I'm very excited to announce the launch of a new product I've been working on for the past months!
IOIO (pronounced: yo-yo) is a product which lets you connect electronic circuits to an Android device and control them from an Android application.
It is comprised of a small (2.7x1.2" = 7x3cm) PCB that connects to an Android device with a USB cable and a software library (Java .jar file) that you use in your Android app which handles all communications with the board.
No firmware programming is required - only Android application authoring with a very simple API (see examples below) for controlling the pins on the board. No modification of the Android device is required - you avoid the complication of modification and the voiding of warranty.
IOIO is available for backorder online from SparkFun on this page.
The first few boards will ship within a couple of weeks. Around that time, the entire software and hardware are going to be 100% open-source with a permissive license.
Main features:
48 total I/O pins - all of which can function as digital inputs and outputs.
Up to 16 analog inputs (10-bit).
Up to 9 PWM outputs.
Up to 4 UART channels.
Up to 3 SPI channels.
Up to 3 TWI (I²C-compatible) channels.
On-board switch-mode regulator providing up to 1.5A of 5V supply. Can charge the Android device as well as power a couple of small motors.
Bootloader on the board pulls firmware off phone, enabling OTA firmware upgrades and application-specific firmware.
Pulse-width measurement, capacitance sensing and more (will be pushed with first OTA firmware upgrade).
Example Code
Just to give you a hint of how simple it would be to write apps using IOIO, here is a small snippet from an app, which controls a single servo motor (on pin 12) and reads a single potentiometer (on pin 40). Exception handling and proper closing have been omitted for clarity.
ioio.waitForConnect();
AnalogInput input = ioio.openAnalogInput(40);
PwmOutput pwmOutput = ioio.openPwmOutput(12, 100); // 100Hz
while (true) {
float reading = input.read();
pwmOutput.setPulseWidth(1000 + Math.round(1000 * reading));
sleep(10);
}
Read more: Microcontrollers, Electronics & Robotics
Posts
