Is it possible for the LAB-XT Telephony Board to communicate with a cell phone?

Hello Everyone,

To my delight my son just gave me a LAB-XT Experimenter's Board as an early Christmas present and I was wondering if anyone has thought about or connected this board to a cellular phone to use in home automation, as a car alarm or? Would it be possible? I'm not looking to do this at the present time but was just wondering about the possibilities and if anyone has any ideas. One of the reasons I was thinking of connecting the experimenter's board to a cell phone is because I don't have a land line phone (only cellular) but I'll definitely be getting a land line hooked up real soon, I can't wait........

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanks
jessey

Jessey,

It is possible by using the serial port on the LAB-XT board and a suitable adapter cable to connect to some cellular phones, but it won't work the same as the land line. A cell phone is basically a digital radio, some you control using Hayes compatable 'AT' commands, others use different methods. You could look at the GSM section of this forum for ideas. (GSM is one kind of cellular network widely used in Europe.)

As the telephony board includes a lot of example programs I think you will find it much easier to start with a land line and get comfortable with that. You can easily add home automation to your telephony board. The PicBasic Pro manual has a simple circuit for using X-10 powerline carrier modules to turn on lights and small appliances using the Xin and Xout commands, I have my Christmas tree and other lights connected up this way. You can add temperature sensors, etc. with relative ease. I built a small add on board with 8 relays that I can turn on and off using the dtmf (TouchTone) decoder that's already on your board.

Good Luck!

Jerry.

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the heads up. I live in Western Canada and am not sure if its the same cellular network as in Europe but like you say I have enough to keep me busy with all the sample programs. Its definitely not a high priority but eventually I'd like to explore the possibilities of a message dialer, digital answering machine and a DTMF remote control operated from a cellular phone, now that would be so cool especially in a remote location that doesn't have access to a land line!

Thanks
jessey