[q] question : Android-pc bridge project for home automation - General Questions and Answers

Hi there
I'm embarking on an ambitious project and i was wondering if anyone could help me by giving suggestions.
I am making my own home automation system, and I already have the necessary hardware to get it up and running, but I want to take it a step farther.
I have this (Use google translate lol) http://cba.sakura.ne.jp/kit01/kit_399.htm kit, which is basically a set of 8 relay switches that can be used to turn on and off mains devices (such as lights, powerpoints, ect) that are controlled by a computer through a DB25 printer port. I also have an old Dell D600 laptop that has said printer port, and the software needed to drive the circuit board. This is all well and good, as everything is working so far, but before I bother to install this thing in my roof and hook it up to control my lights, power points, ect, I was wondering if there is a way to use my android phone (HTC Legend, unrooted ) or tablet (Motorola xoom wifi rooted with Tiamat, o/c to 1.7ghz) to control this board through a computer.
I already have a client that remote controls the computer (splashtop remote), and I can achieve this with some difficulty by remote controlling the computer and using the PC software through my phone/tablet, but I was wondering if there is an android home automation program and its PC client service that supports DB25 printer port pinout settings, so I could directly control the circuit board through the app, like the leading home automation apps already available (minus the extremely expensive proprietary hardware that you need with them). If not, has anyone else considered developing one? If anyone could give me any help on this it would be greatly appreciated.

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[Q] Android device cluster, networking or screen sharing

In short: Is it possible to cluster, network or push device output from one device to another, share storage devices and network/gps interfaces?
The long version: I have been wanting to build an in-car device that would store media and act as a gps and what not, but haven't found a way that I want to implement it yet. I was thinking if I found a x86 port of android, got most of the voice stuff working, I could have a headless device that I could store music on and use as navigation. I know the phones are capable of that, but if I want to keep say 500 gb of music on me, how does one do that?
My thoughts were if it were possible to either cluster or network an installed android powered unit to an android powered phone, I could always have network access from the unit in the car and share the gps from the phone, or have the phone access the storage from the device (not through dlna, but the music app seeing it as physical storage) and allow me to push the output from the in car device to the phone and let me interact with the system how ever I need to I could accomplish a form of in-car entertainment.
I figured that there could be apps written that would let the in-car device act as a headless unit, with its only interface being audio, it could store navigation directions/maps and what not, so if I didn't have the phone that day, I could still navigate to where I needed to. The phone and the device could constantly be in communication with each other if the car was parked by a wifi hotspot or something, so if I chose to navigate somewhere when I was at home, the car would already have the directions. I could also have it pull any media changes through wifi, and always have an updated media library.
I know the phones are fully capable of doing this, but for most of it, you have to have a window holster for the car to use the gps, and wires running for audio and charging and what not, but if there were a way that the in-car device could be hardwired to the audio system and left alone, the phone could stay in my pocked, be linked via bluetooth and I could have a small button-pad or something that would allow me to initiate google voice search, control the media player and interact with navigation. The whole thing with linking the phone and device together would be so the mobile network could be shared between android devices and the incar device could pull the information it needed. The thought of the display sharing was in case I needed to interact with the incar device.
I know what I am going on about is specific to me, but my thoughts behind it were if it were possible to do at least the network sharing (with out tethering or mobile hot spot blah blah blah) that android phone and tablet owners could do the same thing. They could share their mobile network through their tablet and have a tablet that would be always connected, would share mailboxes with the phone and basically act the way the Blackberry playbook is proposed or how the Palm Foleo was supposed to work. If the devices had a network ability of some level, the tablet could pull text messages, email messages, contacts or any other sync-able item.. That way, this wouldn't just be done for my benefit, but it would take tablet and phone owners to another league. Two devices that share the same information from one source and don't have to sync with the same servers twice. It would take a lot of redundancy out.
I hope you guys can see usefulness in my idea, and can shed some light for me.
Sorry from bringing this back from the dead, but since I never got any responses I'll add a bit more..
Does android have anything that would work like blackberry bridge between two android devices?
Droid Vnc server and androidvnc works fine for screen sharing. What I really like is the hpc aspects to CPU cycle sharing over wifi/nfc. Really interesting possibilities.
What I am looking for is to have the ability to use two separate android devices, but have them communicate via wifi/bluetooth or what ever and act as the same device in the sense that when the device with the data plan gets a text message or phone call, the notification goes through the other device that would be physically docked to audio equipment or what ever...
I have a Droid X, Droid Incredible, Droid Pro and a first gen Droid laying around.. Currently the Droid Pro is my in use phone.. The rest are just laying here. I want to be able to dock one of the others in my car, turn the GPS on, link it to my droid pro and have the other phone use the droid pro's active data connection for guidance/searches etc, and it would be docked to car audio, so it would need to access the pro's sd card, and have access to the pro's phone audio, or the ability to route calls from the pro to the other device via bluetooth or whatever, not by call forwarding.. This way it would be a sort of infotainment/telematics system..
Think of the possibilities this would open up for android tablets etc. If You could reply to text messages from your tablet because the tablet is linked/bridged to the phone in your pocket... That would make these tablet/laptop combos more appealing because it would the perfect convergence between tablet and phone.
Oh, and I guess, the other thing is that I have multiple cars, so one device would go in each car, and then when I got in the car, the one in that car would link with my phone, and everything would be the same, car to car, or device to device...
I guess another way to bump this:
Would it be possible for an app to do ADB to ADB via bluetooth or something, because then an app could be written like pdanet that would allow the network to be shared at least?
I dont remember the name of the app I think the name of it is Dashboard? and it will store/push all texts/emails etc. to every device u have dashboard installed on...Best buy has an app kinda like that too...Like the Idea of the screen sharing is that kinda like remote desktop/control?
I just search how to neywork cluster android came across your post ..... if you use the Google apps like Google play music/maps as well Google hangouts since with Google voice you can easily do what you want with out the need for both devices being together you can upload 50000 songs 9n play music for free and any device with ur hangouts and voice will receive ur calls and email notifications .....just need to make sure have Internet

