Hi all,
I have no idea if this is the right forum (or even site for that matter) for this question, but I've been reading around on here a bit and it seems mostly related. Hopefully someone can offer some insight. If it is the wrong site or forum, I apologize. I searched for a similar topic but didn't find one.
So, for years now, I've been hoping and wishing that a new Xperia Play (or similar) device would be released. It hasn't been until recently that I've decided it's just clearly not going to happen, and maybe with enough research, I can just make it happen myself. So here's my idea:
All I really want is to take an existing Android phone (I'm researching ones that might work well) and add a slide out controller attachment onto the bottom. Ideally, it would feel very similar to the PSP Go. As a matter of fact, my current idea (since I have no experience with modding whatsoever) is to utilize the Go's bottom controller casing / internals and get them attached to an Android phone. The problem obviously, is getting that controller to communicate with the phone. I don't know if maybe getting the controller piece to just broadcast through bluetooth would be easiest (so the actual phone doesn't need to be opened up) or if there's a better / more elegant way.
So my question is this: how difficult would this be do you think? Is it a complete pipe dream? Is it something that, with enough dedication, time and research, even a noobie to hardware modding could possibly do? Or should I just assume this is impossible and give up? I assume the cost to buy materials won't be cheap, and I'm willing to spend $500-$1,000 if necessary to get it done.
I'll continue to do some research by reading through various threads here and on other sites but can anyone give me any tips/advice or offer their thoughts?
Thanks for reading!
Jason
What you are looking for is something like this:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/game-cover-the-thinnest-android-portable-gamepad#/
Also, some other user seems to be looking for the same device:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one/accessories/lf-game-controller-slide-case-t2843162
Looking at that thread... there seems to be some controllers for iphone... My only idea, is that maybe if you can try to connect and use one of those controllers (testing compatibility), then modify the case holder (take it off), and adapt (and probably glue) some case holder for your phone....
Good luck!!
tux_topo said:
What you are looking for is something like this:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/game-cover-the-thinnest-android-portable-gamepad#/
Also, some other user seems to be looking for the same device:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/htc-one/accessories/lf-game-controller-slide-case-t2843162
Looking at that thread... there seems to be some controllers for iphone... My only idea, is that maybe if you can try to connect and use one of those controllers (testing compatibility), then modify the case holder (take it off), and adapt (and probably glue) some case holder for your phone....
Good luck!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw the indiegogo controller and that's EXACTLY what I want. Unfortunately, it wasn't successfully funded, so I'm not sure if there's any way to purchase it at this point. I'd absolutely buy it if I could, but I haven't found anything. Thanks for your help!
What about taking the internals of a dualshock 4? It would make it easier to connect with the phone as it has Bluetooth and you can pair it whith the phone, and it would have built-in support for remote play It's just an idea, but it would be cool to see you achieving what you want!
Related
Any questions for microsoft
Hi all,
On Monday week - ie 11th July I will be meeting with microsoft and hopefully looking at the HTC Universal in detail. I will take my camcorder along so hopefully they will let me take some footage.
Does anyone have any questions they want asked?
Also I will try to take a "origami size pattern" of the universal as many prople are worried about the size. ie you can print, fold and glue to get an accurate feel of its volume.
Any other suggestions on information that can be gained from this meeting?
Jayman
Edit: I will also try to get a couple of sample photos/video from the cameras
Ask about WM5 for other HTC devices. That would be cool to know what MS says about it.
Do you mean upgrades for existing HTC models (this is a carrier decision not m$) or do you mean new models yet to be announced such as the galaxy/wizard?
Jayman said:
or do you mean new models yet to be announced such as the galaxy/wizard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
... which is also a question to ask manufacturers and not Microsoft.
Stateside
I wouldn't expect them to have any information on this either, but it's worth a shot. Ask if they have any information when we might be able to see this device in the US. Even ballpark figures will do. I need something to keep me away from the Samsung i730.
Also, if it is a working device, I'd be interested to know how it performs as a phone (without headset/speakerphone) in both the open and closed screen position. (i.e. are the speaker and microphone positioned to work well in both configurations?). Check out the memory configuration as well, see how much ROM is left for storage.
One more thing...WM5 seems to lend itself to easier one handed usage. I'm not sure it will be possible with the Universal, but I'd be interested in your interpretation.
It sounds like a great opportunity, have fun!
Shawn
1)
Will there be a HotFix system for the WM2005, or is there any plans for it.
2)
Will M$ Relase Rom, Radio etc. upgrades/Fixes directly in the future for WM 2005.
3)
What is M$ doing about the fact that installed programs can make the device general unstable. Are you looking into this problem and plan to solve this issue.
I'm no programmer and don't know why this happends, but i guess it the same story as Windows for desktops in earlier years?
Good luck fella.
