Step #1: Wire up the RS232 adapter to the Arduino
- Connect the RS232 adapter's power and ground to the Arduino's 5V and GND pins, respectively.
- Connect the RS232 adapter's TX to the Arduino's RX, and the RS232 adapter's RX to the Arduino's TX.
Step #2: Make sure you're set up for iOS development
- To develop apps for the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you'll need to register as an iOS developer. Although you can register for free, all that gets you is the development tools. You won't be able to deploy your apps to a real device. It's $99 a year for an individual developer, $299 for Enterprises (this option lets you deploy apps directly to your team), and free for educational institutions (which also lets you deploy apps to a team).
- For more information, see the iOS Developer Program.
Step #3: Make sure you can run an app on your iOS device
- If you've never programmed for the iPhone before, you can't count on this guide to help you. There are many learning resources, from Stanford's free Developing Apps for iOS courses to Matt Neuburg's Programming iOS 5 or Alasdair Allan's Learning iOS Programming, both of which are available in print or ebook form.
- Before you go any further, please make sure you can create and run simple apps on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It will also be helpful if you familiarize yourself thoroughly with the Xcode development environment.
Step #5: Add a switch to your app
- On the left pane of the screen, expand your project, and open the folder HelloArduino.
- Next, locate the HelloArduinoViewController.xib and click on it. This will bring up your app's main view, which is blank at the moment.
- Bring up the Object Library (View→Utilities→Object Library), and drag a Switch to the center of your view.
- Next, show the Attributes Inspector (View→Utilities→Attributes Inspector) and set the switch's State to Off.
Step #8: Import the iOS Accessory Framework
Next, you need to import Apple's Accessory Framework. To do this, click the Project in the left pane, then choose Build Phases, and open the "Link Binary With" section. Click +, locate the ExternalAccessory.framework, and add it.
Step #9: Add some declarations to the view controller
- Select the HelloArduinoViewController.h file to open it for editing.
- Visit my modified version of the file at GitHub.
- Edit your copy of the file:
- Add the two lines between #import and @interface
- Modify the @interface line to match mine.
- Add the three lines just above UISwitch *toggleSwitch;.
- Save the file (File→Save).
Step #10: Add some functions to the app delegate
- Select the HelloArduinoViewController.m file to open it for editing.
- Visit my modified version of the file at GitHub then edit your copy of the file:
- Locate the viewDidLoad method and replace it with my version of it.
- Be sure to Remove the comment delimiters (/* and */) before and after it.
- Implement the methods required by the RscMgrDelegate protocol (add everything from my file from the #pragma mark - RscMgrDelegate methods to the end of the file.
- Locate the toggleLED method and replace it with my version of it.
- Save the file (File→Save).
Step #11: Declare support for the serial cable
- This step is optional, but it will avoid the problem of you seeing an error message ("This accessory requires an application...") each time you plug in the cable.
- In Xcode, expand the Supporting Files group and click on Hello-Arduino.plist to open it.
- Right-click the bottom row, and choose Add Row. Click the up/down pointing arrows to the right of the new row's key (it will probably default to "Application Category") and choose "Supported external accessory protocols".
- Click the triangle to the left of the key name you just selected to open up the list. In the value field for Item 0, type com.redpark.hobdb9.
- Save the file (File→Save).
Step #12: Deploy and test the Arduino sketch
- Grab a copy of the sketch from GitHub.
- Connect your Arduino to your computer.
- Run the Arduino IDE and upload the RedparkToggle sketch to your Arduino.
- Temporarily disconnect the jumper wire going to the Arduino's RX pin (the green cable shown in the first step), and upload your sketch.
- You must disconnect it before uploading a sketch because the RS232-TTL adapter will otherwise interfere with the upload process. Leave the jumper wire disconnected until you complete the next step.
Step #13: Test the Arduino
- Open the Arduino's serial monitor (Tools→Serial Monitor), and make sure it's set to 9600 baud.
- Wait a few seconds for the sketch to restart, then type 1 and click Send. The LED should come on. Try that again with 0 instead of 1, and the LED should go off.
- Reconnect the jumper wire when you're done.
- Connect your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your Mac with a dock cable.
- Make sure Xcode is configured to run it on the device you just connected (see the figure).
- Click the Run button in Xcode.
