This is a quick plug for a spiffy project that M. K. Borri (spiritplumber) has been building using my usb-fs-host object. He’s connecting an Android phone to a Propeller microcontroller, emulating the ADB debug protocol on the µC, and using this as a communication bridge in order to control robots from the phone. He has a video to demonstrate his progress:
This project is actually remarkably similar to the IOIO, but actually his was announced first 🙂 Both projects appear to be using a single-chip solution for USB, but on the IOIO that means using a PIC that has built-in USB, whereas on this project spiritplumber used my software USB implementation for the Prop.
Currently the IOIO is a $50 commercial product, whereas this Propeller project could be built for maybe $15. It’s possible the IOIO might get cheaper once the design is opened up in the future, but for now this might be a good alternative for anyone who wants to play with an IOIO but either can’t get their hands on one, doesn’t want to pay fifty bucks for it, or who wants something that interfaces well with other Propeller objects.
He’s been getting a bit discouraged by the lack of community response, so if you’re interested at all I’d encourage you to jump in and join the discussion! His project was just featured on Hack a Day, and there’s an active discussion thread over on the Propeller forums, including links to his source code releases so far.
- Direct link to propusb_adb_final.zip
- The latest usb-fs-host
- Parallax Forum discussion thread
- Via Hack a Day