Interfacing arduino sensors with PC/Laptop

Hi there,
I am a C/C++ , Java , .Net desktop app developer and I am new to arduino and please excuse me if this question sounds stupid.

What my current understanding of arduino is that we can write C/C++ program in arduino IDE and push them to the arduino rom and then the arduino micro-controller runs it and controls the attached hardware to the pins and we are limited by microcontroller''s computing power.

My situation is this. I am interested in using different sensors that are available for arduino and attach them to PC/Laptop. and have my program running on PC itself which communicates with sensors. My setup should not be bound by microcontroller's processing and memory limiations like CPU /RAW because I want programs to run on PC as they'd be doing data/cpu intensive tasks..

So in this situation, do I still need to attach arduino board to my PC ? or is there a way to connect sensor's though some bridge to my PC ?

Please advise me on this..

Thank you,

Yes you can use Arduino as the bridge between the PC and the sensors. There are other bridges also; but you can definetlely use Arduino for that purpose exactly the way you are describing.

d please excuse me if this question sounds stupid.

questions are never stupid, not asking them is ....

The max baudrate I got reliable between an Arduino and PC was 345600 baud. Faster than the IDE.serial monitor supports.

So in this situation, do I still need to attach arduino board to my PC ? or is there a way to connect sensor's though some bridge to my PC ?

You may use

  • serial
  • rs485 (shield)
  • XBEE
  • ethernet shield, wired or wifi shield
  • I2C

so there are different options to connect to your PC.

If you spend an evening in the tutorial section you can find probably all the code you need to get started, otherwise ask the forum!

Have fun!

I have a little interface using C+ on PC, it may help someone.
If you want I could help to use it. There is 3 dialog box (dimmer,relays and sensor), a login box and a COM config box.
I could modify actual serial transmited data for your aplication as you need.
Please ask me.
Thank you.

Automação.zip (87.2 KB)

you can build GUIs in C++, C#, VB, etc with Visual Studio Express using the serialPort component to communicate with an Arduino.
an alternative is Java Swing or JavaFX using the JSerialComm to communicate with the arduino

We are aware that this thread is 6 years old ?