Amarino - Again

So I switched back to Amarino. Nothing wrong with the Andruino, in fact long term I'll probably base things off of that, I just need a GUI on the Android now, and Andruino doesn't let me do that. Code that I write for Amarino will be portable for the most part, so I should be able to write a gage module and use it for both environments.

So I rewound... I didn't go to the trouble of connecting the old PC hard disk to the new computer. I thought I would learn more if I did it the hard way. So far I think I have. Amarino isn't very flexible. The code must be hard coded for your bluetooth cards address. Finding the numeric address was a challenge. Initially when the pairing starts it displays the address, but then it changes to the name of the device. I looked in settings, thinking it might list the address there. It turns out the Amarino app has the address in the connect dialog. It took a little while, but I have it.

When I installed the ADK, it defaulted all my targets to 4.2.2. That works great on the emulator, but none of my devices are that advanced. I only have 4.1.2 on them, and some older phones have 2.3.3 or something. (If you aren't familiar with Android, the 2.x OS was pre-tablet version, but you can find some off brand tablets running 2.x, then the 3.x OS was for the early tablets, and Google quickly came up with an OS to satisfy their needs, and it only ran on tablets. The 4.x and above OS is the unified phone/tablet OS that is very current, and is more distributed, so most situations only need a new app, not a whole new OS to get almost all the latest features). The different OS targets APIs are also numbered (IE 4.1.2 is API 16, 2.3.3 is API API 10, sort of like Java versions). 

I installed the 4.0, 4.1 and 2.3 APIs so I can test things out on all my devices. This is done in the Android SDK manager app. Just a few clicks, to select what do download, and press install packages and the ADK is app updated! I didn't download the MIPs or Intel versions, thinking it would save time, and I don't really need them. The older tablets I gave the kids are MIPs based tablets, I may get a version another day for them, if I decide the app is suitable for older tablets (probably, I am not doing anything too complicated, but I don't think those devices have bluetooth).

Loading a bunch of new devices still didn't let me change targets. I had to restart Eclipse. Now I have a large collection of usable APIs. It still can't find my phone, only the emulators. It turns out I needed some new Samsung USB driver for it. I am not sure if Samsung is pushing the boundaries, or if they are being evil requiring a new driver. I'll look into that another day. I installed the app, but now touchwiz keeps crashing. I am rebooting the device, hoping whatever mess I created will get fixed.

Uh oh, now what? Well rebooting didn't fix anything, touchwiz keeps crashing. The phone is useless right now. At least the GUI. It isn't anything malicious, like a virius, just my dopey version of SensorGraph. I can use the notification bar to get to email, and that works (if there is a notification to select). Now when I exit email to go back to the home screen, when touchwiz crashes, I end up back at the email program.

Ooof, sitting here thinking about things, I think I know what I did. The SensorGraph came with an Icon defined in the original package. When I started putting the package together, it couldn't find that icon, so I created a 0byte file for it. I am guessing touchwiz is trying to draw a zero byte icon, and is getting a null pointer exception. I'll change the app to use some other icon, and then download that. It is just touchwiz, so that makes as much sense as anything.

Yes, that fixed that trouble, but now SensorGraph quit at startup. I thought it was because Amarino wasn't running. I started Amarino and connected to the board, then SensorGraph, but it still crashes. The LogCat was enabled, and I see a runtime exception, no class found at.abraxas.amarino.Amarino. It almost sounds like I don't have the amarino libs installed on the phone? Hmmm...

"With great power..." I had the amarino libs included in the build, but not in the deploy. Under the project->properties->buildpath->order and export, I had to check the box to export the amarino libraries. Now it works! Well it is connected, and well, 1 active connection. It says "hello world, sensor graph". I still need to upload the sensor graph software to the arduino. I had already loaded the code to the arduino library. Here is a screen shot of the stock MeetAndroid sketch output on the phone (random noise on analog pin 5)

Then I went and changed the sketch to read the input from the LM34 that was on the board at pin 15

It started at ambient temperatures, then I put my sweaty fingers on it, and you can see where it jumped up.

Now on to redoing my GUI work.