooth. The same approach can be used to interact with anything connected to your Arduino (like motors, servos and sensors) or the cool goodies in your smartphone (camera, accelerometer etc.). So let’s get stared! ...