[Q] Wired Remote/Control Panel?

I've got a question I have not been able to find a definitive answer to.
Everyday other day on a blog I read I am seeing someone has created a robot controlled via an application running on a iPhone/Android, using either Bluetooth or Wifi.
But my question is, can an android device function as a wired remote via the usb port?
Is there any IO class for the USB port that can be used to turn on various things and read back various sensor information given the propper platform?
Am I seeking USB Host mode or is that something else?
My goal is to have an android device running an application monitoring various sensors and controlling various other hardware devices with a nice touch screen interface if possible. Since the phone would be located with the control hardware using Bluetooth for this seems silly if I am able to use USB and a cable from the Android Device to the Control Hardware, essentially making the android device the brains.
thanks in advance guys!
Nobody has any feedback on this?

[Q] Controlling Power Point or Keynote with smartphone.

Hope this is the right place for this.
I know there are tons of apps out there that does this but here is my situation.
I am in a public speaking class and it would be really nice and easy for me and other students if we could control our slides from our phones or tablets.
My question is what would be the best way to do this on a school computer. I can install apps no problem, but they get erased after the computer gets restarted due to a deep freeze program of some sort. So simply installing the server application before hand won't do.
Is there some sort of solution that has maybe a portable executable that one can run on their flash drive just for the time that they need to connect their device to the computer?
Both of the devices will be on the same network (one wired and one wireless).

