I want to access car data from an OBD2 device so I can access car speed, RPM speed, fuel consumption, live data, error codes, etc. How can I connect and read from an OBD2 device in iOS?
It depends on OBD device you are going to use.
There are devices on WiFi, accesible by IP-address (using TCP or UDP protocol), by bluetooth, works like RS-232 port, and some other devices, which can directly be connected by cable.
I have recently open sourced my OBD2 library for iOS & macOS that abstracts the transport protocol (WiFi, BTLE, CaptureFile), vehicle protocol (CAN, KWP, PWM, ...) and more into a set of reusable classes. Check out https://github.com/mickeyl/LTSupportAutomotive which might help you creating an own OBD2 application.
I would highly recommend going through the stream programming guide on the iOS developer library as this has code that does exactly what needs to be done for talking to a ELM wifi device.
It's really not much more than that, be sure you have the right IP and Port when connecting.
Related
I want to control a string of LEDs directly from my iPhone. The LED controller chips talk the i2c serial protocol.
Can I do this with Apple-supported APIs on a non-jailbroken iPhone? Which frameworks do I need to use?
Yes, but you will need an external hardware to do that. iOS does not give you access directly to I2C in the docking connector.
KissBos has a OEM board to do that, with a special firmware. You can connect to their board via WiFi, using a TCP based protocol, or via a RTP-MIDI based protocol (RTP-MIDI is implemented in iOS, you don't have to deal with the protocol details, it's just a MIDI port for your application).
If you want to go through the dock connector, you will need their USB interface (it will transform the USB into RTP-MIDI, which goes in the OEM board)
I'm quite sure that you can't do that. Apple is very strict about what you are allowed to and not. I spent days trying to find a way to get access to the iphone's bluetooth layer and ended up with my head against the wall (only a limited game api is public, else you have to go with the Made For Iphone program). However, you are able to do some stuff using the usb cable, but I guess that the possibilities are limited with that too.
I'm developing an iPhone/iPad app that requires it communicate with another device. I'm actually more interested in receiving input from another device that the iPhone is connected to through USB. The solution needs to work with any iOS device and cannot require it to be jailbroken.
I've heard of apps that communicate with a piece of hardware that can be plugged to the iOS' serial connection, which is similar to what I'm going to develop except that the other device I'll be connecting to is a standalone music keyboard.
best regards,
fbr
If you are developing accessories that need to connect to iOS devices and want to use your own communication mechanism then you need to join the Apple MFi program.
Several options:
Forget MFi unless you have 1000s of $ backing up your product development. Apple won't even talk to you. I've tried.
Take a look at the Serial Cable from Redpark (http://redpark.com/c2db9.html)
I've got one of those and it's ideal for apps that you can deliver on your own, but you might also be able to get them into the App Store.
Another option is to use Wifi with a Wifi-to-Serial adapter on the other end. I've used the RN-174 and RN-134 from Roving Networks successfully.
However, these solutions only get you Serial connections, but can be quite fast, especially with the RN modules. There are also Serial-to-USB converters you can use on the device's end, but that would require the device to work as a USB host, usually. If you have a USB device that wants to act as a client, these common adapters won't do the trick.
So, unless you can actually afford the MFi program, and if you really need USB connectivity, you'll have to let someone create a small box containing a USB host adapter with a Wifi chip. I don't know of a ready-made solution for this yet, although I've seen quite a few area where people would like to have such a unit.
I'd love to be able to mod the iPhone tcp/ip stack to route packets over the accessory port either serial or better yet USB or Firewire...
The applications I'm researching wouldn't be able to use WiFi, 3G or bluetooth...
Custom apps could be written to use the serial port available via the accessory port, but it would be nice to support generic apps that need network access.
I haven't tracked down much info relating to this, anyone have thoughts??
About the only way this could work would be to Jailbreak the device, and do some quite low level hacking. OS X supports NKEs (Network Kernel Extensions) that would allow you to introduce a new network interface. I don't know if the iPhone OS has these (as there's obviously not much information on it - it's supposed to be a black box). Even if it did, you'd have to make your KE lie and claim to be e.g. the Wifi device, as many applications will probe for network availability by searching for the Wifi interface.
Basically, I think this is an untenable idea. You can use the External Accessory APIs to allow your custom apps to use your dongle as a network service provider, but you can't use it to provide a new network interface. If you want this kind of open, extensible platform, then the iPhone is not really the right platform.
(I am not interested in pure theory, but as a practical near or mid-term possibility, say within 12-24 months.)
