Arduino BT

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1

Hey Guys,

I noticed that the Arduino BT is not available anymore. Does anybody know if it will become available again? If not, do you have any suggestions on how to communicate with arduino through bluetooth?

Thanks!
Roberto

2

You could go for a ITeaduino BT instead. It's basically the same thing, just without screw terminals and a ATmega328 instead of an ATmega168.

3

No idea on the Arduino BT board.

Depending on what you have, what you want to communicate with, and what bluetooth profile, there are various solutions. Most of the simple solutions involving bluetooth have the bluetooth device as a simple serial device, where you read/write bytes on two wires at an agreed upon speed like 9600baud. If your Arduino has hardware serial ports (like the Mega/Due), you can use them to talk to the board. Otherwise, you need to use Software Serial support to emulate a serial connection (which works on most boards, but not all).

If you are wanting to communicate with an Apple phone/tablet, etc. you will need a bluetooth 4.0 LE (low energy) setup. This reduces the selection quite a bit, and raises the cost compared to Android phones which typically can communicate with 2.1 bluetooth systems. You can find 4.0 LE bluetooth shields out there if you look, for example, seeed studios makes one: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bluetooth-40-low-energy-ble-shield-p-1255.html

If you are using an Android phone that talks to 2.1 bluetooth devices, Itead and Seeed studios both made Bluetooth shields, for example: http://www.robotshop.com/bluetooth-shield-arduino-master-slave.html. If you live in the USA, you might check Radio Shack. They used to sell the seeed studios bluetooth shields, and it is possible the retail outlets may still have one lying about. I picked up a shield for my Uno from one for about $10.

There are various free and $$ aps on Android phones to talk to bluetooth devices over serial connections. I imagine there are some on the Apple side of the phone divide. I have one "bluetooth controller" that allows me to set up to 9 buttons that when I tap a button, it sends some text to the Arduino. There are others that you can use monitor the connection and send random text as well.

You can also buy the bluetooth 2.1 separately that is not part of a shield. I have this one, and use it on my Teensy 3.0: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HC-05-Bluetooth-Transceiver-Host-Slave-Master-Module-Wireless-Serial-6pin-/221286562520?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3385b4fad8

4

I went to robotshop.com and they had one which was from seeedstudio for $21.75 and one for $14.04. Couldn't tell the difference. Noticed the seedstudio ran on 3V, which I thought wouldn't work with Uno.

Ideas on which one to buy?

5

The $22 one is made by seeedstudios, and $14 one is made by ITead studios. Here is the ITead studios web page for it: http://imall.iteadstudio.com/im120417010.html

I imagine both of them will work. As I mentioned, I happen to have the Seeed version, and to the limited extent I used it, it worked fine.