- If you get any errors, review the preceding steps to make sure you followed them exactly. If you still have problems, you can try downloading the project from GitHub.
- The app is running on your iOS device, but you need to swap cables next, so click Stop in Xcode and disconnect the dock cable.
- Plug the Redpark Serial Cable into your device and into the RS232 serial adapter.
- Locate the HelloArduino app on the home screen, and run it.
You should ask Redpark, but my understanding is that it is unlikely that they can do this. Apple will typically only approve devices for specific uses, and each different product (their SkyWire cable, their Cisco router cable) identify themselves as different devices, and actually need different software to enable them–even though they are the same hardware inside!
But Redpark could say for sure.
– Brian
Thanks Moritz,
It’s surprising that it’s not working, because I am sending ASCII ‘0’ and ‘1’ (0x30 and 0x31) from the iOS app. See:
https://github.com/bjepson/iPhone-Arduino-Simple-Switch/blob/master/HelloArduino/HelloArduinoViewController.m#L57
But if your iOS code is sending 0 or 1 as values, then your change is necessary.
Thanks,
Brian
bytesRead is the count of bytes that were read. In that demo, I think that the rxLoopBuff is the buffer that contains the actual value read. That array would contain a bunch of ints so you’d have to convert them to chars. But you might also want to look at [http://www.dailyack.com/2011/07/connect-your-iphone-to-real-world.html|Alasdair Allan’s demos].
Hi Krista,
Here are a few things that you might want to look into:
Did Step 13 work OK? Were you able to blink the LED using the Serial Monitor?
Did you try running the app with the Arduino plugged into the computer and with the serial monitor running? This will enable you to view part of the conversation between the cable and the Arduino, but will probably prevent the app from working (but it will be an instructive test). The goal here is to confirm that the iPhone is indeed sending the messages we think it’s sending.
Have you run the Rsc Demo app that comes with the RedPark serial cable (see the Serial Cable SDK README)? There is a loopback test you can run in that app. You’ll need to connect the loopback adapter that was supplied with the cable. This will let you confirm that the cable is working OK.
Also, one of our authors (the guy who turned me on to this all), has some good example code you might want to look at: http://www.dailyack.com/2011/07/connect-your-iphone-to-real-world.html
– Brian
when you run the app with the iphone connected to your computer does xcode show a 1/0 when you switch from on to off?
Also Step 11 is critical in order to make the serial cable send the data. The app can compile and run but may not send data if this step is omitted.
Hi Nima,
The Arduino serial monitor is software that runs on your computer, and must be connected to the Arduino to work, but if you follow this example, you need to connect the Arduino’s built-in serial port to the iPhone. I don’t think you can reliably send messages to both the computer and iPhone at the same time, so I would not advise trying this. If you must communicate with both an iPhone and a computer simultaneously, consider using an Arduino with multiple serial ports, such as the Mega, or consider using SoftwareSerial to communicate with the RedPark cable (I do now know if that is supported or if it is reliable though).
– Brian
Hi Mike,
Which cable are you using? Can you post a photo of the wiring between the Arduino and RedPark cable somewhere?
Thanks,
Brian
Thanks, Morten! Is everything working OK now?
If you can post your code up on https://gist.github.com, I could take a look and ask some other folks to look too.
Thanks. I don’t see anything that jumps out at me, but I’ll ask the Redpark folks to have a look!
Mark, I got a couple of questions from the Redpark folks for you:
* Which version of the cable (TTL or RS232) are you using?
* Did you declare the protocol as shown in http://makeprojects.com/Project/Connect-an-iPhone-iPad-or-iPod-touch-to-Arduino-with-the-Redpark-Serial-Cable/1130/2#s6073
Thanks,
Brian
Ah, just read on their website that the RJ45 cable only works with the Get Console app, and doesn’t work with other apps. I just assumed the cables were the same, but with different connections. Seems like I might have to get another type of cable.
Thanks for all the help!
Mark
Oh, yes, that’s right. Unfortunately, you do need the hobby version of the cable to be able to do this.
I haven’t seen that problem myself, but it’s possible that the Redpark SDK has changed since this example was written. Sam’s comment (from Oct 6) has some information on changes needed when working with the txbuffer.
Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular post!
It’s the little changes which will make the most significant changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
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