I'm thinking about use an arduino to connect some sensors and get data from an engine, like temperatures, speed or pressures from a car that me and some friends are developing.
And then I want to use a device, like iPhone, android phone, or other similar to get the data and display it on the screen to get real time values when we are driving.
I've been searching and I've seen some people that can connect with arduino through bluetooth, but I want to do it by cable.
Do you think that's possible, with a jailbroken iPhone, and connecting the tx pin from the arduino to the rx pin from the iPhone, to send the data and be able to use it on the iPhone?
I'm sorry if i'm saying something nonsense, but I'm really a beginner, just trying to learn some things to start
Also you actually don't have to make a web server to display something from your Arduino (temperature, wind speed etc).
Just make an account to PACHUBE and download softwares: Ardiuno + Processing and your almost ready.
Read more here: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/PachubeCient
Or search from Arduino forum.
PS:
You dont need Arduino Ethernet Shield if you have connected your Arduino to PC.
This project is only to be fully running in 2012.
So, by now, I'm just trying to find the easiest (or best) way to make it work properly.
That's why I'm asking for directions, something to start from.
If your Iphone is wifi/web enabled, then the simplist thing would probably be a wifi web server arduino. I don't have one of these, but do have an ethernet shield connected to my wireless router, which allows me to wirelessly connect my laptop to the router and the arduino. You should be able to connect using the Iphone in the same way.
Honestly, I would not mess with WEB or anything WIFI or IP based.
Not only is it more costly than a serial interface but It adds a ton of complexity that is unnecessary IMHO.
I'd stick to a serial interface.
You will have to define a serial message protocol but it can be very simple and could be done using ASCII characters
and even characters that humans could
type on a keyboard so that you could test out the arduino side with nothing more than a terminal or even use the built in serial monitor included in the Arduino IDE.
Once that is working you can move up to getting an application running
that uses the same serial message interface.
The beauty of using serial is that you can then move to using bluetooth
and a COMS interface that transport a serial interface over bluetooth.
A bluetooth module that will directly connect to an Arduino is under $20.
Then you can use any host that supports a COMS interface over Bluetooth.
This can be the Iphone, Android, heck even Windows.
This allows you to have your choice of Host platforms and worst
case even resort to a terminal program that talks directly over the serial interface over the bluetooth connection.
Heck you could even slap together a quick and dirty VB application under Windows that uses bluetooth and run it on a laptop or netbook.
I'd avoid using a directly connected cable if you are eventually wanting to use a phone. The reason being is that nearly all the phones (Iphone and Android, and others) will support bluetooth, but I don't believe that any of the Android phones have a serial port.
And you can't really use something like a FTDI USB to serial adapter
with the built in USB port as that requires a USB host and while
I'm not sure if the Iphone provides host capability but the Android
phones currently only support being a USB device not a host. So you can't use this type of adapter.
(The Iphone does have serial port capability built into it)
The nice thing about using a serial port is that if you initially debug an application on something like say Windows and use VB, then the serial port can be something like an FTDI USB to serial adapter (which is already built into the Arduino board), or later use a serial Bluetooth interface, with no changes to the application.
This is a commercial product that uses the OBD "port" on the vehicle.
I don't recommend trying to connect an arduino to an OBD port because it would require to understand the protocol.
But you know it's there now.
So you can connect an arduino to an OBD port.
Excuse me for my previous mistake.
But it's a shame there is no detail/schematics for the link I have given you.