Turn your iPhone or iPad into the hub of a distributed sensor network with the help of an Arduino microcontroller. With this concise guide, you’ll learn how to connect an external sensor to an iOS device and have them talk to each other through Arduino. You’ll also build an iOS application that will parse the sensor values it receives and plot the resulting measurements, all in real-time.
iOS processes data from its own onboard sensors, and now you can extend its reach with this simple, low-cost project. If you're an Objective-C programmer who likes to experiment, this book explains the basics of Arduino and other hardware components you need—and lets you have fun in the process.
Learn how to connect the Arduino platform to any iOS device
Build a simple application to control your Arduino directly from an iPad
Gather measurements from an ultrasonic range finder and display them on your iPhone
Connect an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to an XBee radio network
Explore other methods for connecting external sensors to iOS, including Ethernet and the MIDI protocol
Alasdair Allan is a senior research fellow in Astronomy at the University of Exeter, where he is building an autonomous, distributed peer-to-peer network of telescopes that reactively schedule observations of time-critical events. He also runs a small technology consulting business writing bespoke software and building open hardware, and is currently developing a series of iPhone applications to monitor and manage cloud-based services and distributed sensor networks.
Comments about oreilly iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino:
iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino provides a concise introduction to the possibilities of interfacing Arduino with iOS.
Much of the book concentrates on the Redpark serial cable. This cable simplifies many of the headaches involved with interfacing with iOS devices.
With the Redpark serial cable, things appear to be reasonably plain sailing, with the author providing step by step instructions to building a simple application that interfaces with Arduino, takes a reading from a sensor and plots it on the iPhone.
The book includes a number of useful tips along the way that may not be obvious to the beginner, such as how to easily track the log messages generated by the Arduino.
Finally, the book covers other communication options, if you don't want to use the Redpark serial cable. This includes:
Ethernet Wi-Fi X-Bee The microphone (a la Square) USB; and Midi
This is a short, readable book that covers the essentials; recommended if you want to get started in this area, particularly if you intend on using the Redpark serial cable for your interfacing requirements.
Note: This book was provided by O'Reilly Media as part of their blogger review program.
10/27/2011
(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
5.0
Everything needed to interface w Arduino
By David Bishop
from Glens Falls, NY
Pros
Accurate
Concise
Easy to understand
Helpful examples
Well-written
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about oreilly iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino:
I've been toying around with Arduino for sometime now, and this book gives you all the knowledge you need to take your Arduino knowledge and put it to good use with iOS. There are iPhone and iPad apps for connecting to Arduino and even connecting to devices directly without Arduino.
The great thing about this book is that it doesn't rehash material you can find about using Arduino in other books. This isn't about all the great things you can do with Arduino (those books have been written and they would make this book way too long). Instead, this shows you everything you need to know from hardware decisions, to hardware connections, to software for both Arduino and iOS to get your iOS device to talk to Arduino.
A brilliant book for making Arduino and iOS talk.
10/26/2011
(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
4.0
A nice and very readable book
By cobrp
from Enschede, the Netherlands
About Me Educator
Pros
Easy to understand
Helpful examples
Well-written
Cons
Best Uses
Intermediate
Novice
Student
Comments about oreilly iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino:
I am a beginner in experimenting with the Arduino. I think this book is a very good introduction in using the sensors in iPhone and iPad. The examples are good and well introduced! It's fun to work with.
I had some problems with uploading the Paduino program in the Arduino. This was due to the connection to the serial cable. You have to remove connections to TX and RX before uploading that program.
10/18/2011
(7 of 10 customers found this review helpful)
2.0
New title: "Use Redpark Serial Cable"
By Thor
from Atlanta, GA
About Me Developer, Maker
Pros
Cons
Not comprehensive enough
Too basic
Best Uses
Comments about oreilly iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino:
9/10th's of the book is about how to solder or wire things to the Redpark serial port...
I would've like to have seen the book set up with Chapter 6 first (HIDduino, MIDI, Ethernet, Serial, HiJack), with their comparisons (bandwith, simplicity, response time, etc) -- and then launch into each of those with mention of kits / API's (so... how do I get the iPhone to use this [eg, HIDduino - can I send things that "aren't normal" like unicode characters]?) / Gotchas (so... how do I charge and use the serial port?)
Extreme bonus points if it had a brief blurb about the ADK sensors and how they compare.
The redpark cable does open the world, but let's not beat the serial cable horse to death.
Merchant response: Hi Thor,
Thank you for reviewing iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino. I'm sorry you weren't happy with the book, but we appreciate your thoughtful feedback.
The author, Alasdair Allan, saw your review and asked me to pass on his response:
__
I'm sorry you felt the book was too basic, and that most of the book was spent discussing how to solder or wire things. The book was squarely aimed at iOS developers rather than Open Hardware people. As a result the hardware aspects of the book are basic, and aimed at people without hardware experience. This was "Hardware Hacking for iOS Developers" not "iOS Programming for Hardware Hackers" and as such I decided to tread the course which would allow an iOS developer, without much or any hardware experience, to talk to external hardware as quickly as possible. That meant using the Redpark Serial Cable, and the Arduino.
__
I also want to let you know that we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you would like a refund, you can find the details at http://oreilly.com/go/guarantee
Regards,
Rachel James
O'Reilly Media