As a developer familiar with (but not specializing in) two major smartphone platforms, should I expect an Android library to come out which can spoof itself onto an iPhone app's GameKit-based network. It seems reasonable that a Bluetooth interface between platforms might square the opportunity to make useful applications, in the same way that modems benefited PC/Mac platforms via Metcalfe's Law.
I am looking for one of two answers:
Is this obviously not likely (e.g. because of encryption)? If so, what is the reason? Is it possible in principle, but requiring years of reverse-engineering (like SMB/CIFS/Samba)? Or is it a no-brainer and just a matter of time? Please give evidence supporting your reason.
Is there an alternative way to have direct peer-to-peer networking besides GameKit? For example, a hand-rolled network using Bluetooth or ad-hoc WiFi? It would be nice to spoof an Android device into an existing iPhone app but my main question is, can the devices speak with each other at all!
Yes, it is possible. GameKit is a protocol using TCP and/or UDP over a BNEP Bluetooth connection. It also uses a trick to identify other iOS devices using the Extended Inquiry mechanism in Bluetooth 2.1+.
I was able to simulate the EIR responses, now, someone needs to reverse engineer the GameKit protocol. This doesn't need Bluetooth, as it is also used for GameKit connections over WLAN.
If anybody can re-implment GameKit for WLAN connections, I can finish the Bluetooth version.
No, and it wont come soon or even at all... Apple pride themselves with their security features, and bluetooth connections can access private data. There will probably not be any cross platform bluetooth framework until something is agreed upon by both companies.
Bump as said by a previous answerer uses a remote server, and the data transferred is not via BT.
GameKit is Bonjour so a Bonjour (which is on IP) over Bluetooth on Android should work.
That should be possible as Bluetooth is capable of setting up tcp/ip networks. Though I have no knowledge of the IPhone SDK whatsoever, but Android does have a BluetoothSocket and BluetoothServerSocket for TCP connections.
This article, http://blog.moritzhaarmann.de/blog/2014/04/27/sorry-state-of-p2p/ written in 2014, suggest it is possible via Bluetooth LE. Available in Android 4.3+ and iOS6+
Two issues:
According to the Android Dashboard only around 30 percent of Android devices support Bluetooth LE https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html?utm_source=ausdroid.net
Communication between Android-to-Android must be done using some other method (which is not a big problem) because Android devices cannot act as server for B LE connections.
Bounjour on the iPhone gives you full access to all of the Bluetooth protocols, so you don't have to use GameKit. As for when someone will provide an easy to use iPhone to Android GameKit like framework - hard to tell.
An iPhone can already talk to any other Bluetooth device using Bonjour today.
-t
It is absolutely possible! In fact I am amazed that more people haven't done it!
Theory:
Bluetooth is just a wireless socket that you push data across and it comes across the other side, just like tcp/ip.
Practice:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/bump-goes-cross-platform-with-new-android-app-upgrades-iphone-version-too/
Better yet, Bump is cross-platform, which means that you can bump an Android phone with an iPhone and it should work seamlessly.
Anybody knows how to integrate iPhone with other non-iPhone devices using serial port?
You can't directly. There may be some sort of serial line (i2c) on the dock connecter, but it is not exposed through the SDK, the Made for iPhone/ExternalAccessory.framework stuff is only for USB and BT.
You could conceivably use a WiFi/serial bridge (such things do exist) since you can send whatever you want over a TCP tunnel, but I doubt that is what you want.
Underlying ExternalAccessoryFramework for 30-pin connector it's the real UART handshaking (using Tx, Rx, Gnd, Vcc and some detect pins and no flow control) but not USB. Those pins of USB are only used for iTunes, Xcode and powering. The iOS app does not need to understand UART and only needs to send/receive bytes through NSOutputStream and NSInputStream.
But you need to pay Apple for MFi(Made For iPhone) Program first and buy some confidential IC to enable your accessory to communicate with iOS. They will require you to propose a product plan and expected sales and consider whether they would accept you as a MFi manufacturer.
You can get the info on using the ExternalAccessory framework from apple's developer portal.
You can't get the required serial handshake(?) info without joining the Made for iPhone program. This requires that you are developing a commercial device.
I have tried to get information on this protocol from apple through my university and have thus far failed.
I successfully received serial communication from the Arduino on the iPhone. I made a google doc explaining my process.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yi9_hcw8XSyYNCG2OJT9oHlTG-dC-Dnuc58VIULa81Q/edit