Ask them when they are finally going to solve the microphone support issues with the phone application, why the same mic works perfectly well with speakerphone, voice recorder ect but is far too low on phone.
Maybe they could add a volume slider for the Mic in the phone app (and here's another tip, if they do, they current level should be the bottom setting!!)
Take the invisible Rom-Grabber with you and ask for a Blue Angel with WM 5.0...
USB Host
Can you find out if they have any plans to include USB host drivers so that we can use our windows mobile devices with portable hard drives. The form factor of the Universal can only be justified (by me) if I can get rid of my pc on many trips. To do that, I need access to files on my portable hard drive. Would be nice if they supported this functionality.
Ray
USB Host
Can you find out if they have any plans to include USB host drivers so that we can use our windows mobile devices with portable hard drives. The form factor of the Universal can only be justified (by me) if I can get rid of my pc on many trips. To do that, I need access to files on my portable hard drive. Would be nice if they supported this functionality.
Ray
did the meeting happen?
hi friends,
did someone actually meet ms people!
:twisted: :shock: :idea:
it's not software which limit devices from being masters and using external harddisks or the like
It's all gone very quiet, surely the rumours about the Redmond mafia's business dealings can't be true ...... can they?
Maybe we should have just suggested questions like "Is it true Bill Gates gives lots of money to charity?", or maybe "Tell me more about Microsoft's work in the third world". Poor old Jayman!
Rudegar said:
it's not software which limit devices from being masters and using external harddisks or the like
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, yes it is software: they're called 'drivers', because the programs 'steer' the data to the correct controlling program.
The Universal has a USB port, so it should have a driver on it somewhere. The question would be, is the divice loaded with a driver to allow it to 'master' other devices, or is it just the syncing point?
Maybe he meant it's more likely to be HTC that can answer that question?
Of far more importance to me is does the device have a suitable method of connecting to an LCD projector? IMHO, this is the absolute killer app for a "laptop replacement" & it's pretty much the only thing I miss from the Xda II.
its more likely that ms and htc is the same, if you know what i mean. and its very likely that there is no company called htc in reallity. maybe a post box hanging in taiwan is called htc and a website hosted (???) in taiwan. but noone is working for a company called htc. i can assure you in that point. and even if there is a hand full of people claiming them selfe working for a company called htc - they are not located in taiwan. need more info about that? go to china and find out yourself, best to start your research is at a company called dopod!
cheers, lutz
lutzh said:
its more likely that ms and htc is the same, if you know what i mean. and its very likely that there is no company called htc in reallity. maybe a post box hanging in taiwan is called htc and a website hosted (???) in taiwan. but noone is working for a company called htc. i can assure you in that point. and even if there is a hand full of people claiming them selfe working for a company called htc - they are not located in taiwan. need more info about that? go to china and find out yourself, best to start your research is at a company called dopod!
cheers, lutz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please tell me more about this, lutz. I don't have the means to go to China and research it, but I always like to hear a good conspiracy theory.
Oh, yes it is software: they're called 'drivers', because the programs 'steer' the data to the correct controlling program.
The Universal has a USB port, so it should have a driver on it somewhere. The question would be, is the divice loaded with a driver to allow it to 'master' other devices, or is it just the syncing point?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you found a way to make a usb peripheral a master using software
then contact www.usb.org i'm sure they will be impressed
the universal if it have usb support contain a usb chip which can act as master
much like my gf's old acer pda which also have such a chip
htc would have gotten a better usb interface had they used the usb interface from the ati chip insted of the nativ xcale usb interface
Please tell them
F*******************KING SOLVE BLUETOOTH PROBLEMS, AT LEAST MAKE IT WORKING PROPERLY...........
regards
Gugi
-- sorry for swearing but ......
@gugi_sat: The meeting is over!
It happened on the 11th..
Does this device have consumer Infrared so as to be used as a tv remote control?
JasjarMan said:
Does this device have consumer Infrared so as to be used as a tv remote control?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a thread somewere on this. From memory it was not practical due to the very short range of the infra red beam. (could be quite wrong but less than 1 metre??)
Mike
that is pretty useless,
why put IR in a device that has such a minute range. sometimes HTC should just remove some features and make the device more compact.
jasjamming said:
that is pretty useless,
why put IR in a device that has such a minute range. sometimes HTC should just remove some features and make the device more compact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe it wasnt a question of removing features and making it more compact (im sure you arent going to save much by removing IR) but maybe it was more a question of "we have all this tiny extra space that we cant rid of, lets cram some more in it"
jasjamming said:
that is pretty useless,
why put IR in a device that has such a minute range. sometimes HTC should just remove some features and make the device more compact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I guess if you can get your devices close to each other it's ok otherwise a bit limiting.
