External use for celular phones USB port...

Thread Starter

Externet

Joined Nov 29, 2005
2,202
Hi.
Most cellular telephones have the charging port being a USB connector; are they true USB ports or just use the power pins for charging ? Or goes by brand/model ?

Is there a gadget that will interact with the real world; like transmitting (dialing and sending data) when some conditions meet; or receiving (autoanswering and outputting data) when a call is received ?

Simple examples... By a contact closure, can the phone dial a number as if a door is forced open; or can a remote action be commanded for a relay to close ?
 

sirch2

Joined Jan 21, 2013
1,037
There are "smart" phones and some others but smart phones now dominate the market. In the smart phone arena there are mainly Android, Apple and Windows. iPhones are made by Apple and run the iOS operating system. For Android there are a large number of manufacturers (Samsung, Motorola, Google, HTC, etc) but because all the phones run the same Android operating system then they are similar but the USB drivers tend to be vendor specific. Windows phones are mainly Nokia (since Microsoft bought Nokia).

All of these have "true" USB ports (it's how people sync phones to PCs etc.) but your ability to do anything with the output of the USB port may be limited by a whole host of factors. Most people who want to interface with a phone do so over Bluetooth but this probably still means developing a phone app to meet your requirements.

The alternative option to do what it sounds like you want to do is to buy a GSM Modem. Which is essentially the communications part of a mobile phone that you can drive from a microcontroller or other computer by sending it a set of commands over a serial connection.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Those are true USB ports, in general, since they are used to communicate data to a computer when you attach them. In theory, you can access the USB port via programming. So if you are able to write apps for your smartphone, you should be able to gain control over the USB port with your app.

I have a feeling it's a big job to get low level control like that, even if you already have app-making experience.
 
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