Hi! The app will be released to the general public in November.
Beta testers can ask for access NOW. :)
The profile designer will be available as a web appication, it's much easiear to drag graphical elements around on the desktop. :) It will be available in December.
[blockquote]Tamás Fábián said:
[blockquote]Ian Power said:
Hi Jorge,
Thanks for the reply. I would be happy enough to have it use the iPhone as a "forwarder" to the SBrick... There are a few gamepad style controllers available (Logitech for example). But I'm guessing the SBrick software on the phone would need to accomodate input from these controllers somehow. Is this a feature that is being considered? If not, it would be great to add to the list of "future features".
[/blockquote]
Hi Ian, we're considering this, it would be really cool. This won't be in the first app release though. Once we shipped the first few thousand of bricks, dealt with the first bug reports we can start working on the "feature queue". :)
[/blockquote]
Excellent news Tamas! Pleased to hear it's on the list. Is there any word on when the iOS app will be released so we can start designing profiles for our SBricks?
Yes, unfortunately BLE is not very well penetrated the open source libs and languages yet.
I'll take a look at PyBlueZ too, since IanHarvey's solution is using bluez too, it might be easier to write a patch to a well established library than poking around in a higly experimental one.
Thanks.
It would be great if you get/create something "universal" - Linux, Android, OSX, iOS and even Windows.
My trick (calling gatttool) only works in Linux, perhaps also in Android. And there is no such thing as initialization of the device, persistence of the session, etc... Its good for fast demos but on the long run it's uselless for non-geeks.
By the way... after just 4 or 5 days of these tricks, my wife and kids are enthusiastic with my beta SBrick, I guess Santa will have to bring some Power Function Motors :D
[blockquote]Ian Power said:
Hi Jorge,
Thanks for the reply. I would be happy enough to have it use the iPhone as a "forwarder" to the SBrick... There are a few gamepad style controllers available (Logitech for example). But I'm guessing the SBrick software on the phone would need to accomodate input from these controllers somehow. Is this a feature that is being considered? If not, it would be great to add to the list of "future features".
[/blockquote]
Hi Ian, we're considering this, it would be really cool. This won't be in the first app release though. Once we shipped the first few thousand of bricks, dealt with the first bug reports we can start working on the "feature queue". :)
This looks promising: https://github.com/IanHarvey/bluepy
Can you test it please? Unfortunately I don't have any linux running BLE device with python right now (workgin on it ;) ).
I believe the response could be even better.
I'm using python but I still haven't found a solid python library for BLE, just some hacks. So I'm calling a OS command (gatttool from BlueZ stack), very clumsy.
I think that with a native python command it will be much better (and easier to extend). Or changing to a compiled languagem like C but I'm confortable with python, started using it with Raspberry Pi and found that most of my scripts work well with Mindstorms EV3 running ev3dev and my laptop running Ubuntu [and as there are LOTS of people using python with Raspberry Pi, it's easy to find working scripts to copy and adapt].
I'm not aware of Vengit's roadmap but as I believe this would be a very interesting and also requested feature it might soon be considered.
In the meanwhile... my Ubuntu laptop works very well as forwarder ;)
(if I just could put the damn video here!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cm3eSMVfjKA
Hi Jorge,
Thanks for the reply. I would be happy enough to have it use the iPhone as a "forwarder" to the SBrick... There are a few gamepad style controllers available (Logitech for example). But I'm guessing the SBrick software on the phone would need to accomodate input from these controllers somehow. Is this a feature that is being considered? If not, it would be great to add to the list of "future features".
[blockquote]Ian Power said:
Hi, I have a question - will the SBrick be able to be controlled with an external controller? It would be great to be able to control our models with an xbox style gaming controller either via the iPhone/Android or directly with the SBrick via Bluetooth (somehow you can program the SBrick using your phone and send the config to the SBrick)?
[/blockquote]
It is possible but don't know if as straight as you want.
I can already use a Playstation-like gamepad connected to my laptop (or my Raspberry Pi or my LEGO Mindstorms EV3, as long as it runs Linux and has a recent release of BlueZ) to generate input to a program that talks with the SBrick so it will be possible to do the same with iPhone/Android as long as the phone/tablet have some kind of support for the gamepad.
But making a gamepad talk directly to the SBrick is another thing, I don't know if the internal chipset (essencially a 8051 clone with BLE extensions) has enough resources for that. Tamás might give you more details.
Hi, I have a question - will the SBrick be able to be controlled with an external controller? It would be great to be able to control our models with an xbox style gaming controller either via the iPhone/Android or directly with the SBrick via Bluetooth (somehow you can program the SBrick using your phone and send the config to the SBrick)?
This would allow us to have some tactility while controlling our models - touch screens aren't so easy when you're controlling a fast remote control car, for example.
Hi people,
yes, you have to have BLE to get SBrick running. However this baby: https://www.bluegiga.com/en-US/products/bluetooth-4.0-modules/bled112-bluetooth-smart-dongle/ is not quite as expensice as a new smartphone. It plugs into an USB port. Also Android 3.1 and higher supports USB host functionality.
If the demand is big enough, we will consider building an Android app version that supports BlueGiga's dongle via USB host, or can control one that is plugged into a PC over the network.
Our current priority is to make the basic apps to be ready on all platforms for the launch, so these functions are quite likely won't be in the first versions.
Thanks for the heads up though, we will pay attention to this.
The problem is that (almost) no one has an android device with 4.3 or higher. I couldn't use an sbrick if I wanted to because my tablet has 4.2 and another device I can access has 4.1. It would make the sbrick much more expensive if you have to buy a phone/tablet for 100€ in addition to the sbrick which costs 50€ (which equals 150€; You can get almost 8 Power Functions IR Receivers and a train remote for that price. Or a full Power Functions collection including a battery box, a train remote, four receivers and eight M-Motors for 163€).
Anyways, much luck with your sales :)
/edit
Maybe you can cooperate with Anders so that he can include your lib into the MonoBrick Communication Library: http://www.monobrick.dk/software/monobrick/. That would be really awesome!