advice needed for mini pc project

I want to design a program that will run on an Android Mini PC. It'll be connected to any monitor so that when the monitor is turned on, it'll power up the android mini pc via USB (monitor will be required to have USB port) and then the program will start automatically and display on the monitor.
The program itself is a visual acuity chart (like at your eye doctor's office). So it will run all day as you use an RF remote to flip through the images.
Sound easy? I'm trying to figure out if Android or Raspberry Pi would be best for this.
Thanks
Pretty cool idea. The only thing I can think of is Android on the Android sticks allows a customizable boot animation which would be cool to create your own for marketing. The Android sticks are also faster and boot quicker so less wait.
You can also remote desktop into a more powerful machine to offload some work. Essentially have a server as the mainframe.
Android will also require you program it to run at startup. I'm not sure how you do this without a 3rd party app, but I know some apps that load on startup.
Both units are tiny and the android sticks include wifi and there are some Bluetooth models. The Raspberry Pi has neither. And boots slower and isn't powerful.
I think its an easy choice.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
player911 said:
Android will also require you program it to run at startup. I'm not sure how you do this without a 3rd party app, but I know some apps that load on startup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, so it would at least be possible but I'd need some intricate coding and extra apps which is ok with me. thanks
You need to look at the power requirements of the Android Mini PC as well. Often they draw more power than is available through TV and monitor USB ports. You might get enough power to run the mini PC but if you have wifi, wireless keyboard/mouse, bluetooth and other devices the power draw might exceed the output of the monitor. This is something I am interested in as well as I am trying to resolve the power on/off problem on these mini PCs. The probox has a remote with a power button but I've heard the remote has problems with distances more than 1M.
strongsad said:
You need to look at the power requirements of the Android Mini PC as well. Often they draw more power than is available through TV and monitor USB ports. You might get enough power to run the mini PC but if you have wifi, wireless keyboard/mouse, bluetooth and other devices the power draw might exceed the output of the monitor. This is something I am interested in as well as I am trying to resolve the power on/off problem on these mini PCs. The probox has a remote with a power button but I've heard the remote has problems with distances more than 1M.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I won't need BT, wifi, or really anything. I need to find someone that thinks he can tackle this project. Any good places to hire someone for this type of work?
apparker said:
I won't need BT, wifi, or really anything. I need to find someone that thinks he can tackle this project. Any good places to hire someone for this type of work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't you use tasker or locale or something similar to run an app on startup? Just an idea...

Comparing of Android Q/10 "Desktop Modes"

Hey there!
As many of you may have heard or even tried, there is a functional "Desktop Mode" built into Android 10 (as long as the phone vendor didn't deactivate this). This mode will, when manually activated in the developers options, act like an Desktop OS when connecting your phone to an external screen. (or without activating anything in case of e.g. Samsung DeX)
I'd like to use this Thread to gather some information about the implementations of "Desktop Mode" into the phones of different vendors, and hope you can support me with testing it out on your phones.
Things of interest are (IMHO, to be continued):
is the desktop mode working (and usable)
does the dpi setup change in the moment of connecting an external screen (or does everything look just awful big)?
(yes, I know there are apps/tools to change that)
which maximum resolution is possible?
how many screens are possible? (usually just one, ...but who knows)
do you just need an USB-C to HDMI/DP cable or a (special) docking station for connecting a screen? (if using a cable, Miracast/wireless is another option of course)
does the handset get a special 'role'/feature in desktop mode? (like Samsung devices becoming a trackpad)
are there any usage improvements implementated, e.g. like file drag'n'drop or dragging windows to the display sides to maximize them on half the screen (like in windows)
what's the connection speed of the USB-C port? (USB 2.0, USB 3.2 G1 (5 Gbps), USB 3.2 G2 (10 Gbps) or even faster!?)
is it possible to use USB mouse/keyboard or just Bluetooth, and how's the speed? (eg. does BT lag a lot?)
At the moment it seems like Samsung has the best implementation of this feature with their "DeX Mode", but i'd like to know about those things from other vendors also.
My dream is to be able to ditch my notebook/tablet/8in tab/subnotebook collection an use just one device in future. (everything else needed for 'bigger' or x86 tasks can be done on cloud instances already)
But for that purpose there needs to be more than just 'basic' OS UI without any useful features
Hope we can start a good collection here and answer also your questions regarding this topic(s).
Thank you, regards
Schwarzer Riese

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