Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 8
Android Programming
One of the main benefits of using a wireless standard like Bluetooth Low Energy is its
support for a wide variety of smartphones and tablets. This opens up a new dimension
of interaction to embedded hardware projects, which can now be designed with cheap
hardware and rich interfaces.
Beyond the interface, you can also use the phone as a gateway to the larger Internet or
in conjunction with other apps or APIs to create custom mashups with the embedded
hardware you've created. This enables a whole new class of inexpensive devices that still
offer rich functionality.
This chapter provides a basic overview of the hardware, software, and processes re‐
quired to implement Bluetooth Low Energy on the Android operating system.
Getting Started
The example Android project developed in this chapter interfaces with the low-cost
SensorTag device (
“SensorTag” on page 91
) manufactured by Texas Instruments (TI).
The SensorTag offers many sensors and is a great example of a complex sensor device
that can provide lots of information to be processed and visualized.
Because the GUI side of Android can get a bit complex and is generally beyond the
scope of this topic, this chapter focuses on getting you to the point where you can extract
data out of the SensorTag and receive it via Bluetooth Low Energy. At that point, many
other available resources can demonstrate ways to present data.
Get the Hardware
For hardware, you'll need an Android device running Android version 4.3 or later.
While Android began supporting BLE version 4.3, we recommend a device running at
least version 4.4, which includes an updated and more stable version of the BLE protocol