Mike
The fact that the infrared port is on the bottom would make using it as a remote rather akward.
b.d
Not really because there is software that when you launch the app everything turns upside down automatically. I had the ipaq 4700 and I used the remote control that way. Worked really well despite being at the bottom. I could swear I read somewhere this thing does have the consumer infrared but I can not find it. Has anyone tried loading an app and see what range it has? If not can someone please try it, I will get my 8525 soon but would love to know asap.
Thanks.
Baelrun said:
The fact that the infrared port is on the bottom would make using it as a remote rather akward.
b.d
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't bother to try. I installed Novii Remote and it works when i'm about 3-5ft (1-1.5meter) away from the TV.
has anyone tried an app called TV-remote version 5.x. it says it imprves range but I question how it will actually do that.
They didnt put the IR there to control a TV and I doubt the creators of the HTC could care less whether they extended the range of the IR. They intended it to be able to beam to another device such as another PDA or printer. It works quite nicely for those purposes.
IR is pretty much outdated these days with RF wireless communications such as bluetooth, zigbee, ultra-wideband.
If a device has IR it most likely wont be used for the original purpose it was built (in my case and view) - instead to explore novelty applications.
No doubt, as you said, that it works quite nicely for IR data transmission from device to device, but the technology is obselete.
IR is useful
I used to think IR was obsolete. However recently I have had a numbeer of occassions when I have been very happy to still have it.
Have you tried going to a trade fair or other venue with a large number of BT devices. Try searching for the particualr device you want to transfer information to. it can take some time to find the device you want.
Now compare how quickly you can do the same exercise over infared.
TB
good point....
There's another possible hardware hack lurking here: replace the IR LED with a more powerful component. I've been mulling over this one a bit...
Sleuth255 said:
There's another possible hardware hack lurking here: replace the IR LED with a more powerful component. I've been mulling over this one a bit...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
replacing the IR led may work.. but is the voltage there to drive a more powerful IR led?
that's exactly what I'm mulling over...
I'm thinking of comparing parts to the LED that's in an 8125 (much better range) then pull specs on both to see what the differences are.
Sleuth255 said:
that's exactly what I'm mulling over...
I'm thinking of comparing parts to the LED that's in an 8125 (much better range) then pull specs on both to see what the differences are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i had horrible range on my wizard, i had to be no more than 3 feet from any device to get the IR remote to use..
Hi,
As most of you have, I am getting a growing collection of old mobiles now, and I want to do something cool.
I have just bought a robosapien V2 and AXON robot serial controller. What I want to do is use my old XDA exec to replace the 'brain' of the robot, so to this end, I need to be able to squirt serial data out of the phone on a wire, of which the easiest would be the usb snyc/charge port.
I am using NET 3.5 as my dev language, and the idea being is to take advantage of the wifi chip to be able to, firstly send commands to the robot from anywear (cool huh?) and to be able to stream video & audio (using the skype SDK) from the robot back to the network.
Anyone have any ideas on how to go about doing this?
And if any of you are interested enough I can post my progress here, go on, you know you would all love a robot you could send down the road on its own
sounds nice, i have no guess what it needs to control the robot nor i know anything about serial ports but i really would LOVE a small gizmo that i can control this way to do important things like rolling here, rolling there and then rolling back here, following the cat and piling it on the floor, talking through the speaker to the neighbours or affront those selfinviters ).
i'm waiting for your progress
best regards, pucki
Bluetooth
bhermer said:
Hi,
As most of you have, I am getting a growing collection of old mobiles now, and I want to do something cool.
I have just bought a robosapien V2 and AXON robot serial controller. What I want to do is use my old XDA exec to replace the 'brain' of the robot, so to this end, I need to be able to squirt serial data out of the phone on a wire, of which the easiest would be the usb snyc/charge port.
I am using NET 3.5 as my dev language, and the idea being is to take advantage of the wifi chip to be able to, firstly send commands to the robot from anywear (cool huh?) and to be able to stream video & audio (using the skype SDK) from the robot back to the network.
Anyone have any ideas on how to go about doing this?
And if any of you are interested enough I can post my progress here, go on, you know you would all love a robot you could send down the road on its own
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest you take a look on BT to RS232/485 adaptors. There are some small nice ones out there. I think it'll be even cooler being all wireless, isn't it?
For example this ones here (from google, don't know the brand. Only used industrial ones until now on my projects):
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100402141/Bluetooth_To_Rs232_Adaptor_10m_Converter.html
This one can't be used because the phones are not class 1 devices (~100 mW , ~100m range) but just for the information:
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100402139/Bluetooth_Rs232_Adaptor_100m_603004.html
Good luck with your project!!
shmilson
shmilson said:
I suggest you take a look on BT to RS232/485 adaptors. There are some small nice ones out there. I think it'll be even cooler being all wireless, isn't it?
