Installing the Windows software for App Inventor Setup has two parts:
- Installing the App Inventor Setup software package. This step is the same for all Android devices, and the same for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8.1, and 10.
- If you choose to use the USB cable to connect to a device, then you"ll need to install Windows drivers for your Android phone.
NOTE: App Inventor 2 does not work with Internet Explorer. For Windows users, we recommend using either Chrome or Firefox as your browser for use with App Inventor.
Installing the App Inventor Setup software package
You must perform the installation from an account that has administrator privileges. Installing via a non-administrator account is currently not supported.
If you have installed a previous version of the App Inventor 2 setup tools, you will need to uninstall them before installing the latest version. Follow the instructions at How to Update the App Inventor Setup Software.
Locating the Setup software
In most cases, App Inventor should be able to locate the Setup software on its own. But if it asks for the location of the software, the path to enter is C:\Program Files\Appinventor\commands-for-Appinventor. If you are using a 64-bit machine ((How to tell if you"re on 64-bit Windows) , you should type Program Files (x86) rather than Program Files. Also, if you did not install the software as an administrator , it was installed in your local directory rather than in C:\Program Files. You"ll need to search for it to find the correct pathname.
In this post I’m going to introduce you to the MIT App Inventor 2 software and I’m going to show you what you need to quickly getting started building Android apps that interact and control your Arduino.
Here’s the contents that are going to be covered in this post:
- Why MIT App Inventor 2 is a good choice?
- Accessing MIT App Inventor 2
- How to control Arduino with MIT App Inventor (Bluetooth)
- MIT App Inventor Overview
- Projects with MIT App Inventor
- Android Apps for Arduino with MIT App Inventor 2
Introducing MIT App Inventor 2
MIT App Inventor 2 is a simple and intuitive free service for creating Android applications. If you want to start with MIT App Inventor, you don't need to download or install any program in your computer as the software is cloud-based, so you build the apps directly in your browser (Chrome, Mozilla, Safari, Internet Explorer , etc).
For instance, you only need an internet connection for building the apps.
Why MIT App Inventor is a good choice?
- MIT App Inventor 2 is intuitive and simple to use.
- You don’t have to be an expert in programming or design to build awesome apps that can do useful stuff.
- Creating the design is as easy as selecting and placing widgets in the smartphone screen.
- The code is done with drag and drop puzzle blocks.
Anyone can learn how to build their own apps with MIT App Inventor 2 with a few hours of practice.
Accessing MIT App Inventor 2
The most common Bluetooth modules used with the Arduino are the HC‑05 bluetooth, HC-04 and HC-06.
For more information about the bluetooth module, you can check this blog post:
The Bluetooth module works with serial data. This means that the Arduino sends information and the Bluetooth module receives it via serial (and vice-versa).
The following figure explains how the information flows from the Android app to the Arduino.
Your smartphone sends information to the Bluetooth module via Bluetooth. Then, the Bluetooth module sends the information via serial communication to the Arduino. This flow also works the other way around: the Arduino sends information to the Bluetooth module that sends it to the smartphone via Bluetooth.
MIT App Inventor Overview
This is a step-by-step course to get you building cool Android applications for Arduino, even with no prior experience! A collection of 8 + 1 Projects.
I hope you've found this post useful.
Weather Station in MIT App Inventor 2 – a weather station application for android phones created with online service.
This weather station is described in the article, where we reviewed the operation of the weather station, created a sketch for arduino and the design of the weather station. Well, today we will look in more detail at how to create an application for Android and display all the data received from our weather station on the phone.
To create a weather station application in MIT App Inventor 2 you will need:
1. Background image size 540x960 pixels (size background image depends on the screen size of your device)
2. Application icon for the main screen 128x128 pixels (in PNG32 format)
3. Button icons in the application in two colors, 80x80 pixels in size
When we have prepared everything required images for the application, you can start working in MIT App Inventor 2. To get started, we will need the following components:
- ListPicker1 – to run Bluetooth connections, selecting available Bluetooth devices and displaying connection status
- Label3 – backup, for display additional information(temporarily not working, no need to add)
- Label1 – for displaying received data from arduino
- Label2 – to display a label (temperature in the room, temperature outside, pressure, etc.)
- HorizontalArrangement1 – mode of horizontal alignment of elements, in our case mode switching buttons)
- Button1 – button to turn on the “outside temperature” mode
- Button2 – button to turn on the “room temperature” mode
- Button3 – button to enable the “pressure in mmHg” mode
- Button4 – button to turn on the “humidity in %” mode
- Button5 – disable button (invisible)
- Clock1 – timer
- BluetoothClient1 – component for working with Bluetooth (receiving and sending data)
Now let's switch to block programming mode in MIT App Inventor 2. First, let's write the functionality for ListPicker 
then for the timer
to receive data via bluetooth
for buttons 1-4
for shutdown button
After all development stages have been completed, we test the application on the phone and check its functionality.
Loading...
