Hello everyone, am working on a project, and i wanted to know if its possible to automatically open an app on my PC for example Chrome, upon a certain condition input to the Arduino uno?
i wanted to know if its possible to automatically open an app on my PC for example Chrome, upon a certain condition input to the Arduino uno?
No, it isn't. The Leonardo can send keystrokes to the PC, but they are received by the active application. The Uno can't even do that.
The Uno can talk to an application on the PC, and that application could start another application, but the Arduino can't do that directly.
okay so i cant open an app directly using an Arduino, but i can indirectly by using maybe other apps or devices?
And if so, do you know how i can go about it?
Thank you.
Are you set on using the Uno? I think the easiest approach would be to use a board that can do keyboard emulation (Leonardo, Micro, Pro Micro, Zero, MKR boards) to send a keyboard shortcut to the computer, which causes the application to start. In Windows, you can set a keyboard shortcut to run any program shortcut (e.g. the things in your Start menu) by simply right clicking on the shortcut, clicking "Properties", entering the desired shortcut key in the "Shortcut key" field, then clicking "OK". Make sure to use some unique shortcut key that isn't already used by some other process (e.g. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + G). I'm sure there is a way to do the same thing with the other operating systems if you're not using Windows.
If you want to use the Uno, the first thing to do is establish some way of communicating between your Uno and the computer. The most common is the serial port created by the USB connection to your computer. Other options would be to add an Ethernet shield or Bluetooth module to your Uno.
Next, you need to have some application running on your computer that receives the communication from the Uno and then starts the program. You could write this from scratch, using your programming language of choice, or you can look around for an existing application that already has this functionality. Examples include AutoHotKey and EventGhost. I believe those are both Windows-only, but I'm sure there are equivalents for other operating systems.
Finally, you need to write the sketch for your Uno that communicates with the application on the computer.
Yes am connecting my Arduino to my Windows PC via cable, and am using the Arduino IDE.
So it is possible to come up with a sketch to open a program ( or a program like AutoHotKey that will open another program) automatically upon receiving an input (like a fingerprint input) from the Arduino right?
Yes, it's possible. The Uno's sketch would send a command using Serial.println(). The application on the computer receives that command on the Uno's serial port and then runs the desired program.