I want to controll my arduino with my notebook or smartphone and I am searching for the cheapest way to accomplish this.
There are some wifi or bluetooth-shields available but they cost around 60 $ which is not that satisfying.
Maybe someone here has some better idea how to connect my notebook or smartphone wireless to my arduino? (e.g. buying an usb-bluetooth-stick for 3$ and hack something with the usb-port of the adurino or something like that - i am not an expert in electronics and I don't know if the usb-port of the adurino can be used as usb-host for such a device)
The cheap $3 modules you speak of only work as slave devices and you would need, at least, a USB host shield which kind of defeats the purpose.
You can buy cheap Bluetooth modules for around $10 that will communicate with your Arduino's serial port. That's probably the cheapest option, as the only other wireless ability your smartphone likely has is WiFi, which is costly for the Arduino. I think DealExtreme has one and you can find them on eBay too.