For example this ones here (from google, don't know the brand. Only used industrial ones until now on my projects):
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100402141/Bluetooth_To_Rs232_Adaptor_10m_Converter.html
This one can't be used because the phones are not class 1 devices (~100 mW , ~100m range) but just for the information:
http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/100402139/Bluetooth_Rs232_Adaptor_100m_603004.html
Good luck with your project!!
shmilson
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think this is the better way. Unless the phone has a USB host controller (I don't think a lot of them has, most the USB port as client. We can sync because it was the active sync from the PC that initiate and control the session, not from the phone), this bluetooth to RS232 converter seem to be the best solution. I've been looking for something like this for a while.
Thanks for the comments guys, for some reason XDA dev isnt emailing me when comments were placed!
Blue tooth seems like a cool idea, would be better able to hide the bt dongle in the robot! will get hold of one and have a play when I get more than a bunch of wires will post some pics
Hi everyone. I'm an Engineer and I graduated back in 2007. Since then, I've been a Systems Engineer working software and I'm fairly clueless in modern hardware development. I'd like to start playing around with android hardware creations. My first desire is to make a keyboard. I want it to be as simple as possible, to work through the usb and include a pass through so as to allow charging and other peripherals, and to have it's own power source that would be charged while charging the phone.
I'm not worrying about the casing/buttons/manufacturing right now, I just wand to get the hardware working. Anyone have any suggestions for getting started? I've found a few of the development boards through the android developer site, but the look like a bit of overkill for my needs. I do have experience with PIC microprocessors and so the pic one doesn't look bad.
Basically, what would you recommend and what resources should I be looking at to make this happen?
Can't comment on specifics regarding the keyboard, but I've programmed a lot on PICs and recently moved to an Arduino, which I've found much quicker to develop with. I can't post a link as I'm < posts, but google "Android Open Accessory Development Kit".
With cheap keyboards selling for under $5 I don't really see the point.
If you wanted to do some custom USB HID device, that's a bit different.
There are some things already to support this easily: http://www.ultimarc.com/JShopServer/section.php?xSec=13
If your goal is just to make a wired docking station,
I'd just use a back-powering hub and an off-the-shelf USB keyboard.
It has been done, look up "Motorola lapdock" and "USB otg android" and "USB host android".
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium
honestly, the whole "making a keyboard" thing is just so I can get going understanding hardware development and USB access. I've got some ideas for accessories I'd prefer not to discuss, but I still want to learn the tools I need to do this.
Consequently, I'm looking for a way to learn to interface a simple hardware accessory with an android system. I'll probably need software and hardware.
so no more replys?
If you are just looking to experiment with creating USB hardware, the ATTINYs have V-USB, a software implementation of a USB stack. It should be fine for playing around with simple HID stuff. Some PICs have USB support too, but this V-USB will run on some of the cheapest attinys, if cost is a concern.
Google "HIDKeys - a USB Keyboard" for a a simple USB HID keyboard project which you can base your own code off of.
thanks :angel:
Hello everyone!
I just started working on a small project and would like to hear what you people think about it.
The idea of the project is simple. Create a dock for your smartphone, which basically extends its usability to a full fledged laptop or PC.
All the new phones mostly have MHL (11pin) connectors which means connecting it to an HDMI screen is not a problem. Also, a use of a wireless mouse and keyboard is quite simple and very functional.
So what I am thinking of creating is sort of a laptop with a 13.3 inch screen, a keyboard (maybe even removable to use separately) and a battery to power the LCD.
I have already been in contact with producers of LCDs and control boards, and believe I should start creating the prototype soon.
So what are your thoughts about it?
Do you have any ideas?
Thank you and have a good day!
*to mod: if this is in the wrong section I apologize and kindly ask you to move it to the appropriate section of the forum or message mo to put it somewhere else. Thank you1
greaneagle
Man this is great
I have been thinking about it for some time ... to make my phone a laptop whenever i need to have me a laptop
My solution was to find a virtual machine that runs inside my phone for any type of os ... the problem is the memory !!! Also the app i didnt find it yet
Well bro good luck
If i were you i would take advantage of screen casting instead of lcd monitor so in case the user wanna use the device screen or the tv !!! You can also sell a mini hdmi thing ( the hdmi stick that lets you cast your screen into tv )
Also there is a keyboard and mouse as one piece and their small and great could take them with you everywhere in ... i saw it amazon for 35$ or less something like that with Bluetooth connection. ... im sure you can find a way to do some mod for those keyboards and make them yours ... good luck and keep us posted
A great idea!
WHATSAMATTA U ALUMNI
lapdock is the answer
hi dudes
lapdock is the answer but the ld has only 11,6' screen. very suitable and light weight. a lot of mods on youtube.
http://www2.robpol86.com/lapdock/Atrix-Lapdock-Other-Uses/
cheers