Android Basic

[dhouston]

My disabilities and other health issues keep me home-bound so GPS & cell aren't too important to me. I have a cell for emergency outgoing calls with a $10.65 every 3 month T-Mobile prepaid plan. I have MagicJack and a Panasonic DECT wireless with extensions in each room where I spend significant time (although a recent fall indicates I need to add a couple of rooms). A friend in Florida has a hardened PC on his boat and uses MagicJack with wireless phones connecting to public APs when in range.

I'm leaning towards Lenovo's IdeaPad A1 (with GPS) and using Skype on it. My niece would like something smaller than a laptop to do email and phone while watching TV and this might be just right

Many years ago I used an early PDA as a universal remote by creating .WAV files of the codes and sending them to an emitter connected to the headphone jack - I may try that with whatever tablet I decide on - there's ample room to store codes. It will depend on whether the audio circuits can handle 38kHz.

Normally, I steer clear of Google where possible because of things like them insisting on getting my cell number in order to open a GMail account, but these inexpensive tablets running Android are just too enticing.

[ardhuru]

Many years ago I used an early PDA as a universal remote by creating .WAV files of the codes and sending them to an emitter connected to the headphone jack - I may try that with whatever tablet I decide on - there's ample room to store codes. It will depend on whether the audio circuits can handle 38kHz.

Dave, the audio circuits dont need to handle 38kHz, 19kHz would be fine. Here's an interesting technique to achieve what the IR sensor would see as a 38kHz modulation, using 2 LEDs in anti-parallel being driven by the left AND right channels.

http://jumpjack.wordpress.com/2008/0...ote-control-2/

Follow the next few pages for a complete explanation on how its done. Alternately, there's a Windows application (also mentioned on Jack's pages) that automatically creates a modulated .wav file appropriate for 38 kHz transmission directly from sound captured from an IR module, on the fly.

I tried this, and it works, but the range is very modest. In fact, there are quite a few Android apps using this technique to make your phone work as a versatile timer/remote shutter for a DSLR.

While on the topic of Androids and pics, there is a free terminal emulator on the Android that works wonderfully with any project that can be given bluetooth capability. Would be great to set parameters, check debug/calibration values and so on. No need to waste a display (or controls, for that matter) on a project, if it is to be monitored only periodically. Endless possibilities, I think.

Regards,

Anand

[dhouston]

Anand,

I used that with the PDA years ago and have my own Windows application that captures IR/RF and converts between .WAV, .CCF and several others. I've been considering rewriting from VB to PureBasic and porting it to Linux and OSX as well but had no pressing need. This might give that project a little impetus.

• http://davehouston.org/learn.htm

[ardhuru]

Dave, in fact that URL to your site is one of the pages that got me hooked to IR years ago; thanks.

I'd somehow missed the part, and am still unclear, how does your utility manage to squeeze out more than 18-20 kHz from a sound card? And is it by any chance in public domain?

Regards,

Anand

[dhouston]

For output on the PDA I used the LR 19kHz approach. I'm eager to see if an Android tablet can supply enough current for decent IR range.

For input, most cards can sample at twice the rate they playback (and some could do that on output). There were some that could sample at 96kHz in order to record CD quality which made it possible to get the IR carrier and determine its frequency up to ~48kHz.

It's still proprietary. I made the mistake of creating a freeware application that did not have all of its features and found RemoteCentral posts from users publishing all of the codes it had generated for them so I do not plan to release any source code any time soon.

[aratti]

Just to keep going the 50% discount on the purchasing price for basic4android, here my coupon code: csiao.

Cheers

Al.

[Demon]

WOOT

I now have a samsung galaxy nexus to play with!