iDevice Serial Communication
To communicate an Arduino microcontroller to an iPhone 3GS using serial communication.
- iOS device (jailbroken)
- Arduino
- Dock connector
- cable 24 gauge (preferred)
- soldering iron
- solder flux
- PATIENCE
- iDevice Dock Connector pin outs
- A nice 👍 blog post about iPhone serial comm
- Video 📹 explaining build of custom iPhone cable
- Setting up minicom on an iPhone
- StackExchange Question I asked
- YouTube - iPhone serial to arduino
- iDevice - iPhone 3GS - iOS 5.1.1 - jailbreak - Absinthe
- Arduino Duemilanova
- I have a wire going from the TX on the Arduino going to a breadboard.
- I have a wire going from the GND on the Arduino to the breadboard.
- I am using two resistors to create a voltage divider outputting a voltage of ~ 3VDC
- pin 13 is hooked up to the ~ 3VDC, and pin 15 on the dock connector is hooked up to GND.
- the Arduino has RX / TX pins which send and receive TTL serial data
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
Serial.println("Hello World!");
delay(1000);
}
⚠️ I'd recommend having a 3rd hand, sheet of paper, and masking tape.
📸 iphone dock connector soldering
- jailbreak iDevice
- install cydia
- search for minicom within cydia
- install minicom
- launch the minicom with the
rootuser - set serial port to
/dev/tty.iap - change baud rate to 9600
- turn off hardware / software flow control
- hook serial TX on Arduino to pin 13 on iPhone
- hook serial RX on Arduino to pin 12 on iPhone
- installed a 1K resistor between the Arduino serial TX and pin 13 on iPhone
- run the command
cat /dev/tty.iap 9600to output the message the Arduino is sending on the iPhone screen.
- jailbroken apps are installed in the following directory
/private/var/stash/
- app store apps are installed in the following directory
/private/var/mobile/Applications/
⚠️ Both the serial RX and TX need to be hooked up on an iPhone in order to receive serial messages on an iPhone.